Thomas Andrews, a former U.S. congressman from Maine who is the U.N. special investigator on Myanmar, called for free and fair elections but expressed concerns about the denial of the vote to Rohingya Muslims and others based on race, ethnicity or religion.

Kyaw Tint Swe, Myanmar's minister for the office of the state counsellor, also said the militant group — the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, known as ARSA — and another insurgent group, the Arakan Army guerrilla force, have used Bangladesh as a sanctuary in their separate campaigns against the government.

U.N. ambassador Bob Rae says Canada and the Netherlands will be making a joint submission to the International Criminal Court based on the legal issues that arise from the solders' confessions.

The reports said the men were taken to The Hague in the Netherlands, where they could appear as witnesses or face trial.

The 71-year-old man died on May 31 while undergoing treatment at an isolation centre at the camps where over a million Rohingya live, officials said.

In a unanimous 17-0 decision on Thursday, the International Court of Justice rejected Myanmar's argument that the deaths of the Rohingya were part of an "armed military conflict."

The two sides exchanged memoranda of understanding, letters and protocols covering 33 projects in the fields of information, industry, agriculture, security and the resettlement of internally displaced people in Myanmar's war-torn Kachin State, which borders China.

The 193-member world body voted 134-9 with 28 abstentions in favour of the resolution which also calls on Myanmar’s government to take urgent measures to combat incitement of hatred against the Rohingya and other minorities in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan states.

Spanning the globe, some stories were expected while others caught the world off guard. Some, including the Rohingya exodus, Arab Spring, BP oil spill and the melting of glaciers so massive they were visible from space through the satellite imagery of Maxar Technologies.

Aung San Suu Kyi denied that her government committed genocide against the Muslim minority group at the International Court of Justice in the Hague on Wednesday.