Countries are being urged to do their utmost to end the death penalty. The call comes from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who spoke at a high level event on capital punishment at the United Nations on Tuesday. Mr. Ban said more than 150 states have abolished the death penalty, a trend which he says is only [...]
1. Ban hopes Action Group for Syria meeting will be a turning point 2. Action Group for Syria meets in Geneva 3. Both parties in Syria Committing gross human rights violations, says Paulo Pinheiro 4. Humanitarian situation in South Sudan deteriorating 5. End of refugee status for Angolan & Liberian exiles 6. UN adopts International [...]
A global heritage protection organization is calling on the United Nations to help Mali preserve its cultural treasures. The World Heritage Committee is asking the head of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), to create a fund to assist the West African country with this endeavour. Violence in northern Mali has resulted in [...]
Civil society groups on Tuesday presented the UN Secretary-General with a petition from more than 600,000 people calling for a global arms trade treaty. Negotiations for the treaty are currently underway at the United Nations in New York. Salil Shetty, head of Amnesty International, is with the Control Arms Coalition. He says people worldwide have [...]
The Global Innovation Index rates Switzerland as the number one country in innovative performance. The Index, created in part by WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, ranks 141 countries and economies on their ability to innovate and on the results that are achieved. For the past two years, Switzerland has been at the top of [...]
The fabled city of Timbuktu and its 15th century tombs are in imminent danger of destruction as fighting continues in Mali. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is so concerned, it placed Timbuktu on its list of World Heritage in Danger. UNESCO is calling on all parties in Mali to safeguard the site, [...]
UN member states and civil society groups are meeting in New York to negotiate a treaty regulating the conventional arms trade. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaking on Tuesday called the historic event important and impressive, but long overdue. He said with military spending topping US $1 trillion annually, the world is over-armed, meanwhile peace is under-funded. [...]
Croatia's Coast Guard has been commended by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) for the prompt rescue of 65 people on a boat adrift in the Adriatic Sea. The rescue took place on Monday after the boat was spotted drifting off the Croatian island of Mljet on Sunday. It had reportedly left from Greece and lost [...]
Torture has been one of the most documented human rights violations of the ongoing conflict in Syria, according to the UN Human Rights Office. Spokesman Rupert Colville told journalists in Geneva on Tuesday that organizations including his office, Human Rights Watch and the independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria, have been tracking incidents. He [...]
A project is underway to house the last families made homeless by the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti and, at the same time, restore the country's cultural capital. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and American actor and producer Sean Pean, Ambassador-at-Large for Haiti, will relocate families at the last two of 36 displacement camps [...]
Racism in sports is a major problem and is likely to mar the up coming Olympic Games unless it is tackled urgently, according to the UN expert on racism Mutuma Rutere. In a report to the UN Human Rights Council Mr Rutere cited the recent incidents of violence and racism that occurred during the just [...]
The joint UN and Arab League special envoy on Syria, Kofi Annan, is appealing to the government and the opposition to take an objective look at the peace road map drawn by the Syrian Action group which met in Geneva last Saturday. Mr Annan says the proposals put forward by the meeting provide a clear [...]
