Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 6 November 2014

News is emerging of a horrific mass rape allegedly committed by Sudanese soldiers against women and girls in Darfur. After chasing men away from the village of Tabit on Friday night, soldiers reportedly spent several hours raping their victims, which included young primary school pupils. The UN-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur says it sent a patrol to urgently investigate the incident, but was blocked from entering the area by Sudanese forces. Meanwhile India has stooped to a new low in its increasingly dire record on sexual violence. Delhi's High Court has overturned a rape conviction because a woman who had injuries to her vagina and died as a result of “forceful sexual intercourse” had apparently not been sexually assaulted. The fact that the victim, who was in her late 60s, didn't have injuries elsewhere to her body showed "she had not made any protest against the act", the court said. The tobacco giant Philip Morris International has brought in a new policy that could help protect child workers from danger on tobacco farms in the United States. US law allows children as young as 12 to work on tobacco farms. A report by Human Rights Watch earlier this year found children who do so are exposed to nicotine and toxic pesticides and as a result are falling sick. The EU’s new foreign policy chief has urged Israel to “reverse” its latest settlement expansion in her first statement on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Federica Mogherini, who is to visit Israel and the West Bank tomorrow in her first official EU trip, called Israel's decision to approve 500 new housing units in East Jerusalem "a highly detrimental step" that questions Israel's commitment to peace. The African Union recently announced that it will investigate allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by some of its AMISOM soldiers in Somalia. The move, prompted by a September Human Rights Watch report, could help end impunity for sexual violence. But women reporting sexual crimes in Somalia still face threats, intimidation, victimization and stigma. The plight of Burma's Rohinga Muslim minority is again in the spotlight. Two years ago Rohingya communities in western Burma were torn apart by ethnic violence. Today, tens of thousands of Rohingya remain housed in primitive camps under government armed guard, while others have tried to flee overseas only to be exploited by people traffickers. Could the Arab Spring be turning full circle in Libya? With the country gripped by a desperate civil war, it looks like the Gaddafis - so brutally ousted from power three years ago - are trying to find a way back home, and into power. Meanwhile Libya's Supreme Court ruled today that national elections held in the June were "unconstitutional". The ruling is certain to plunge Libya even deeper into crisis.