Headlines
After being convicted of threatening a police officer in an online chat room, a Belarusian man faces two years of forced labour, while a 19-year-old arrested for displaying an opposition flag in his student dorm window faces seven years in jail on extremism charges. Following a months-long crackdown on the opposition in the aftermath of a widely regarded rigged presidential election, Belarusian authorities are now tightening their grip on even the tiniest signs of dissent
Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks at a Security Council open debate on Peace and Security in Africa: Resolving Root Causes of Conflict and Fostering Post-Pandemic Recovery in Africa
According to new estimates, the birth rate in the United States has decreased dramatically over the last year for every major race and age group
UNHCR is providing assistance to local farmers in one of Bangladesh’s poorest districts, which is home to 900,000 Rohingya refugees, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic
The unrest in Gaza and Jerusalem has spread across Israel’s neighbourhoods
People from all over Kazakhstan marched to the presidential palace in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan’s capital, to protest rising interest rates and crippling personal debt. Police blocked the march…Kazakhs protested in Almaty against so-called reeducation camps in China’s Xinjiang province, where relatives are said to be held. The 100th day of demonstrations began on May 18
Press briefings by Sofiane Mimouni, Permanent Representative of Algeria to the United Nations and Chair of the Arab Group for the month of May 2021; Abdou Abarry, Permanent Representative of Niger to the United Nations and Chair of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation for the month of May 2021; and Riyad Mansour, Permanent Representative of Palestine to the United Nations
Since the coronavirus pandemic began in early 2020, the number of anti-Asian hate crimes in the US has increased dramatically. Isolated cases are recorded by international students in the United States
South Africa began a new phase of its vaccination programme this week, targeting people over the age of 60
Memet Abdulla, the former chief of the forestry bureau of China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), was detained by national security officers on April 29, 2017, shortly after the launch of a campaign of mass extralegal incarceration that has since seen up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities held in a vast network of internment camps in the region. Abdulla is one of the highest-ranking officials whose detention and subsequent arrest in the campaign have been confirmed. Last year, RFA’s Uyghur Service confirmed details of his disappearance and sentencing to life in prison last year for being “two-faced”—a term regularly used by authorities to refer to Uyghur cadres who they say pay lip service to Communist Party rule in the XUAR, but secretly chafe against state repression of members of their ethnic group