US President Barack Obama said Myanmar must “put an end to discrimination” of Rohingya Muslims in the country if it is to succeed on is transition to democracy.

Addressing a group of young Asians at the White House Mr Obama was asked what the country needed to do to succeed, as it begins to shift from decades of military rule.

"I think one of the most important things is to put an end to discrimination against people because of what they look like or what their faith is,” said Mr Obama. “And the Rohingya have been discriminated against. And that’s part of the reason they’re fleeing."

Asked how he would feel about where he would want to live if he was Rohingya, Mr Obama said, "I would want to stay in the land where my parents had lived, but I’d want to make sure that my government was protecting me and that people were treating me fairly."

Over 7,000 males have died while in custody of the Nigerian military over the last four years, Amnesty International has revealed in a new report.

Over 20,000 people are said to have been arrested in operations against Boko Haram militants, the UK-based rights group said.

Nigeria's military has rejected the allegations, calling the report biased and the statistics "spurious".

The report, entitled Stars on their shoulders, Blood on their hands, names several senior officers and calls for investigations into their role in murder, torture and enforced disappearances.

“This sickening evidence exposes how thousands of young men and boys have been arbitrarily arrested and deliberately killed or left to die in detention in the most horrific conditions. It provides strong grounds for investigations into the possible criminal responsibility of members of the military, including those at the highest levels,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted for war crimes by the International Cr

The UN Secretary General Bank Ki-moon condemned the move by the gover

The Colombian government has blamed FARC for the attack, which left Colombia’s largest p

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Lisa Grande, warned that the recent intensifying of Islamic State insurgents, could trigger a worsening humanitarian crisis,.

The Kurdistan Regional Government’s Representative to the USA said the Yazidis in Iraq have faced “nothing but genocide” from Islamic State militants, after mass killings and expulsions from their historic homeland in Iraq.

Speaking to the Huffington Post, Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman said "What happened to the Yazidis is nothing but genocide." "Anybody who denies that, I think, is just using political maneuvering, which is shameful and despicable in my book," she added.

Detailing the plight of the Yazidis, including the enslavement of women and children by Islamic State, Ms Rahman said, "It's actually just so horrific to think that today in the 21st century, this still goes on -- that there are people who do the selling and that there are people who do the buying."

"Genocide internationally has legal obligations on everybody," she added. "All of us, internationally, by law, are obliged to prevent genocide."

A top suspected Nazi war criminal has died in a hospital in Canada, just weeks after Russia demanded his extradition.

Vladimir Katriuk was No. 2 on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of most wanted Nazi war criminals, and passed away aged 93. Two weeks ago the Russian government demanded Canada extradite Mr Katriuk, of Ukrainian ancestry, so he can face trial for alleged war crimes. Canada had refused.

Canada’s Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs had also called on the Canadian government to “take the necessary steps to ensure that, if guilty, Katriuk be held accountable for war crimes committed in collaboration with the Nazi regime.”

The United Nations envoy to Syria condemned barrel bombing raids reportedly carried out by the Syrian government, which have left more than 70 civilians killed.

Staffan de Mistura said in a statement,

“The news of aerial bombing by Syrian helicopters on a civilian market area of the Aleppo neighbourhood of Al Shaar deserves the strongest international condemnation.”

Syrian government helicopters reportedly dropped barrel bombs in the northern Aleppo province killing at least 70, on a day where air raids left more than 140 dead.

British foreign secretary Philip Hammond said "this is further shocking proof of the horrific and indiscriminate methods the Assad regime is using to kill and injure innocent civilians, including children."

Six world powers agreed on a UN mechanism that would restore sanctions on Iran if it breaks terms of a future nuclear deal, reports Reuters.

Myanmar criticised claims by a group of Nobel laureates last week that Rohingya Muslims in the country are facing genocide.

The Democratic Humanist Centre party (CDH) expelled their deputy leader for refusing to call the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 by the Ottoman Empire genocide.

The Rwandan government has ordered an indefinite suspension of all BBC broadcasts in the country after the airing of a controversial documentary on the 1994 genocide, which has led to accusations of genocide denial.

The Rwandan public regulatory body, which had recently launched an investigation into the documentary, said the decision was made based "on the resolutions made by the commission of inquiry that was set up by the Rwandan government to investigate allegations of genocide denial and revisionism against the BBC in the new documentary produced by BBC journalist, Jane Corbin".

The documentary, “Rwanda's Untold Story”, contained allegations that current President Paul Kagame and his then Rwandan Patriotic Front armed organisation shot down and killed then Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana, sparking the genocide which killed some 800,000 people.