Responding to the detention of three journalists in Myanmar last week, the European Union urged the government to protest free speech and ensure journalists were not subject to "intimidation, arrest or prosecution". 

"It constitutes one of the essential foundations of a democratic society," the EU said in a statement.

The National Guard of Venezuela’s former chief has been charged with “serious and systematic” human rights violations reports the Atlantic.

Antonio Benavides was removed from his security chief post in June after his troops were captured on film firing at protestors.

The Iraqi military may have carried out executions of civilian men and boys fleeing Mosul as they sought to recapture the city from the Islamic State, said Human Rights Watch (HRW) this week.

The people of Kurdistan should be allowed to express their right to self-determination, said the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Representative to the US, defending the decision to hold an independence referendum later this year.

Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman told The Canadian Press that the people of Kurdistan “have done our best to be partners in Iraq; it has not worked”.

Indigenous people across Canada have boycotted the country’s 150th independence day celebrations, instead holding events to raise awareness and protest the glorification of colonialism and indigenous genocide.

Sudan will extend a unilateral ceasefire with militants until the end of October said President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Sunday.

The decision comes as the United States plans to lift a 20 year old trade embargo against Sudan in 2 weeks’ time.

On January 15, Mr Bashir extended the ceasefire for six months in response to the US move, reports Reuters.

The French banking giant BNP Paribas has been accused of complicity in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, with three civil society groups filing a lawsuit claiming the bank transferred $1.3 million that was used to purchase weapons, in violation of a U.N. arms embargo.

Myanmar will refuse entry to United Nations investigators focusing on allegations of killings, rape and torture by security forces against Rohingya Muslims reports The Guardian.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said that, due to a lack of urgency, Northern Ireland’s political parties were unlikely to reach a deal to restore the province’s power-sharing agreement in the next few days.

The power-sharing government of Northern Ireland, brought about through the Good Friday Agreement, collapsed in January this year. The agreement mandates a compulsory coalition of Irish nationalists and pro-British unionists. 

A court at The Hague has ruled that Dutch peacekeepers under the command of the United Nations were partly responsible for the massacre of at least 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Serbian troops at Srebrenica in 1996.

The killings, which have been recognised as a genocide, took place as thousands of Muslims fled to Srebrenica’s UN-designated safe zone and to a nearby Dutch UN peacekeeper base. Peacekeepers subsequently expelled them and handed them to Serbian soldiers.

The British Conservative Party will attempt to form a minority government, after failing to return a majority at general elections yesterday.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Colombia stated that they have handed over 30 percent of their weapons to United Nation monitors – as per the terms established under the peace agreement.

The remaining weapons are to be handed over by June 20^th – with approximately 7000 weapons to be surrendered before the FARC can transition into a political party. 

Kurdish President, Masoud Barzani, along with representatives of political parties within the Kurdistan Region, decided that an independence referendum would be held on September 25^th, 2017.

United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, stated that the continuous treatment of hospitals and clinics as targets in conflict reflects the “grave disregard for international law and the protection of civilians.”