Senior leaders from Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) met three times this January in Bahrain, sources with knowledge of the talks said, the first such contact between the two warring sides in nine months of conflict.

Unlike previous talks on the war in Sudan, the meetings in Manama were attended by influential deputies from both forces and by officials from the Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, key supporters of the army and RSF respectively, according to the four sources, two of whom were present at the talks.

In 2021, the Central African Republic created the Truth, Justice, Reparation and Reconciliation Commission (CVJRR) to establish the truth, pursue justice, and restore victims’ dignity, with a view to ultimately achieving national reconciliation. In this fragile country, battered by successive episodes of violence, justice, in its broadest sense, has always been and remains a lifelong demand of victims. After a lengthy operationalization phase, the CVJRR is now finally getting ready to start registering and hearing victims’ testimonies. The first step in this process is statement taking, which requires taking several key factors into account to be successful.

Hamas said on January 30 it was weighing up a new ceasefire proposal in the war with Israel in Gaza, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his forces would not withdraw from the enclave until they had achieved "total victory."

The developments came hours after Israeli commandos disguised as medical workers and Muslim women killed three Palestinian militants in an undercover raid on a hospital in the occupied West Bank—an action that underscored the risk of the Gaza conflict spreading to other fronts.

The International Criminal Court's (ICC) chief prosecutor told the UN Security Council on January 29 "there are grounds to believe" both Sudan's regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are committing war crimes in Darfur at present.

War erupted in Sudan on April 15, 2023 between the Sudanese armed forces and the RSF. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan launched an investigation in July last year into the surge of hostilities in Sudan's Darfur region.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on January 29 that he has proposed the signing of a non-aggression pact to Azerbaijan, pending a comprehensive peace treaty between the arch-foe Caucasus neighbors.

Yerevan and Baku have fought two wars—in 2020 and in the 1990s—over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan recaptured in a lightning offensive last year. Almost the entire ethnic-Armenian population—more than 100,00 people—fled Karabakh for Armenia following Baku's takeover, sparking a refugee crisis.

Pakistan court has sentenced former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his close aide, former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, to 10 years in jail in a case related to the leaking of state secrets. The special court set up in a prison in Rawalpindi on January 30 announced the sentence in the so-called cypher case, which pertains to a diplomatic cable that Khan claims proves his allegation that his removal from power in 2022 was a conspiracy.

Venezuela’s Supreme Justice Tribunal has upheld a ban which prevents presidential candidate Maria Corina Machado from holding office, upending the opposition’s plans for elections planned for later this year.

Machado, a former lawmaker, won the opposition’s independently run presidential primary last October with more than 90 percent of the votes, potentially putting her in a prime position to challenge longtime socialist leader Nicolas Maduro at the elections.

Kenya is going to push ahead with plans to lead a UN-approved security mission to Haiti, despite a court in Nairobi last week blocking the deployment, Kenyan President William Ruto told Reuters on January 30.

The international force is aimed at tackling rampant gang violence in the Caribbean nation, which killed nearly 5,000 people last year, and is due to be initially financed by the United States.

Thousands of people have gathered to protest in cities and towns in Kenya against the recent slayings of more than a dozen women. The anti-femicide demonstration on January 27 was the largest event ever held in the country against sexual and gender-based violence.

In the capital, Nairobi, protesters wore T-shirts printed with the names of women who became homicide victims this month. The crowd, composed mostly of women, brought traffic to a standstill.

The World Court ordered Israel on January 26 to prevent acts of genocide against the Palestinians and do more to help civilians, although it stopped short of ordering a ceasefire as requested by the plaintiff South Africa.

The court found that there was a case to be heard about whether Palestinian rights were being denied in a war it said was causing grievous humanitarian harm. It also called for Palestinian armed groups to release hostages captured in the October 7 attacks on Israel that precipitated the conflict.