United Nations investigators have discovered a potential five probable mass grave sites in eastern Congo’s Ituri province said a UN peacekeeping mission.

The Ituru province has seen an outbreak of ethnic violence since December causing one of the African continent’s most serious refugee crises.

The report from the UN mission provides the most comprehensive portrait to date of the human cost of months of violence between Lendu pastoralists and Hema herders since December reports Reuters.

The UN refugee agency expects 200,000 refugees from Congo to reach Uganda this year.

Kosovo has indicted a former Serbian paramilitary fighter for war crimes committed in 1999.

An international prosecutor from Kosovo's Special Prosecution Office filed the indictment, charging the suspect with pillage, wilful destruction and crimes against personal and human dignity in relation to a two-day attack in the village of Mala Krusa/Krusha e Vogel between March 25 and 27, 1999.

The prosecution said that he committed the crimes in his capacity as a member of reservist police forces or Serbian paramilitary forces.

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Malaysia’s Election Commission has rejected an application by the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) to monitor the country’s upcoming general election.

The rejection means that the commission will not be allowed inside polling stations during its monitoring.

“Suhakam cannot comprehend this decision especially as we are informed that there will be international observers during the election,” the commission’s chair Razali Ismail said in a statement on Thursday.

Mr Ismail said the commission would “in the public interest proceed with its monitoring plan”.

Relatives of those killed or disappeared during Rwanda’s genocide have gathered at the site of four newly discovered mass graves in the country, where hundreds of bodies have been buried.

Over 200 bodies have been discovered so far at four different mass graves in Rwanda, thought to date back to the 1994 genocide in the country, in which some 800,000 people were massacred. Locals say as many as 3,000 victims may be buried at mass graves in the area, with one site still undiscovered.

The US Ambassador to Iraq Douglas Silliman announced the start of the largest US consulate complex in the world on Monday in Erbil with Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, reports Rudaw news.

Speaking at a foundation laying ceremony, Mr Silliman said,

“The ties between the people of Iraqi Kurdistan Region and the United States of America have endured for decades. The new consulate building demonstrates that the United States will stand with the people of Iraqi Kurdistan Region, as they build  future that will be brighter than the past.”

The Kurdistan Regional Government marked the 120^th anniversary of the publication of the first Kurdish newspaper on Sunday, reports Kurdistan24.net.

In a statement for Kurdish Journalism Day the government said,

Israel’s defence minister Avigdor Lieberman dismissed claims that Israel’s Mossad spy agency was responsible for the killing of a Palestinian lecturer in Malaysia.

Mr Lieberman suggested that the Palestinian lecturer Fadi al-Batsh was killed in an internal dispute, adding,

“This man was no saint and he didn’t deal with improving infrastructure in Gaza – he was involved in improving rockets accuracy. We constantly see a settling of accounts between various factions in the terrorist organisations and I suppose that is what happened in this case.”

European states are working together in an attempt to persuade the US administration to ease sanctions targeting Russia, due to concerns that the restrictions will impact manufacturing activity across the continent.

The initiative, led by Paris, outlines increasing concern over consequences that the US sanctions on Russia could have on key EU industries.

A Palestinian lecturer was shot dead in Malaysia’s capital on Saturday morning reports Reuters.

“Two men on a motorcycle fired ten shots at the victim killing him on the spot,” said Kuala Lumpur police chief Mazlan Lazim in a statement.

Speaking to Reuters Palestine’s ambassador to Malaysia Anwar Al Agha said, the victim was Palestinian lecturer Fadi al-Batsh but declined to say if he was a member of Hamas.

When contacted by Reuters, officials in Israel declined to comment.

Human Rights Watch has accused Iraqi officials of disposing of war crimes evidence.

In a statement released Thursday the rights group said on March 29 2018 government workers removed 80 bodies from a damaged house, raising suspicions of a cover-up of killings of possible Islamic State suspects. Days later, the house had been burned.