At least ten people were killed after nationwide protests of police brutality in Colombia. The protests started after the killing of Javier Ordóñez, an unarmed lawyer who was pinned down by police as they shocked him with a taser for over two minutes.

Lebanon President, Michael Aoun, has received backlash after it emerged that Ceylon tea donated by Sri Lanka for the victims of the Beirut blast was instead given to the families of his presidential guard.

Heavy rains in Sudan have caused the Nile River to reach record-breaking levels, threatening sites housing the royal pyramids of Meroe and Nuri, two of the country’s most important archaeological areas.

A court in Lahore Pakistan has sentenced a 37-year-old Christian man, Asif Pervaiz, to death for committing “blasphemy.”

Pervaiz, a garment factory worker, has been in custody since 2013 when his supervisor accused him of sending derogatory remarks about the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in a text message.

Human rights groups have denounced inhumane conditions in which thousands of protestors were detained and beaten by police, amid huge protests that have weakened Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko’s grip on power. 

Overthrown Mali president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita left the country on Saturday seeking medical treatment in the United Arab Emirates, as talks about a transition back to civilian rule began.

Hong Kong police arrested at least 289 protestors on Sunday, as they assembled on the day the local elections were supposed to be held. Elections were postponed for at least a year, and officials pointed to the pandemic as the reason for moving the election date.

Police officers used pepper spray against protestors, and some of the arrests were made by plainclothes police officers. One activist was even arrested in his home on Sunday for “uttering seditious words”, whilst footage of officers tackling a 12-year-old girl to the ground also went viral.

Nearly 300 Rohingya refugees who were stranded at sea for months after being denied port in Southeast Asia were rescued by Indonesian fisherman this week. 

The group included 14 children, and two of the refugees were taken to the hospital for medical care. It has been reported that approximately 30 people died during the months they spent at sea.

Human Rights Watch said India should prohibit firing metal pellets through shotguns to disperse crowds in the restive Kashmir valley, in the wake of violent clashes with security forces when people defied a ban on public gatherings imposed due to reported concerns over the coronavirus pandemic on Muharram, an important date in the Shia calendar. 

Facebook chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled new measures to restrict the spread of misleading comments and politically-biased lies on Facebook before the United States presidential election on 3^rd November 2020. Zuckerberg said that he was “worried” but the election would not “be business as usual”.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) celebrated the Sierra Leone parliament’s repealed the criminal libel law on 23 July, completing President Maada Bio’s promise he made on the campaign trail before the 2018 election. 

In Sierra Leone, libel has been a punishable criminal offence since 1965, which journalists said restricted free speech and expression.