Recent analysis of satellite and social media data reveals that at least 68 villages in Darfur have been set on fire by Sudanese armed militias since the civil war began in April. The UK minister for Africa, Andrew Mitchell, said this bore ‘all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing’ - the first time the government has used the term to describe what is happening in Sudan. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who leads the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), said that he would cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to bring those guilty to justice. Much of the ethnic violence is blamed on militias which are part of - or affiliated to - the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group fighting the SAF for control of the country. The RSF has repeatedly denied any involvement in the violence in the region and has called for an independent international investigation. The analysis has been carried out by the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), which uses Nasa heat-recognition technology and satellite images to identify fires and matches them with images on social media.

A court in Pakistan has sentenced a Muslim man to 25 years in prison for killing a Christian woman who rejected his marriage proposal. Muhammad Shahzad, also known as Shani, was sentenced in Islamabad for killing Sonia Allah Rakha, a 24-year-old Christian woman. The judge commended the police for their thorough investigation, which led to Shani’s conviction while acquitting three other accused individuals, the group said. Shanik shot Sonia on 30 November 2020, after her family declined his marriage proposal due to religious differences. He initially fled the scene but was later apprehended by the police.on. The victim’s family said that the accused had been harassing Sonia for the previous six months and had tried to force a physical relationship with her.

On 18 October Jim Jordan, a hard-line conservative and staunch ally of former president Donald Trump, lost a second bid to be elected as speaker of the House of Representatives. Jordan, a nine-term lawmaker from the midwestern state of Ohio, won only 199 Republican votes in the second round of voting, as 22 Republican colleagues voted for other lawmakers for the top position in the lower chamber of Congress. He also trailed Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, who won the votes of all 212 Democrats, although he has no chance of becoming speaker of the chamber that is narrowly led by Republicans. Since Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker two weeks ago, the House has been rudderless. It has been unable to consider any legislation, such as a spending measure to avert a partial government shutdown when current funding runs out on 17 November, or a straightforward, bipartisan resolution to support Israel after the attack by Hamas militants. With Jordan’s defeat, it is not immediately clear what steps the House might take next to fill the speakership.

The USA is easing sanctions on Venezuela after the government and opposition agreed on 17 October to have next year's election monitored by international observers. They also promised to give all candidates access to public and private media, and to guarantee their free and safe movement throughout the country. In addition, the two sides have agreed to update the voter registries, to ensure that the millions of Venezuelans who have emigrated can exercise their right to vote. But the opposition and the government still disagree on whether the agreement allows for the exclusion of opposition frontrunner María Corina Machado. US sanctions will be eased on Venezuela's oil, gas and gold sectors, but other sanctions imposed over the suppression of protests and the erosion of democracy remain in place. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called for the release of ‘all wrongfully detained US nationals and Venezuelan political prisoners’.