Palestinian officials rejected an Israeli proposal to extend peace-talks beyond April 29, outlining that it was akin to “blackmail.”

Speaking to the AFP, a Palestinian official in Ramallah, said,

Amnesty International, in a briefing on the deteriorating rights situation in North-East Nigeria, called for a war crimes probe into the escalating conflict.

Expressing concern at the number of civilians killed in the escalating violence , Amnesty stressed that the conflict had descended into “a situation of non-international armed conflict in which all parties are violating international humanitarian law.”

Urging the international community to take action , the Africa research and advocacy director, Netsanet Belay, said,

Burmese officials began the first national census in three decades today, causing tensions over the government’s decision to omit the Rohingya identity from the census.

Despite calls from the United Nations to allow all the people in Burma to choose their identity, Burmese officials said that the Muslim Rohingya must identify themselves as Bengali to be registered on the national census.

A government spokesperson,  Ye Htut, outlined the official stance on the Rohingya identity, stating,

The Russian foreign minister, Serfei Lavrob, in his meeting with the US secretary of state, John Kerry, today, as part of a set criteria to reach a diplomatic solution to the situation in Ukraine, called for greater autonomous powers to be given to the regions of southern and eastern Ukraine.

The US has called on Russia to disarm irregular forces in Crimea, admit international observers and pull his troops back from the eastern border. Satellite imagery suggests that 40,000 Russian troops have been placed on Ukraine’s eastern border.
 

The European Union declared, this weekend, that it was ready to launch the delayed peace-keeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR). 

A spokeswoman for the EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton, said,

“On the basis of this significant progress.. the commander of the operation (French Major-General Philippe Ponties) has recommended the launch of the operation.”

US and Indian officials met for the sixth session of consultations on East Asia on Friday, said the State Department in a press release earlier this week.

The two countries will “share views on regional priorities and identify areas for cooperation in ... regional and multilateral institutions.”

The announcement comes a day after India sought unsuccessfully to sabotage a key US-sponsored resolution on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council.

The United Nations Human Rights Council, yesterday, adopted a resolution urging the international community to back an international criminal investigation against individuals accountable for atrocities in North Korea, whilst considering targeted sanctions.

The resolution urged steps to be taken to refer North Korea to an international judicial process, “in order that those responsible for human rights violations including those that may amount to crimes against humanity, are held to account.”

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) yesterday, in its second resolution regarding Palestine, demanded that all settlement activities in Occupied Palestinian Territory be ‘immediately’ stopped and reversed.

Whilst condemning Israel’s expansion of settlements and expropriation of Palestinian land, the resolution called on Israel,

The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, today, outlined that Moscow would not order its armed forces to cross over the Ukrainian border into the eastern Ukraine.

Speaking on Russian state television, he said,

“We have absolutely no intention and no interests in crossing the Ukranian border. We (Russia and the West) are getting closer in our positions.”