<p>French authorities have arrested Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona, a senior leader and the National General Coordinator of a Anti-Balaka militant group in the Central Africa Republic.&nbsp;</p> <p>Ngaissona is charged with having led targeted attacks on the nation’s Muslim’s population in 2013-14.&nbsp;</p> <p>The International Criminal Court (ICC) further alleges he was responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity including “murder, extermination, deportation, persecution, torture, attacking civilians, and recruiting child soldiers”. &nbsp;</p>

<p>The UN Secretary General’s envoy for Western Sahara concluded talks between the the Polisario Front and Morocco, in what were the first political negotiations between the two sides in 6 years.</p> <p>Last week, two days of talks facilitated by UN envoy Horst Koehler, a former German president, ended with both sides agreeing to meet for a second round of negotiations in the first quarter of 2019.</p> <p>Morocco offered significant self-autonomy for Western Saahara, whilst Polisario Front assured that its local population numbering 350,000 to 500,00 has the right to a referendum on the territory’s future.</p>

<p>Chengdu police in South Western China have arrested dozens of Protestant Church members, in a crackdown on unregistered religious groups.</p> <p>Police are believed to have detained over a hundred members of the Early Rain Covenant Church, making the arrests at their homes.&nbsp;</p> <p>Under China's constitution there is a right to religious freedom, but this has been under attack since President Xi Jinping came to office six years ago.&nbsp;</p> <p>Jinping views religious freedom as a challenge to the continued authority of the Community Party.&nbsp;</p>

<p>A US sponsored resolution condemning Hamas' firing of rockets failed to be adopted at the UN General Assembly today.&nbsp;</p> <p>The resolution required a two-thirds majority to be passed, however, only 87 states voted in favour of the resolution.&nbsp;</p> <p>Sri Lanka was one of 33 states which abstained, along side 57 voting against.&nbsp;</p> <p>Hamas thanked UNGA member states who "stood by our people's resistance and the justice of their cause."&nbsp;</p>

Myanmar has engaged in crimes against humanity as well as fostering “long-standing discrimination against the Rohingya population” whilst “ensuring impunity for perpetrators”, a joint report by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide and Fortify Rights concluded.

The report details how the army and police alongside armed civilians “razed villages”, “killed men, women and children”, “raped and gang-raped Rohingya women and girls”, and illegally detained “masses of Rohingya men and boys”, many of whom remain missing.

The report also noted that within October and November 2016, the army alongside armed civilians engage in a “clearance operation” seemingly provoked by ARSA attacks on military outposts.

<p>The United Nations will host the first political talks between Morocco and separatist Polisario Front in 6 years, reports the <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/world/africa/un-to-host-peace-talks-on-the-f…">National.</a></p> <p>Last month the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution extending the mandate of the UN Mission for the referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). The talks under the auspices of the UN Secretary General Antonio Gutterre commence tomorrow.</p>

<p>Israel police have&nbsp;for the third time this year recommended that the country’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu be indicted on charges including bribery and fraud.</p> <p>Netanyahu must now wait for the decision of the attorney general, whom he appointed, on whether he will be indicted on all three charges.</p> <p>In the latest case, police accuse the prime minister of trading regulatory favours for favourable media coverage.</p>

<p>Two imprisoned Catalan leaders began a hunger strike this week to protest against what they described as unfair treatment by Spain.&nbsp;</p> <p>Jordi Sanchez, the head of the grassroots independence movement Assemblea Nacional Catalana (ANC) and Jordi Turull, former minister in Catalan’s regional government, condemned the Spanish government's treatment of them.&nbsp;</p> <p>A lawyer representing them, Jordi Pina told reporters that the pair accused Spain’s Constitutional Court of preventing their appeals from being heard by the European Court of Human Rights.&nbsp;</p>

<p>An anti-Taliban Shia Hazara militant commander has been released by Afghanistan’s government after two days of violent protests, following his arrest earlier this month.&nbsp;</p> <p>Alipur, known as “Commander Sword”, &nbsp;has been accused of conducting human rights abuses against the ethnic Pashtuns in the Maidan Wardak region, west of Kabul. Afghan police accuse him of several crimes and arrested him following an earlier failed attempted that ended in a shootout killing 12 people.</p>

<p>A senior Argentinian prosecutor is to launch a case against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia over war crimes committed by the country's military in Yemen.&nbsp;</p> <p>The decision comes as the Crown Prince arrived in Buenos Aires to attend the G20 summit and follows a petition by Human Rights Watch urging action.&nbsp;</p> <p>The case will start with an Argentinian judge requesting information from Saudi and Yemeni authorities regarding the war crimes committed and will likely lead to a formal investigation.&nbsp;</p>