Catalanonia’s president Carles Puigdemont called for international mediation in resolving his parliament’s independence dispute with Spain following a violent crackdown by Spanish authorities during the Catalan independence referendum.

Announcing, in a televised statement, that “Catalonia have won the right to an independent state in the form of a republic,” Mr Puigdemont stressed “this European commission must encourage international mediation. It cannot look the other way any longer,” 

Spanish police have stormed polling stations in Catalonia as voting began this morning in an independence referendum. 

Riot police have seized ballot papers and boxes and physically restrained people trying to vote. 

The referendum was declared illegal by the Spanish government, which has over recent months sought to do everythign in its power to prevent it from being held. The government is believed to have deployed 25,000 police officers in view of disrupting the poll. 

Thousands of Catalans slept overnight in the polling stations in order to ensure they would not be prevented from voting. 

The United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley called for nations to suspend weapons supplies to Myanmar until there were adequate accountability measures in place to deal with the ongoing military violence against the Rohingya Muslims.

Speaking at the United Nations on Thursday, Ms Haley said,

“We cannot be afraid to call the actions of the Burmese authorities what they appear to be – a brutal, sustained campaign to cleanse the country of an ethnic minority.”

The US Ambassador further called on the UN Security Council to “shame senior Burmese leaders” for their involvement in the ongoing abuses.

The UN Security Council this week condemned an attack on a UN convoy in Mali on September 24, killing three Bangladeshi UN peacekeepers.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Council said its members "condemned in the strongest terms the attack" and added that "attacks targeting peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law". 

Kurds in Iraq have voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence, with Monday's referendum results showing 92.73% voted for secession. 

The referendum saw a large vote turnout at 72.61 percent. 

As the final results came through Kurds poured onto the streets of Erbil to celebrate. 

The result was however condemned by Iraq's prime minister, Haider al-Abadi. 

"The referendum must be annulled and dialogue initiated in the framework of the constitution. We will never hold talks based on the results of the referendum," Mr Abadi was quoted by AFP as saying. 

A court in Croatia has convicted a former Serbian paramilitary commander and Australian citizen iof war crimes, sentencing him to 15 years in jail.

Dragan Vasiljkovic, known as Captain Dragan and Daniel Snedden, was found guilty of torturing and murdering civilians during his time as paramilitary leader during the 1991 to 1995 Croatian war. Mr Vasiljkovic holds dual Serbian-Australian citizenship and was working as a golf instructor in Perth.

A lengthy legal battle had taken place to extradite him from Australia to Croatia, eventually resulting in the extradition in July 2015.

Myanmar’s security forces are committing crimes against humanity against the Rohingya population in Myanmar, said Human Rights Watch in a statement released Monday.

The rights organisation said the military had committed forced deportation, murder, rape and persecution against Rohingya Muslims in the northern Rakhine State.

Human Rights Watch called for the United Nations Security Council and governments to impose targeted sanctions and an arms embargo on the Burmese military to stop further crimes.

An Australian SAS corporal has been cleared of war crimes by the country’s federal police after it emerged he cut the hands off two suspected Taliban fighters during a military operation in 2013.

The soldier was part of a joint Afghan national security service and Australian Special Operations Task Group operation to kill or capture a senior Taliban commander. The mission, in which the target was not captured, left four alleged insurgents dead.

When the soldier in question searched the bodies, he went on to sever the right hands of the dead men with a surgical scalpel.

At least 86 skulls have been uncovered by forensic experts in Bosnia last week as they exhumed the site of a mass grave.

Forensic experts found the skulls alongside other body parts in Mount Vlasic, reports Reuters. Serbian security forces summarily executed dozens of Bosnian Muslim and Croat prisoners at the site on 21 August 1992. Survivors told of how they were lined up at the edge of the ravine before being shot.

“We hope that the search for the victims of this massacre has completed today,” said Lejla Cengic from the Missing Persons Institute.

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan denounced the Independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan and threatened to close the Turkish border with the region this week.

Pledging to stop all exports from the Kurdish Rregional Governemnt (KRG) that passed through the Turkish border, Mr Erdogan said,

“Our armed forces are on the borders with Iraq to do whatever it takes. We will neverl allow anyone or anything to go from Turkey to Iraq. After this let’s see through which channels they will send their oil through.. and who they will sell to. The valve is with us. It’s finished the moment we close it.”