Diplomacy & Crisis News

More than 10 months since Myanmar's military seized power, the country’s human rights situation is deepening on an unprecedented scale, the UN rights office, OHCHR, has warned.

If incoming President Xiomara Castro lives up to her promises, there’s a chance to address the root causes of forced migration.

U.S. ambassador Daniel Smith is tapped to lead a review to understand the lessons of U.S. involvement.

Countries “can now consider” using one or two courses of the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, otherwise known as the Johnson & Johnson, or J&J shot, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Friday. 

A flare-up in intercommunal fighting in northern Cameroon has forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes and brought a halt to aid operations there, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Friday. 

The country has the most polluted cities in the world—but so far is doing very little in response.

“Active nonalignment” is on display in a busy week of summits with both Beijing and Washington.

Biden wants to ease tensions over Ukraine, so why is that worrying NATO’s Eastern members?

Modi receives special treatment while Pakistan declines to attend.

Despite significant progress since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 73 years ago, the COVID pandemic has “fed a frightening rise in inequalities”, and laid bare “many of our failures to consolidate the advances made”, said UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet, in a message marking Human Rights Day.

The UN’s Political and Peacebuilding Affairs chief, Rosemary DiCarlo, concluded a three-day visit to Afghanistan on Thursday in which she met with senior Taliban representatives, urging them not to “erase” gains made by women and girls across the country in recent years.  

The military brass is tired of getting muzzled on Russia and China’s bad behavior.

Environmental degradation enables armed groups to extend their influence and manipulate resources to their advantage, the UN chief told the Security Council on Thursday, highlighting that conflict-prevention initiatives need to factor in climate risks.

Genocide “remains a very real threat” around the world, said the UN chief on Thursday, marking the UN International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide, and of the Prevention of this Crime. 

Although current headlines are focused on South Africa, this is very much a challenge facing the global north.

Political instability is a key factor behind new data revealed on Thursday which shows that persecution of Members of Parliament (MPs) worldwide, has reached a record high. The annual figures were released by UN partner the Inter-Parliamentary Union, on the eve of Human Rights Day, marked on 10 December.

Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the persistence of American ambition.

Early laboratory data on the effectiveness of existing vaccines against the Omicron COVID-19 variant is useful, but it is still unclear how effective these will be in treating severely sick patients, a UN health agency panel said on Thursday.

Land and water resources are “stressed to a critical point”, following significant deterioration over the past decade, according to a major new report released on Thursday by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 

The increasing needs of refugees and migrants from Venezuela have worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic, say UN rights experts. The number of Venezuelans worldwide who’ve gone on the run has now topped six million, with the vast majority hosted by countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.