Chad voters go to the polls on Sunday for a referendum on a new constitution, in a key step towards elections and the return of civilian rule promised, but postponed, by the ruling military junta. 

A large section of the opposition and civil society in the central African country are calling for a boycott. 

Suriname’s former dictator will face a final verdict this month in the years-long judicial process over the 1982 killings of 15 political opponents that deeply scarred the South American country. 

Desi Bouterse and two dozen others were accused of rounding up well-known people including lawyers, journalists and a university professor and executing them in a colonial fortress in the capital, Paramaribo. 

Taliban officials are sending Afghan women to prison to protect them from gender-based violence, according to a UN report published Thursday. 

Before the Taliban seized power in 2021, there were 23 state-sponsored women protection centers in Afghanistan where survivors of gender-based violence could seek refuge. Now there are none, the UN report said. 

The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to demand a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza in a strong demonstration of global support for ending the Israel-Hamas war. The vote—which comes days after the United States vetoed a resolution in the Security Council to the same effect—also shows the growing isolation of the U.S. and Israel. 

Russia's second missile assault on Kyiv this week injured at least 53 people, damaging homes and a children's hospital, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pleaded for more help for his country. 

Ukraine's air defense systems downed all 10 ballistic missiles that targeted the capital at about 3 A.M. (0100 GMT), Ukraine's Air Force said on the Telegram app. 

Tensions between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda have escalated, heightening the risk of a military confrontation that could draw in Burundi, the top UN official in the DRC warned the Security Council on Monday. 

Colombia's Central General Command (EMC) rebel group has announced it will stop kidnapping people for ransom. 

The EMC is the largest offshoot of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and is made up of rebels who refused to lay down their arms when the FARC signed a peace deal in 2016. 

Myanmar’s military government confirmed Monday that it has been holding talks, brokered by China, with representatives of an alliance of ethnic minority armed groups against which it is engaged in fierce combat in the country’s northeast. 

Two Israeli strikes that killed a Reuters videographer and wounded six other journalists in south Lebanon nearly two months ago were apparently deliberate and a direct attack on civilians, two international human rights groups said Thursday. 

The UN human rights chief urged countries on Monday to work together to defeat threats such as war and pollution at an event to mark 75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that risks being overshadowed by the Israel-Hamas conflict.