The Chinese president Xi Jinping on Wednesday warned that his country was ready to defeat Taiwan separatism. 

China has "the resolve, the confidence, and the ability to defeat separatist attempts for Taiwan independence in any form",  he told a gathering of the Communist Party in Beijing. 

Iraq’s army says it has taken full control of Kirkuk following a major advance, reports Al Jazeera.

The federal government in Baghdad told AL Jazeera that Iraqi forces had captured the governing building in the centre of Kirkuk and moved in to take control of of oil fields, a refinery and military base from Kurdish control.

Over 300 people are now believed to have been killed by two truck bomb attacks in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu on Saturday. 

"We have confirmed 300 people died in the blast. The death toll will still be higher because some people are still missing," Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of the city's ambulance service, was quoted by Reuters as saying. 

Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blaire said that he and other world leaders were wrong to yield to Israeli pressure to impose an immediate boycott of Hamas after the militant group won Palestinian elections in 2006, reports the Guardian.

Interviewed for a new book ‘Gaza: Preparing for Dawn’, Mr Blair said,

Baghdad accused Kurdistan of making a “declaration of war” by moving extra Peshmerga troops to the disputed regions of Kirkuk.

The Kurdistan Regional Government said it has placed thousands of troops in Kirkuk following a build-up of Iraqi forces to the south of the disputed city, reports the Financial Times.

A top aide to the KRG President Masoud Benzani said,

“Thousand’s of heavily armed Peshmerga units are now completely in their positons around Kirkuk. Their order is to defend at any cost.”

A Bosnian Muslim commander who defended Srebrenica during the 1992-95 war was acquitted of war crimes on Monday over charges of war crimes. 

Naser Oric, who is a considered a hero by Bosnian Muslims for defending them against Bosnian Serbs was found to be not guilty in the case of the killing of three Serb prisoners of war. 

Fatah and Hamas have signed a deal today aimed at bringing the two Palestinian organisations together. 

The deal, which was brokered by Egypt and signed in Cairo, comes after Hamas announced last month it would dissolve its administration of the Gaza strip in view of holding general elections and forming a unity government with Fatah. 

The United Nations has recalled its top official in Myanmar in response to allegations of supressing discussion on Rohingya Muislims, reprots the BBC.

The BBC investigation found that the UN official had reportedly attempted to stop human rights officials from visiting areas where the army was alleged to have persecuted the Rohingya community.

An Iraqi federal court has ordered the arrest of Kurdistan officials involved administering the region’s independence referendum last month.

The arrests warrants, issued by Baghdad’s Rusafa investigation court, apply to members of the Kurdistan Region’s electoral commission, reports the BBC.

The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a bill last week, calling for accountability for perpetrators of genocide in Iraq and Syria.

The bill, entitled the “Iraq and Syria Genocide Emergency Relief and Accountability Act of 2017”, calls for greater action to tackle Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), accusing the group of committing genocide in the region. 

The United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution last week that will see the appointment of a panel to investigate reports of war crimes in Yemen.

The resolution, passed without a vote last week, will see a group of "eminent international and regional experts" appointed by the UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein to investigate “all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights and other appropriate and applicable fields of international law".

Catalonia’s leader Carles Puigdemont delayed the official declaration of Catalonia’s independence to allow for an opportunity for talks and negations to reach a solution with Spain.

Addressing regional parliament in Barcelona on Tuesday, Mr Puigdemont said,

Iraq will reopen a crude oil pipeline to Turkey which bypasses one operated by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), said the country’s oil ministry on Tuesday.

In a statement Iraq’s oil minister Jabar al-Luaibi asked state owned North Oil Co. to begin the restoring and reopening the Kirkuk Ceyhan pipeline reports Reuters.