Three soldiers with the Israeli Defense Force have been indicted for looting, allegedly committed the violence in Gaza last year, the Los Angeles Times reported.

According to a statement from the Military Advocate General, two soldiers were charged with looting around $600 from a Palestinian house in the Gaza neighborhood of Shajaiyeh and a third soldier was charged with aiding and abetting the theft.

The soldiers were reported to military police by the soldiers' commander last summer.

The IDF is reviewing over 120 cases of alleged violations of humanitarian law in Gaza, of which so far 19 are currently being investigated further. Several of the cases concern incidents in which Israeli military operations caused multiple civilian fatalities, the LA Times said.

A coalition of Islamist opposition militants have, which includes the Al Nusra Front, has captured a key Syrian town in the north of the country.

The opposition alliance, which also includes the Ahrar al-Sham movement and Jund al-Aqsa, united last month in an effort to overwhelm Syrian government forces and take the town of Jisr al-Shughour. The coalition, which does not include the Islamic State (IS), captured the town of Idlib last month.

Countries from around the world have pledged humanitarian aid to Nepal after a massive earthquake killed at least 1,800 people on Saturday.

Measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, the earthquake levelled centuries-old monuments, collapsed buildings and caused avalanches on Mount Everest, as the death toll looks almost certain to rise.

 The prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, condemned the killing of the leading human rights activist Sabeen Mehmud.

Mr Sharif, in a statement made on Saturday, expressing his condolences, ordered an immediate investigation into the killing, reports the BBC.

Though no group has claimed responsibility for the killing, Ms Mehmud had been subject to death threats before she spoke at an event on the alleged torture of Balochi political activists by the Pakistani military.

A leading Pakistani human rights activist has been shot dead in Karachi, shortly after hosting an event detailing torture in Balochistan.

Sabeen Mehmud, director of the charity The Second Floor (T2F), was killed as gunmen opened fire on her vehicle leaving a seminar she hosted on torture in Balochistan. Her mother, who was also in the car, was injured in the attack.

FARC militants in Colombia, rejected the Colombian government’s request to accelerate peace talks on Friday.

The Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, repeatedly urged a swift end to peace talks, which have taken place in Havana over the last two and a half years.

However in an open letter to Mr Santos on Friday, the FARC leadership blamed the Colombian government for the unnecessary delays in the process, reports Reuters.

FARC militants killed 11 Colombian soldiers in an attack, which they called a form of self-defence.

Turkey’s biggest trade partner, Germany, recognised the Armenian genocide for the first time by attending the 100 year memorial ceremony amidst several other foreign leaders, on Friday.

French and Russian presidents, Francois Hollande and Vladimir Putin were also present at the memorial service, which involved placing flowers at a hilltop memorial near the Armenian capital of Yerevan, reports Reuters.

Germany’s parliament this week approved a resolution that acknowledged the Armenian genocide.

The Indian government placed the philanthropic organisation, the Ford Foundation, on a national securty watch list, due to its past/ funding of an NGO which recently pushed for the prosecution of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his role in the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat on 2002.

The home affairs ministry on Thursday sent a letter to the Reserve Bank of India, asking the central bank to place the Ford Foundation on a watch list to ensure that the funds it distributes are used "for bona fide welfare activities without compromising on concerns for national interest and security".

The move means the organisation can now only disburse funds after clearance from the home affairs ministry.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said the situation in Iraq and Syria was “utterly unsustainable” and that unless urgent action was taken “things risk getting even worse".

In an address to the UN Security Council In New York, High Commissioner António Guterres called the situation in the Middle East “a cancer that risks spreading and metastasizing”. “If things continue this way, we could see future developments spin out of control, independently of our will and with increasingly dangerous global consequences," he warned.

"We have to recognize the increasingly protracted nature of this refugee crisis,” added Mr Guterres, as he called for increased humanitarian aid, as well as “stopping the horrific loss of life in the Mediterranean”.

However, Mr Guterres warned that the situation could deteriorate further, saying, “after Iraq became so dramatically engulfed in the Syrian conflict with the attacks on Mosul and Tikrit last year, I do not know where the next disrupting shock will take place.” “I only know that it will come, and that things risk getting even worse," he added.

He was joined by UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie Pitt, who said “it is time for the Security Council to work as one to end the conflict, and reach a settlement that also brings justice and accountability for the Syrian people."

The final stages of clinical trials of a vaccine against malaria are ongoing, which, if successful, could help immunise millions of children from the disease which can be deadly.

However tests conducted on 16,000 children in Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania, showed that booster doses were not as effective as the initial dose, and immunisation waned over time.

Prof Brian Greenwood, study author and professor of clinical tropical medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said to the BBC he was "a little disappointed" by the results.

"I hoped the vaccine would be more effective, but we were never going to end up with the success seen in measles vaccines with 97% efficacy."