The UN expressed concern on Wednesday for the safety of civilians in the southern Afghanistan city of Lashkar Gah, where tens of thousands of people are believed to be trapped by fighting between Afghan government forces and the Taliban, which has stepped up its campaign to defeat the US-backed government since April. UN Secretary-General Spokesperson [...]

The New Zealand Human Rights Commission announced Sunday that it will hold a national inquiry into the country’s housing crisis. The Commission also released a framework that gives 21 guidelines on the right to a decent home in New Zealand. The Commission will use the framework in a national inquiry into the right to a decent [...]

A Syrian doctor living in Germany was charged Wednesday with crimes against humanity after being accused of 18 counts of torturing people in military hospitals in the Syrian cities of Homs and Damascus. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe said that Alla Mousa, who came to Germany in 2015, is accused of 18 counts of [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has ruled that an immigration judge’s two-sentence decision denying asylum to an Ecuadorean man was insufficient. The case was brought by Jorge Luis Valarezo-Tirado for review of an Immigration Judge’s reinstatement of his prior order of removal. The Immigration Judge initially affirmed a Department of Homeland [...]

The Pietermaritzburg High Court of South Africa granted former President Jacob Zuma’s request for a delay in his arms deals corruption trial on Tuesday. The proceedings were adjourned for three weeks until August 10. The High Court Judge Piet Koen said that the trial in relation to issues raised in the special plea in terms [...]

The French minister for agriculture, Julien Denormandie, confirmed in an interview Sunday that the controversial farming practices of chick culling and piglet castration are set to be banned in France from 2022. The practice of the killing of male chicks by crushing or gassing has been denounced as barbaric by animal welfare groups, and France’s [...]

The European Union on Wednesday announced the adoption of a package of proposals designed to make its climate, energy, land use, transport, and taxation policies fit for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. The announcement stated that achieving these emission reductions in the next decade [...]

Lithuania’s foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis and EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell accused Belarus of using migrants as a political weapon to put pressure on the EU, at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. Lithuanian officials urged the EU to place a new round of punitive measures on Belarus and its ruler, [...]

UN Special Rapporteur Thomas Andrews called Wednesday for countries to impose economic sanctions on Myanmar’s oil and gas sector in order to cripple the junta that took power over the country five months ago. Andrews identified two patterns that have emerged since then; the military junta’s widespread, systematic attacks on the people of Myanmar and [...]

A South African court has agreed to hear ex-president Jacob Zuma’s challenge to a 15-month jail term for failing to attend a corruption hearing, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported. The Constitutional Court ruled on June 29 that Zuma will be sentenced to 15 months imprisonment after he was found to be in contempt of [...]