Myanmar’s ruling military leader pardoned over 7,000 prisoners, including some political detainees, and detailed plans for an election later this year during a ceremony Wednesday marking the 75th anniversary of independence from Britain.

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing urged other nations and international organizations, as well as his country’s own people, to support “the genuine, discipline-flourishing multiparty democratic system,” a concept the ruling military has defined as its goal since it ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

Israel's new far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir briefly visited Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem on Tuesday, a site also revered by Jews, angering the Palestinians and drawing a slew of condemnations.

"The Temple Mount is open to all," Ben-Gvir said on Twitter, using the Jewish name for the site. Video footage showed him strolling at the periphery of the compound, surrounded by a heavy security detail and flanked by a fellow Orthodox Jew.

The European Union has urged Rwanda to stop supporting the M23 rebel group, which has captured swaths of territory in North Kivu province in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The DRC — along with the United States and several European countries – has repeatedly accused its smaller Central African neighbor Rwanda of backing the M23, although Kigali denies the charge.

Colombia called off a ceasefire with the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels on Wednesday, in an about-face after the left-wing guerrilla group said it had not agreed to halt fighting.

The reversal less than four days after the initial announcement is a setback for plans by President Gustavo Petro to bring peace to the Andean country after nearly sixty years of conflict which has killed more than 450,000 people.

Volunteer militia groups supporting Burkina Faso’s army have killed dozens of civilians of the ethnic Fulani group, including children, in the troubled country’s west, a local rights group charged on Tuesday.

Throughout 2022, ICTJ’s experts weighed in on breaking news in more than 10 countries, offering incisive analyses of the political dynamics behind the coverage and the implications for justice, peace, and the rights of victims. In this December edition of the World Report, we look back at the year that was through our Expert’s Choice commentaries, bringing you all of our team’s valuable insights together in one place.

The United Nations has announced that some “time-critical” programmes in Afghanistan have temporarily stopped and warned many other activities will also likely be paused following the Taliban’s ban on female aid workers.

The UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths, as well as the heads of key UN agencies and international aid groups, called on Wednesday for Taliban authorities to reverse their ban on women working in the humanitarian sector and to overturn “all directives banning women from schools, universities, and public life.”

Hundreds of opposition supporters rallied in the Armenian capital on Wednesday, urging the government to act to unblock a vital road to the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, after weeks of rising tension over Azerbaijani protests which choked off basic supplies to the territory.

Serbs started dismantling barricades in northern Kosovo on Thursday, hours after Kosovo reopened its main border crossing with Serbia, easing a surge in tensions that has alarmed world powers.

Serbia also ended a three-day-old state of alert for its troops, Tanjug news agency reported, as the sides showed signs of bowing to pressure from the European Union and the United States to step back from a mounting confrontation.