News Clips- January 6, 2017

The United Nations requested the government of Burundi to remove a ban placed this week on a prominent rights group in the region, and to lessen other restrictions waged against civil society organizations in the past three months. [Washington Post]
This Thursday, Bahrain reinstated arrest powers within its domestic spy service in a move that diverges from reforms recommended by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry and that may have negative implications for activists and protesters in the region. [New York Times]
In Lebanon, women’s rights activists continue to protest a law commuting sentences of rapists that marry their victims; a parliamentary committee will consider striking it down. [Al Jazeera]

Migration out of Venezuela is expected to continue as shortages in food and medicine, economic and political uncertainty, and violence motivate nearly 10,000 Venezuelans to flee to Brazil, and many others to Colombia, each month. [Washington Post]
In France, a case against a farmer who helped smuggle migrants has gained popularity as a platform for exposing “ignoble” national policies aiming to strengthen restrictive immigration law in the country. [New York Times]

United Nations experts supported the removal of a textbook on slavery from schools in the United States that inaccurately and offensively characterized slavery. [OHCHR Press Release]
In response to heightened tensions, the United Nations Special Representative and Head of the UN Support Mission in Libya urged stakeholders to rely on peaceful dialogue and political solutions in order to implement the Libyan Political Agreement. [UN News Centre]

On Tuesday, the Investigation Commission on Maungtaw, established by the government of Myanmar to investigate recent violence in its northern region, released an interim report that did not confirm claims of genocide and religious persecution of Rohingya Muslims. [Relief Web]
This week, two United Nations peace keepers from Morocco were killed, and two others injured, during an ambush in the Central African Republic. [UN News Centre]
Culminating on Monday, an estimated 50 to 80 inmates were killed in Brazil during a prison riot ignited by two gangs, implicating poor prison conditions and ongoing crises with narcotrafficking in the region. [Washington Post]
On Monday, Syrian rebels accused the Syrian government and Iranian allies of violating the ceasefire negotiated by Turkey and Russia, and froze their participation in peace talks set to take place in Kazakhstan. [Guardian]

This week in Sri Lanka a committee appointed by the government issued a report proposing that a hybrid court, comprised predominantly of national judges and a “sufficient” number of temporary international judges, be installed as the mechanism to investigate allegations of war crimes committed during the country’s civil war. [Washington Post]
On Thursday, the former prime minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, faced extradition proceedings in France for alleged war crimes committed in the 1998-1999 war for independence from Serbia; the government of Kosovo refutes the charges as “illegal, unfair, and tendentious.” [New York Times]
With 5.5 million people estimated to lack adequate access to water supplies in the Damascus area, a United Nations humanitarian adviser for Syria warned that deprivation of water, either by the Syrian government or rebels, constitutes a war crime. [Guardian]
On Tuesday, a trial chamber of the International Criminal Court decision affirmed the court’s jurisdiction over alleged war crimes of rape and sexual slavery of child soldiers, finding that limiting jurisdiction would be “contrary to the rationale of international humanitarian law,” and holding that these crimes are prohibited at all times, in peace and during armed conflict. [ICC Press Release]

This week, the Director of United States intelligence affirmed evidence of Russian interference in the November election following concerns over the credibility of his findings. [Guardian]
Additional transfers of Guantanamo prisoners are set to transpire before U.S. President Obama leaves office at the end of this month, despite objections from the president-elect. [Al Jazeera]
In Haiti, businessman Jovenel Moise was declared president-elect on Tuesday. [Al Jazeera]
Over the weekend North Korea announced its continued progress in nuclear-arms development in contravention of UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions. [Washington Post]
On Sunday, Finland launched a novel two-year pilot program intended to target poverty, granting unemployed citizens aged 25 to 58 guaranteed monthly sums. [Guardian]