<p>Thousands of migrants and asylum seekers were expelled to Niger by Algerian authorities during roundups of mostly sub-Saharan Africans across at least nine cities, said Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday.&nbsp;</p> <p>Migrants were pulled from streets, homes, and work sites before being crammed into trucks and buses before being expelled to Niger.&nbsp;</p>

According to government statistics, the UK has ranked as the second-largest arms dealer in the world for the past decade, second only to the US.

In 2019, UK arms deals made up 16 per cent of the global sale of arms and secured £11bn worth of contracts for military equipment and services. This is down from 2018 when £14bn worth of deals were made, this was the second-highest year for the UK in arms sales since 1983.

The gang rape and murder of two Dalit women in the last recent weeks has sparked outrage across India, with calls for the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh to resign.

Both murders took place in the Northern state of Uttar Pradesh, with the two women belonging to India’s marginalised Dalit caste.

<p>On Wednesday, Afghanistan’s top peace official, Abdullah Abdullah, stated he does the expect the results of the anticipated US presidential election to change the Afghan peace process or troop withdrawal plans.</p> <p>The Trump administration has brokered peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban to end 19 years of war. The US Taliban Agreement negotiated on February 29 2020, concluded that US armed forces would withdraw from Afghanistan under pretences of a truce.</p>

 

A special court in India has acquitted 32 men, including former deputy prime minister LK Advani, a sitting BJP politician, and three leaders from the party, of the destruction of Babri mosque (masjid) which led to religious riots and the massacre of 2,000 people, mostly Muslims.

The court’s decision is seen as yet another “victory for the Hindu nationalist government”.

<p>China’s National Day has previously been a day of pro-democracy expression in Hong Kong but this year thousands of police officers smothered most forms of protest and free expression.</p> <p>China marks its founding on October 1, but last year saw heavy clashes between protesters and Hong Kong police anti-government violence following the impostition of national security legislation earlier in the year. Thousands of protesters took to the streets to directly challenge China’s increasing leverage over their city.</p>

<p>Amnesty International announced on Tuesday that it has closed it's Indian offices after the government froze its bank accounts as part of their crackdown on human rights defenders and organisations.&nbsp;</p> <p>Amnesty described the Indian government’s campaign against activist organisations, as a “witch hunt,” adding that fund-raising and operating have been made impossible. The actions, they believe, are in response to “unequivocal calls for transparency in the government.” And exposing human rights violations by publishing reports on the Delhi police’s role in fomenting anti-Muslim violence and torture in Kashmir.</p>

The Public Prosecution Service (PPS), the principal prosecution authority in Northern Ireland, has concluded that there is “insufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction of any of the 15 soldiers” who were charged with the unlawful murder of 13 civil rights activists in January 1972, during Bloody Sunday.

The PPS has only brought charges against one British soldier for his conduct. The soldier has been dubbed “Soldier F” in the case. He is to stand trial for the murder of James Wray and William McKinney in Derry as well as five counts of attempted murder.

Warring parties in Yemen have agreed to a prisoner exchange of 1081 people, the largest exchange since late 2018, as part of a trust-building programme which aims to revive peace negotiations, the UN reports.

UN Envoy Martin Griffiths told Reuters;

“It’s very rare to have prisoner releases of this scale during the conflict, that they mostly happen after a conflict,”