UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday urged world leaders to take concrete action and invest in peace, warning that violence, division and conflict are deepening worldwide and that needed dialogue to resolve conflicts is absent. Guterres spoke during the annual Japanese Peace Bell ceremony at UN Headquarters in New York, held ahead of the International [...]

A federal appeals court in Boston on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s request to remove an injunction barring the US Postal Service (USPS) from implementing the rule restricting the issuance of mail-in ballots, affirming a decision from a lower district court. The injunction, issued at the end of August by US District Judge Indira Talwani [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned Wednesday that worsening repression, poverty and forced returns were deepening Afghanistan’s crisis, criticizing the international community for abandoning the Afghan people at a time when humanitarian funding for the country has sharply declined. Calling on governments to put the lives of citizens first and pressure the [...]

Nepal on Wednesday appealed for emergency assistance from a UN fund designed to help developing countries cope with the effects of climate change. The appeal comes in the aftermath of floods caused by an August 26 glacier collapse on the border with China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. UN Resident Coordinator for Nepal Lila Pieters Yahia stated: [...]

Orchestrated voices are laying the groundwork for a constitutional amendment required to partition the four provinces. The Interior Minister, close to the Establishment (a popular term for serving generals and top bureaucrats), declared that the current system has collapsed and cannot deliver. The military spokesman, who periodically holds press conferences on state affairs, opined that [...]

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) issued a press statement Tuesday, hailing the August 30 agreement between Libya’s rival political factions as “an important step” toward facilitating the country’s first national elections in more than a decade. The deal, reached by the “Smaller Convening” (also known as the 4+4 committee) and facilitated by the United [...]

Human Rights Watch on Wednesday raised concerns surrounding Hezbollah’s alleged unlawful use of cluster munitions in attacks on Metula in northern Israel on March 4 and March 15 of this year, calling for an independent investigation into the attacks. HRW researchers visited Metula in May, interviewed four witnesses and examined impact sites, photographs and video [...]

Amnesty International on Tuesday condemned Meta Platforms Inc. for failing to adequately enforce its own content moderation policies against anti-LGBTI hate speech on Facebook in Hungary, stating that the platform prioritized engagement over the safety of marginalized communities. Daniela Schnidrig, interim policy and advocacy adviser at Amnesty International’s Big Tech Accountability Team, said: Meta contributed [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International and the World Alliance for Citizen Participation (CIVICUS) on Thursday urged the Singapore government to drop charges against several human rights activists involved in peaceful assemblies in support of Gaza, and to challenge the death penalty. Elijah Tay, Kyal Sin Linn Naing, Dayana Noor Mohamed, Nur Sabrina Kamel, Nurul [...]

The mountain was colder than she had expected. She had imagined it many times before, but always through him: through the photographs he had brought home, the fragments of routes he described, the names he gave to rocks and ridges, and the particular change that came over his face when he spoke about climbing. He [...]