The United Nations Security council, last week, extended the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), reiterating the right of the Sahrawi people to self determination.

The resolution extending the MINURSO mandate until 31 October 2019 was passed with 13 votes in favour with 2 abstentions from Russia and South Africa, reports Sahara Press Service.

South Africa abstained from the vote in protest of the resolution failing to mention ongoing rights abuses by Morocco against the Sahrawi people.

<p>Pope Francis visited a refugee centre in Sofia and a Roman Catholic Church in Rakovski in Bulgaria where he advocated on behalf of migrants and refugees describing their suffering as&nbsp;“the cross of humanity”.&nbsp;</p> <p>The pope’s defence of migrants is a central point of his pontificate and he also hopes that his visit will heal divisions between the Eastern and Western Orthodox Churches which split in 1054.&nbsp;</p> <p>Rakovski is a majority Roman Catholic town in the overwhelming&nbsp; Eastern Orthodox country. The population of Roman Catholic's is less than one per cent.&nbsp;</p>

Over 30,000 people marched through Glasgow on Saturday in support for Scottish independence reports The Guardian.

The march was led by the ‘All Under One Banner’ movement which describes itself as “open to everyone who desires an independent Scotland”

The march came after Nicola Sturgeon announced she would introduce legislation to hold a second independence referendum before the end of the year.

Israeli warplanes and gunboats have continued to target the Gaza strip today in retaliation to Gaza fighters firing more than 400 rockets into Israeli territory.

The strongest cyclone to hit India in the last five years has devastated India’s eastern coast, killing approximately 16 people in the state of Odisha before hitting Bangladesh where at least 12 people have died.

A mass evacuation of over a million people in Bangladesh has saved a great number of lives. A similar evacuation occurred in Odisha moving 1.2 million people into safety. West Bangladesh avoided substantial damage but authorities had moved nearly 45,000 people to safer locations as a precaution. 

<p>The persecution of Christians in some regions of the world&nbsp;is coming close to meeting the international definition of genocide, according to a report commissioned by British Foreign Secretary,&nbsp;Jeremy Hunt.</p> <p>The interim report, led by the Bishop of Truro the Right Reverend Philip Mountstephen, has highlighted the geographical spread of anti-Christian persecution and it’s increasing severity.</p> <p>The independent review on the global persecution of Christians has estimated that one third of the world’s population suffers from religious persecution in some form, with Christians being the most persecuted group.</p>

<p>The US Defense Department has accused China of pursuing an aggressive military build-up to combat US interests whilst also maintaining concentration camps which have detained close to three million Muslims.</p> <p>Randall Schriver, assistant secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, said that "at least a million [Uighurs and other minorities], but likely closer to three million, out of a total population of about 10 million” are being detained in “concentration camps”.</p> <p>The Chinese have continued to deny the allegation describing these camps as “education centres”.</p>

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society says the outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is “worsening”.  

The DRC health ministry has reported that the death toll has risen to 1,008 and more than 1,450 cases have been registered since August 2018.

Photograph: World Health Organisation

Ebola treatment centres and health workers have repeatedly been subject to violence, complicating efforts to contain the deadly virus. 119 incidents have been reported since January. 

In a new report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) found that Xinjiang police are using a mobile app to illegally gathering information about people’s lawful behaviour and using it for mass surveillance and arbitrary detention of Turkic Muslims.

Photograph: Human Rights Watch

HRW “reverse engineered” the police app that officials use to connect to the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), to find out what types of behaviours and people this mass surveillance system targets.

<p>An investigation by BBC Arabic, has found evidence of alleged war crimes being shared on Facebook and YouTube.</p> <p>Disturbing images and videos have been found on these social media platforms showing bodies of civilians and fighters being desecrated by fighters of the Libyan National Army during an offensive in 2017.</p> <p>Under international law, the desecration of bodies and posting the images online for propaganda is a war crime.</p>