The United Nations high commissioner for human rights said the genocide of Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar’s security forces could not be ruled out, in a statement to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday.

Addressing a special session on the Rohingya crisis, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said security forces “deliberately and massively targeted civilians” in the Rakhine state, and listed allegations of abuses including “acts of appalling barbarity” carried out by Myanmar’s government.

Spain’s Supreme Court refused bail for two senior Catalan pro-independence leaders, ahead of regional elections, reports Reuters.

Monday’s ruling leaves Catalonia’s biggest secessionist groups imprisoned during campaigning for the Dec21 election.

The Chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) Masrour Barzani reiterated Kurdistan’s commitment to a peaceful political settlement in a meet with the Special Envoy of the Secretary General of the United Nations to Iran, Jan Kubis.

Meeting in Erbil, the Chancellor said,

“The Kurdistan Region has taken all steps to undertake the start of dialogue with Baghdad on all outstanding issues between the two sides. But the Iraqi government has not responded so far.”

The United Nations is trying to evacuate at least 140 aid workers from Yemen amid intensifying fighting that has seen the road to the airport cut off, reports Reuters.

Speaking to Reuters, a UN official said,

“There is a plane on stand-by in Djibouti for 140 international staff. Fighting is moving towards the airport and the situation is very tense. We can’t even evacuate staff.”

A Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) delegation led by Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani arrived in Paris on Friday to meet with French president Emmanuel Macron.

Barzani was officially invited by the French Prime minister, in what is his first visit abroad since the September 25 independence referendum, reports Kurdistan24.

A special committee of the United Nations last month, approved a draft resolution calling upon the US to “take into consideration the expressed will of Guam’s Chamorro people. As supported by Guam voters in the referendum of 1987 and as subsequently provided for in Guam law regarding Chamorro self-determination efforts.”  

Two former Argentinean navy officials have been sentenced to life for crimes against humanity committed under military rule between 1976 to 1983.

Captains Alfredo Astiz and Jorge Eduardo Acosta were found guilty of involvement in torture and murder of hundreds of political opponents, reports the BBC.

The two high ranking military officials were among a group of 54 people that faced sentences ranging from 8 to 25 years.

An exhibition on genocide in Syria is to open at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.

In addition to documenting Nazi crimes, the Holocaust Museum, on Washington’s National Mall, is also tasked with alerting against modern-day genocides. As such, the Syrian civil war is on the museum’s watchlist as one of the most serious ongoing mass atrocities.

A former Bosnian Croat general has died after drinking a phial of poison in whilst receiving his war crimes sentence at the Hague.

Seconds after the judges of the UN mandated tribunal sentenced him to 20 years, Slobodan Praljak, shouted “Praljak is not a criminal. I  reject your verdict. I just drank poison.”

An official statement from the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia ICTY, said,

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) called on Myanmar to provide an “exceptional” report with information concerning sexual violence and rape against Rohingya women by state security forces.

Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who was expelled by Spain’s central government after Catalonia’s independence referendum, reaffirmed his commitment to make the region an independent state.

Speaking from Belgium, whilst awaiting a Spanish court verdict that could see him imprisoned for 30 years, Mr Pugdemont said,

Myanmar and Bangladesh have agreed to accept UN assistance to start the repatriation process for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled violence in Myanmar, said Reuters.

Speaking at a press conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali said,

“Both countries agreed to take help from te UNHCR in the Rohingya repatriation process. Myanmar will take its assistance as per their requirement.

At least 235 people have been killed with several more injured in a bomb and gun attack on a mosque in the north Sinai region of Egypt.

A bomb exploded in the mosque during Friday prayers followed by four gunmen who opened fire on worshipers.

Speaking immediately after the attacks, Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al Sisi, said,

The United States has condemned the Myanmar’s military actions against the Rohingya communtiy and labelled the crimes committed as ethnic cleansing.

A press release made by the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, after returning from Myanmar, read,