Europe

13 October 2023Human Rights The UN human rights office, OHCHR, on Friday said it was “deeply concerned” by Russia’s decision to issue arrest warrants against senior judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC), following earlier warrants against its Prosecutor and Pre-trial Judges involved in examining potential war crimes in Ukraine. “We share the concerns expressed on Tuesday by the Presidency of the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties that these actions are unacceptable, and we...

7 October 2023Humanitarian Aid The UN and its partners launched on Saturday an emergency response plan to help 136,000 refugees, appealing for $97 million to respond to urgent needs of those who fled the Karabakh region and their hosts in Armenia. “We call upon the international community to urgently support refugees and their hosts,” said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. “International support is crucial to sustain this welcome and to enable us to respond to...

30 September 2023Humanitarian Aid A refugee from Afghanistan who moved to Ukraine two decades ago has been talking about his motivation for supporting the relief effort for people affected by the ongoing war there. Having previously endured conflict in Afghanistan, Ali comprehended the far-reaching implications of large-scale military actions on the lives of civilians. Immediately after the start of the Ukraine war, Ali and his wife, the owners of a small clothing store in Odessa...

More than 11,600 unaccompanied children have crossed the Central Mediterranean to Italy so far this year the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday, an increase of 60 per cent compared with last year. The number of arrivals peaked this month on small island of Lampedusa off Italy’s southern coast, with 4,800 people arriving on a single day, the agency noted. According to news reports, a migrant reception centre there was overwhelmed earlier this month, as aid and medical workers coped...

“Azerbaijan must also promptly and independently investigate alleged or suspected violations of the right to life reported in the context of its latest military offensive…during which dozens of people, including peacekeepers, were killed,” said, Morris Tidball-Binz, the UN Human Rights Council-appointed Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. Thousands have moved into Armenia from the Karabakh Economic Region of Azerbaijan in the span of just a few days...

26 September 2023UN Affairs The international community must maintain the universality of global multilateral forums and not turn them into “clubs reserved for a few elites…where some are tolerated” if they stay to themselves, a senior Holy See official told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. Real reform of the UN is vital to ensure an effective multilateral system, said Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States, as he argued for “a return to listening and dialogue”...

Members of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that they have documented attacks with explosive weapons on residential buildings, civilian infrastructure and medical institutions, as well as torture and sexual and gender-based violence. Rape allegations Commission Chair Erik Møse provided harrowing details on the findings to the Council, noting that in the Kherson region, “Russian soldiers raped and committed sexual...

Sergey Lavrov said power was slipping through the hands of the old order, dominated by Washington, which has long rejected the principle of equality. Americans and Europeans “make all sorts of promises…and then just don’t fulfil them”, he told delegates. Quoting President Vladimir Putin, he said the West was “truly an empire of lies” which even during the battle against Nazism in World War Two, had plotted an offensive against their Soviet allies. Soviet and then Russian leaders “were...

Robert Abela told leaders gathered for the UN General Assembly’s annual debate that the voices of all countries – large and small, rich and poor – and of all elements for civil society must be heard and play a role in building and sustaining a better world. “We must build a new age of security. Not by trying to turn the clock back. But by getting the future right!” Going to highlight the importance of “rebuilding trust to achieve sustainability for all”, he underscored Malta’s commitment...

Mr. Dowden said the so-named AI Safety Summit, set for November, will aim to preempt the risks posed by frontier AI and explore how it can be used for the public good. “AI is the biggest transformation the world has known,” he emphasized, noting that it is going to change everything we do, the way we live, relations between nations, and it is going to change the United Nations, fundamentally. “Our task as governments is to understand it, grasp it, and seek to govern it, and we must do so...