UN accuses Myanmar of ethnically cleansing Muslims

Despite Bangladesh’s immigration laws disallowing unregistered entrants from crossing the border into their nation from neighboring countries, thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled their homes in Myanmar, seeking refuge in the Southeast Asian nation. A United Nations spokesman, John McKissick, announced on Thursday that the international organization believes the Myanmar government has been ethnically cleansing […]

Turkey dismisses close to 15,000 more in post-coup probe

Turkey on Tuesday dismissed close to 15,000 more civil servants, military officials, police and others and shut down more than 500 institutions and news outlets in investigations over a failed coup in July, authorities said in two official decrees. More than 110,000 people have been sacked or suspended in the military, civil service, judiciary and […]

UK passes new ‘draconian’ mass surveillance law

The UK just passed the most elaborate mass surveillance law in the Western world. The Investigatory Powers Bill, commonly referred to in England as “The Snoopers Charter,” gives the government unprecedented access to the online activities of its citizens as well as legally requiring tech companies to cooperate with government investigations. Both the House of […]

Donald Trump must respect ‘Irreversible’ Paris climate deal, French President Hollande says

“The United States, the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, must respect the commitments that were made”  French President Francois Hollande is urging President-elect Donald Trump and his government to respect the “irreversible” Paris Agreement on climate change that has been signed by more than 190 countries. Speaking at a U.N. climate conference in Marrakech, Morocco, […]

China Discovers the Price of Global Power: Soldiers Returning in Caskets

On his 22nd birthday, Corporal Li Lei sent a WeChat update from a United Nations compound in South Sudan. A firefight between government forces and rebels had erupted in the capital, Juba, and threatened to engulf the camp where his Chinese peacekeeping force was standing guard. His birthday wish, sent on the messaging app on July 8 […]

The U.S. military is quietly influencing African peacekeeping missions. Here’s how

Nearly 70 years after the United Nations first deployed its iconic blue helmets, demand for peacekeepers is on the rise. In July, the United States teamed with India, the world’s second-largest contributor to international peacekeeping forces, to train African military officers and expand its influence in developing nations. Experts say the partnership, a first in […]

Inquiry Says U.N. Peacekeepers Failed to Respond to South Sudan Hotel Attack

United Nations peacekeepers failed to respond to an attack on civilians by South Sudanese government troops at the Hotel Terrain in the capital Juba in July, less than a mile from a U.N. compound, a U.N. inquiry found on Tuesday. “During the attack, civilians were subjected to and witnessed gross human rights violations, including murder, […]

Air strike kills 17 in Yemen as exiled president rejects peace plan

At least 17 civilians were killed in Yemen’s southwestern province of Taiz on Saturday by a Saudi-led coalition air strike that struck a house, local officials and residents said. The raid targeted a house in the al-Salw district, the sources said, an area of Taiz where Houthi rebels and government forces backed by the coalition […]

At least 25 killed in fresh CAR fighting, says UN

At least 25 people have been killed, six of them police, in two days of violence around the town of Bambari in the troubled Central African Republic, the UN force MINUSCA has said. Six police and four civilians were killed in an ambush by armed men on Friday morning, while on Thursday, 15 people died […]

Blood and War: UN Agency Cooperates With Assad

The United Nations’ World Health Organization, which claims “impartiality and independence from external sources and authorities” in its operations, has been quietly cooperating with Syria’s murderous Assad regime in one of the ugliest aspects of its civil war: the weaponization of blood. WHO claims to be impartial, dispensing relief from suffering according to need, and […]

U.N. prepares for possible chemical attack in Mosul and civilian exodus

The U.N.’s public health agency said Thursday it has trained 90 Iraqi medics in “mass casualty management,” with a special focus on chemical attacks, as part of its preparations for Iraq’s operation to retake Mosul from the Islamic State group. The extremist group, which has ruled Iraq’s second largest city for more than two years, […]