At least 14 UN peacekeepers were killed this week in the Democratic Republic of Congo during an attack on the UN's Monusco mission base in North Kivu. 

Over 53 are reported to have been injured in the attack, believed to have been carried out by fighters alligned to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). 

The attack was condemned "unequivocally" by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres. 

“These deliberate attacks against UN peacekeepers are unacceptable and constitute a war crime” he said. 

“There must be no impunity for such assaults, here or anywhere else," Mr Guterres added. 
 

At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, members states condemned the US' decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, warning that it sets backs years of peace efforts in the region and would lead to bloodshed. 

Notably criticism also came from traditional US allies, the UK, France, Japan, Sweden and Italy. 

The British ambassador to the UN, Matthew Rycroft said the US decision was "unhelpful to peace", whilst his Swedish counterpart said it "contradicts international law and Security Council resolutions". 

US President Donald Trump has called on Saudi Arabia to allow humanitarian aid into Yemen, as conflict in the country has left millions at the risk of famine.

Saudi Arabia must “completely allow food, fuel, water and medicine to reach the Yemeni people who desperately need it,” said Mr Trump adding that it “must be done for humanitarian reasons immediately”.

His call comes after the United Nations Security Council said this week that Yemen “stands on the brink of a catastrophic famine.”

The government of Cameroon this week increased the deployment of troops in the Anglophone southwest region of the country in an escalating crackdown on Anglophone separatists. 

Thousands of residents have been ordered to leave their homes by the government. Many thousands have already fled after government troops quashed peaceful protests and carried out a number of reprisal attacks. 

The separatists who have launched an armed uprising against the Francophone capital have killed at least 8 soldiers and officers in the past month, Reuters reported. 

Anglophone separatists are campaigning for an independent state of Ambazonia. 

The leader of Hamas Ismail Haniya on Thursday said the US president's decision to consider Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as a "war declaration against Palestinians". 

In a speech from Gaza city a day after Mr Trump's announcement, Mr Haniya said the US had "killed" the peace efforts in the region. 

"This decision has killed the peace process, has killed the Oslo [accord], has killed the settlement process," he added.

"The US decision is an aggression, a declaration of war on us, on the best Muslim and Christian shrines in the heart of Palestine, Jerusalem."

US president Trump on Wednesday formally recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in a move that reversed over seven decades of US foreign policy.

Leaders across the world expressed concern at the US move to recognise the disputed city as the capital of Israel.

The European Union’s top diplomat, Fredrica Mogherini said, “any action that would undermine peace efforts to create two separate states for the Israelis and the Palestinians must be completely avoided.”  

The International Criminal Court in the Hague on Monday said there was a "reasonable basis" to allegations of war crimes committed by UK troops against detainees in Iraq. 

The announcement, which came as a 74 page report was delivered to the ICC's annual assembly of states in New York. 

“The [prosecutor’s] office has reached the conclusion that there is a reasonable basis to believe that members of the UK armed forces committed war crimes within the jurisdiction of the court against persons in their custody," the ICC's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda said, dismissing allegations of any war crimes being committed on the battlefield however. 

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights said the genocide of Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar’s security forces could not be ruled out, in a statement to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday.

Addressing a special session on the Rohingya crisis, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said security forces “deliberately and massively targeted civilians” in the Rakhine state, and listed allegations of abuses including “acts of appalling barbarity” carried out by Myanmar’s government.

He went on to state,

Spain’s Supreme Court refused bail for two senior Catalan pro-independence leaders, ahead of regional elections, reports Reuters.

Monday’s ruling leaves Catalonia’s biggest secessionist groups imprisoned during campaigning for the Dec21 election.

The judge in Madird ruled that former deputy Catalan president Oriol Junqueras and the former Catalan Interior Minister Joaquim Forn must remain imprisoned alongside grassroots separatist leaders Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart.

The Chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) Masrour Barzani reiterated Kurdistan’s commitment to a peaceful political settlement in a meet with the Special Envoy of the Secretary General of the United Nations to Iran, Jan Kubis.

Meeting in Erbil, the Chancellor said,

“The Kurdistan Region has taken all steps to undertake the start of dialogue with Baghdad on all outstanding issues between the two sides. But the Iraqi government has not responded so far.”