The United Nations refugee agency is assisting refugees and migrants amid chaotic scenes over the weekend as thousands of people tried to cross into the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) from the Greek border.

Islamic State blew up the ancient temple of Baal Shamin in the  Unesco-listed  Syrian city of Palmyra, the country’s antiquities chief has said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a  Britain-based  group that monitors the country’s civil war, confirmed the destruction of the temple.

Crimea was "totally Russian" in the Soviet times and remains Russian nowadays, said an observer for The Japan Times, having visited the peninsula. According to him, Moscow’s arguments related to Crimea are worth listening, but the West is deaf to them.

19 August 2015 — The top United Nations political official today warned the Middle East has recently witnessed "unconscionable" hate crimes, "reprehensible" retaliatory violence, provocations at Jerusalem’s holy sites, and a worrying increase in rockets launched from Gaza towards Israel, as he urged all sides to work together to reduce tensions and prevent extremist attacks.

In the month of July, the number of migrants detected at EU’s borders more than tripled to 107,500 compared to the same month of last year, surpassing the 100,000 mark in a single month for the first time since Frontex began keeping records in 2008.

The Chinese firm whose warehouse in Tianjin exploded last week killing at least 114 people did not have a licence to handle hazardous chemicals until two months ago, Xinhua news agency says.

Strongly condemning attacks in Sirte by the  so-called  Islamic State (Daesh), the United Nations Support Mission in Libya stressed today it is "high time" that Libyans agree a unity government to address the country’s challenges and "join together to confront the scourge" of the group, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.

The government of St. Louis County extended for at least 24 hours a state of emergency in Ferguson, Missouri, which has been the scene of protests a year after an unarmed black teenager was killed by a white police officer.

In the report presented during the 29th Human Rights Council Session in Geneva, Switzerland, the widespread and systematic human rights violations of the most serious kinds committed by the ISIL were amounted to genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

On 10 August, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe issued the following statement: 
"I am shocked by the murder of Rasim Aliyev, Chairman of the Institute for Reporters Safety and Freedom. It is a very worrying sign that the safety of journalists in the country is deteriorating further. I call on the Azerbaijani authorities to fully and promptly investigate this murder and to bring the perpetrators to justice.