UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Friday condemned the forced repatriations of refugees and asylum-seekers to Afghanistan by countries in the name of concerns over national security or economic strains, deeming it a clear violation of international human rights law.  In emphasizing the urgency of the humanitarian crisis affecting this marginalized group, [...]

A policy shift announced Friday by US Citizenship and Immigration Services stands to alter the most common pathway to lawful permanent residence in the United States, requiring most foreign nationals already in the country to leave and apply for a green card through a US consulate abroad. Former USCIS officials estimate that roughly one million [...]

On May 18, President Donald Trump moved to voluntarily dismiss his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), just two days before US District Judge Kathleen Williams imposed a May 20 deadline requiring both sides to argue whether the lawsuit involved unconstitutional collusion or executive self-dealing. The dismissal came as the Department of [...]

Taiwan’s three-day Review Meeting on its National Reports on the Two International Human Rights Covenants concluded, followed by a press conference, on May 15. The review committee expressed concern over the operation of the Constitutional Court, which currently functions with only eight incumbent justices, out of the statutory total of 15. The Constitutional Court had [...]

Federal Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Nashville on Friday dismissed criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, ruling that the charges were punitive for challenging his deportation last year. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is the man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March 2025, despite an October 2019 “withholding of removal” issued by the Board of [...]

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has settled its first national case with a school district over harm to children’s mental health.  The terms of the settlement with Breathitt County School District in eastern Kentucky are confidential. However, the district initially sought over $60 million to cover the costs of treating the injuries caused [...]

A UN expert on Friday praised a ruling by Colombia’s Supreme Court upholding a 20-year prison sentence for a man found guilty of offering money to young children in exchange for sexual acts. The ruling officially recognises commercial sexual exploitation as part of the country’s wider system of violence against minors. In commenting on the [...]

The World Health Organization (WHO), a United Nations body, and the African Medicines Agency (AMA), an African Union body, signed a Framework Agreement for Collaboration on Friday, aiming to strengthen regulatory systems and improve access to safe, efficient and quality-assured health products across the African continent. The Framework Agreement for Collaboration establishes a partnership between [...]

The labor union at South Korea’s Samsung Electronics held off on launching a planned 18-day strike Wednesday after reaching a last-minute, tentative wage deal with the company management, alleviating immediate concerns about a potential operational shutdown at the world’s leading memory chip maker. The tentative agreement comes roughly six months after the union’s formation in [...]