South Africa has filed a referral to the International Criminal Court for an investigation into war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza.

“As South Africa we have accordingly, together with many other countries across the world, referred this whole Israeli government action to the International Criminal Court,”  South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Wednesday during a state visit to Qatar.

A French court has issued an international arrest warrant for the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad for complicity in war crimes against humanity linked to a chemical weapons attack.

Three others – including Assad’s brother Maher, head of an elite army unit – are also subject to warrants over the use of banned sarin gas in two attacks in August 2013 that killed more than 1,000 people, including hundreds of children.

The European Union has condemned an escalation of violence in the Darfur region, situated in Sudan, warning of "another genocide". 

The EU's chief diplomat Josep Borrell cited in a statement witness reports that more than 1,000 members of the Masalit community were killed in Ardamta, West Darfur, in just over two days earlier this week during attacks by the RSF and affiliated militias.

Pakistan on Monday opened three new border crossings to accelerate the repatriation of undocumented Afghan nationals who have been ordered to leave the country or face expulsion, officials said.

The new crossings were set up at the Afghan border in southwestern Balochistan province in addition to the main crossing in Chaman district, said Jan Achakzai, information minister for the provincial caretaker government.

The main crossing had been overwhelmed with Afghan refugees seeking to return home voluntarily, he said.

Five judges at the supreme court unanimously upheld an appeal court ruling that found there was a real risk of deported refugees having their claims in the east African country wrongly assessed or being returned to their country of origin to face persecution.

Luis Moreno Ocampo has called Isarel's blockade of Gaza as a "crime against humanity and a genocide.

Speaking to BBC Newsday the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court condemned the attacks by Hamas and Israel's blockade of Gaza. 

He said, 

“Hamas’s attack on October 7 is clearly a crime against humanity… Because killings with the intention to strike a group is a genocide, and Hamas’s official intention is to strike Israelis,” he told the BBC's Newsday programme.

A panel of UN experts have called the bombings of schools and hospitals in Gaza as crimes against humanity and highlighted the "risk of genocide against the Palestinian people".

The escalation in fatalities and severe human rights violations against innocent civilians in Darfur, including refugees and internally displaced people, is worsening six months into the deadly conflict in Sudan.

Meta should immediately pay reparations to the Rohingya for the role that Facebook played in the ethnic cleansing of the persecuted minority group, Amnesty International said today, on the sixth anniversary of the Myanmar military’s brutal operation during which they raped Rohingya women and girls, burned down entire villages, and killed thousands.

Australians have rejected a proposal to recognise Aboriginal people in the country’s constitution and establish a body to advise parliament on Indigenous issues.

Saturday’s voice to parliament referendum failed, with the defeat clear shortly after polls closed.

To succeed, the yes campaign – advocating for the voice – needed to secure a double majority, meaning it needed both a majority of the national vote, as well as majorities in four of Australia’s six states.