Microsoft Corporation and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights this month agreed to work together to build a digital human rights monitoring system and databank, reported Pass Blue. 

The agreement, which was bourne out of conversations between the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay and Microsoft in 2013, includes a $5 million grant from Micorsoft as well as pro bono technical support over five years. 

The situation of the Rohingya has not approved  as surveillance and questioning of journalists and activists continues under Myanmar’s new government said the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Yanhee Lee at the conclusion of her visit.

Speaking at a press conference at the conclusion of her 12-day visit, Ms Lee said that she had faced “increasing restrictions” on her access, adding that she was prevented from visiting the northeast of the country where the military is accused of abuses against civilians in its conflict with ethnic rebels.

The United States on Tuesday introduced new sanctions on Iran over the country's ballistic missile program, which the US described as "malign activities". 

"The United States remains deeply concerned about Iran's malign activities across the Middle East which undermine regional stability, security, and prosperity," the state Department said in a statement. 

Eighteen people and entities were targeted for their alleged support of  "illicit Iranian actors or transnational criminal activity", Reuters reported. 

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French President Emmanuel Macron apologised for France’s role in the Holocaust during a speech in Paris today, as he called for acknowledge of the role the country played during the massacres.

Mr Macron stated that “it was indeed France that organised this,” referring to the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews to Nazi camps during World War II.

“France organized the roundups,” he said. “Not a single German participated.” And so France “in almost every aspect organised the death” of the victims.

A prominent Rwandan academic has been convicted of genocide and handed a life sentence, reports the Washington Post.

Leopold Munyazakazi was convicted by a court in the south of Rwanda on Friday and will be held under solitary confinement according to the verdict.

An ethnic Hutu, Mr Munyakazi was accused of playing a key role in the 1994 genocide in which over 800,000 Tutsis, and some moderate Hutus, were massacred.

Having fled Rwanda in 2004, Mr Munyakazi taught at a college in Baltimore, USA until he was suspended in 2008 following his indictment by the Rwandan government.

Benghazi’s international airport, Benina, has reopened for commercial flights after a three year closure due to fighting in the city.

The first outward flights were from the airport to the Lybian capital Tripoli reports Reuters.

Benina is just east of Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, where fighting escalated in the summer of 2014.

Benina airport continues to facilitate military operations as well as commercial flights. 

Parliamentarians in Sweden have filed a lawsuit against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accusing him of carrying out genocide against Kurds.

"We are five lawmakers handing in a complaint... (requesting) punishment for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes," said Left party MP Annika Lillemets at a press conference in Stockholm.

The lawsuit also names several other Turkish politicians, including Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. Backed by Green Party lawmakers, it accuses Turkey of carrying out genocide and could lead to arrest warrants if pursued by Sweden’s prosecutor.

The leader of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, Abu Sayed was killed in a strike aimed at IS' headquarters along side other IS fighters, the Pengton said on Friday. 

"The significance is you kill a leader of one of these groups and it sets them back ... it is obviously a victory on our side in terms of setting them back, it is the right direction," the US defence secretary, Jim Mattis was quoted by Reuters as saying. 

Human Rights watch on Thursday warned of war crimes being committed by Iraqi forces against families of ISIS fighters following the recapture of Mosul this week. 

The New York based rights organisation accused state forces of foricbly moving over 170 families of ISIS fighters, who mainly comprise women and children, into 'rehabilitation camps' which lack basic necessities as a form of "collective punishment". 

A Serbian appeals court on Thursday halted a landmark trial against eight former Bosnian Serb police officers charged with taking part in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, reports abc news.

The court, on Thursday, said it had accepted the defence’s contention that the charges against the eight officers were invalid, because they were filed at a time when Serbia did not have a chief war crimes prosecutor.