Spain has summoned 712 Catalan mayors for endorsing the independence referendum due to be held on October 1, reports Al Jazeera. 

The state prosecutor has called for the mayors to be arrested if they fail to comply with the summons. 

The move comes just days after one million Catalans marched in Barcelona calling for independence. It is the latest in a series of attempts by Madrid to stop the referendum from taking place. 

Myanmar’  leader Aung San Suu Kyi has cancelled a trip to the United Nations General Assembly due to the crisis in the Rakhine state, said her office on Wednesday.

Speaking at a press conference, the leader’s spokesperson Zaw Htay said Ms Suu Kyi was focusing on preventing any spread of communal violence, adding that “She is concentrating on establishing stability.”

The leader has faced growing international pressure for her silence on the state military clampdown on the Rohingya community which has been described by the UN as an “example of ethnic cleansing.”

The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday reiterated the country's support for an independent state of Kurdistan ahead of the planned independence referendum on Septemeber 25. 

"[Israel] supports the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to achieve their own state,” Mr Netanyahu was quoted by Reuters as saying. 

According to the news wire, an Israeli general said at a conference last week in Washington that he did not view the PKK as a terrorist group. 

See more here. 
 

The president of Iraqi Kurdistan said it will draw orders of a future Kurdish state if Baghdad refused to accept an independence referendum taking place later this month.

Speaking to the BBC Kurdish president Massoud Barzani, said he wanted to reach an agreement with the central government if the Kurdish people opted to secede.

“This is the first step. This is the first time in history the people in Kurdistan will freely decide their future. After that we will start talks with Bagdad, to reach an agreement over borders, water and oil,” he said.

The Kurdish community in Iraq makes up 15 to 20% of the population.

^{Photograph @MBartalot09}

One million marched on Tuesday calling for independence to Catalonia, ahead of the plan independence referendum on October 1. 

The march, held on Catalonia's national day, La Diada de Catalunya, was in its sixth year running. 

Myanmar has rejected the Rohingya militant’s declaration of ceasefire amidst what the UN has described as movements of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya community.

Shortly after the Rohingya militants declared a ceasefire on Sunday, Myanmar’s government spokesperson Zaw Htay said it would not negotiate with terrorists, tweeting,

“We have no policy to negotiate with terrorists.”

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Opening the current session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, High Commissioner Zeid Ra‘ad al-Hussein condemned Myanmar's violence against the Rohingya population, stating it was a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing" and called on the government to stop its “complete denial of reality”. 
 
“We have received multiple reports and satellite imagery of security forces and local militia burning Rohingya villages, and consistent accounts of extrajudicial killings, including shooting fleeing civilians,” Mr Zeid said in his opening address on Monday. 

The armed Rohingya organisation, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army declared a unilateral month long ceasefire on Saturday in order allow aid to be distributed. 

Violence in Myanmar between government troops and ARSA has dramatically escalated in recent weeks after Myanmar's troops launched a large scale operation in Rakhine purported to be in retaliation for coordinated attacks on police posts by ARSA. 

Over 270,000 Rohingya Muslims have been forced to flee the region to Bangladesh, with numerous reports of government soldiers firing at fleeing refugees and burning their homes. 

Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu condemned Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s silence on the “slow genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya community by Myanmar’s military forces.

In a letter to the fellow Nobel laureate he said,

The United States on Thursday called on Myanmar's government to allow humanitarian aid into the state of Rakhine as the fighting between Rohingya fighters and states troops heightened and tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled. 

"There has been a significant displacement of local populations following serious allegations of human rights abuses - including mass burnings of Rohingya villages and violence conducted by security forces and also armed civilians," the spokesperson for the State Department, Heather Nauert said on Thursday.