Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed into effect a law that reinforces protective measures for women who are victims of gender-based violence, a move welcomed by feminist activists although they also demand more funds for prevention. 
  
The introduction of the law comes at a time of anger in Brazil over record cases of violence against women and a series of high-profile incidents that shocked the country and sparked widespread demonstrations on Sunday. 
  

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has sentenced a former leader of the Janjaweed militia to 20 years in prison for committing atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region. 
  
Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, 76, also known as Ali Kushayb, was sentenced on Tuesday following his conviction in October for war crimes and crimes against humanity. 
 

On Monday, thousands of Syrians took to the streets to celebrate the anniversary of Assad’s fall. 
  
The country is struggling to heal a year after the Assad dynasty’s repressive 50-year reign came to an end following 14 years of civil war that left an estimated half a million people dead, millions more displaced, and the country battered and divided. 
  

Yemen’s main southern separatist group has claimed broad control of the southern part of the country, marking a major shift in power for the area. 
 
Amr al-Bidh, a senior official of the Southern Transitional Council (STC), told the Reuters news agency on Monday that the group had extended its presence in all southern provinces—including the port of Aden, the base of the internationally-recognized government over the past decade—following a military operation codenamed “Promising Future” launched last week. 
  

An air strike last week by Myanmar’s military on a tea shop in the country’s upper-central region of Sagaing killed at least 18 civilians and wounded 20 others, a local villager and Myanmar’s independent online media said Monday. 
  
The attack is the latest in a series of frequent and deadly aerial strikes targeting armed pro-democracy forces as the country approaches elections scheduled for later this month. The strikes often cause civilian casualties. 
  

Thailand launched airstrikes along the disputed border with Cambodia on Monday as both sides accused the other of breaking a ceasefire that halted fighting earlier this year. 
  
The Thai army said that more than 50,000 people have left areas near the border for shelters, while Cambodia’s Information Minister Neth Pheaktra said that tens of thousands of residents had been displaced from several villages near the border. 
  
The latest round of clashes has killed at least one Thai soldier and four Cambodian civilians, officials said. 

Tens of thousands of women have marched in cities across Brazil, denouncing femicide and gender-based violence, after a series of high-profile cases that shocked the country. 
  
Women of all ages and some men took to the streets in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and other cities on Sunday, calling for an end to femicide, rape, and misogyny. 
 

A prominent Sudanese doctor’s group has accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of raping at least 19 women as they fled the city of el-Fasher in Darfur. 
  
The Sudan Doctors Network said in a statement on Sunday that it documented the rapes among women who had fled to the town of al-Dabba in the neighboring Northern State. 
  

A bomb explosion killed more than 30 people and wounded 20 others in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo following a dispute between the Congolese army and a pro-government militia, despite a deal signed in Washington and touted as a major step toward peace in the country. 
  
Residents and civil society leaders told The Associated Press that the FARDC, the Congolese army’s acronym, and Wazalendo, which has been helping the army combat the insurgents, clashed before they felt the blast in the town of Sange in South Kivu Sunday evening. 
  

The short-lived coup in Benin left “casualties on both sides” of the government forces and the mutinous soldiers, authorities said Monday, as security forces intensified the search for the coup leader who was on the run. 
  
The military takeover attempting to overthrow President Patrice Talon, which lasted a few hours before authorities announced it had been foiled, was the latest in a series of recent coups across Africa—most following a similar pattern of disputed elections, constitutional upheaval, security crises, and youth discontent.