Moscow isolated at United Nations assembly, with no major country siding with it
China and India have called for a negotiated end to the Ukraine war, stopping short of robust support for traditional ally Russia.
After a week of pressure at the United Nations general assembly, Russia’s foreign minister took the general assembly rostrum to deliver a fiery rebuke to western nations for what he termed a “grotesque” campaign against Russians.
Continue reading...Comments from Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi come after meeting with US secretary of state Antony Blinken on sidelines of UN general assembly
China has accused the United States of sending “very wrong, dangerous signals” on Taiwan after the US secretary of state told his Chinese counterpart on Friday that the maintenance of peace and stability over Taiwan was vitally important.
Taiwan was the focus of the 90-minute, “direct and honest” talks between the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, on the margins of the UN general assembly in New York, a US official told reporters.
Continue reading...Yoon Suk-yeol accused of discourtesy in London and of swearing after chat to Joe Biden
South Korea’s president has been accused of causing a “diplomatic disaster” after his first major international trip, to the Queen’s funeral and the UN general assembly, was marred by alleged discourtesy and an expletive directed at members of the US congress.
Yoon Suk-yeol, a conservative who was already battling low approval ratings only months after taking office, drew criticism from across the South Korean political spectrum after he failed to attend the Queen’s lying in state despite traveling to London.
Continue reading...Volodymyr Zelenskiy urges UN to adopt five-point plan for peace in Ukraine; more than 1,300 people arrested in anti-mobilisation rallies throughout Russia
Security forces detained more than 1,300 people in Russia overnight at protests denouncing mobilisation, a rights group said, hours after President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s first military draft since the second world war.
The independent OVD-Info protest monitoring group said that according to information it had collated from 38 Russian cities, more than 1,311 people had been held by late evening. It said those figures included at least 502 in Moscow and 524 in St Petersburg, Russia’s second most populous city. Unsanctioned rallies are illegal under Russia’s anti-protest laws.
Russian interior ministry official Irina Volk, in a statement quoted by Russian news agencies, said officers had cut short attempts to stage what it called small protests. “In a number of regions, there were attempts to stage unauthorised actions which brought together an extremely small number of participants,” Volk was quoted as saying. “These were all stopped.”
The Moscow Times is carrying a report that a Russian military recruitment office and an administration building were attacked overnight in two separate locations during the anti-mobilisation protests.
The UK’s ministry of defence has described the mobilisation as an admission that Russia has “exhausted its supply of willing volunteers to fight in Ukraine”. It said “Russia is likely to struggle with the logistical and administrative challenges of even mustering the 300,000 personnel. It will probably attempt to stand up new formations with many of these troops, which are unlikely to be combat effective for months.”
Traffic arriving at Finland’s eastern border with Russia has “intensified” during the night, the Finnish border guard said early on Thursday, while adding that the situation was under control. One-way flights out of Russia were rocketing in price and selling out fast on Wednesday after Putin ordered the immediate call-up of 300,000 reservists.
Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and prime minister, and currently deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, has threatened attacks on Europe and US, saying “Referendums will be held, and the Donbas republics and other territories will be admitted to Russia. Any Russian weapons, including strategic nuclear weapons and weapons based on new principles, could be used [to protect them]. Therefore, various retired idiots with generals’ stripes do not need to scare us with talk about a Nato strike on Crimea. Hypersonic is guaranteed to be able to reach targets in Europe and the United States much faster.”
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has described Joe Biden’s speech on Wednesday at the UN as “indecent”, and accused the US president of mis-quoting his Russian counterpart over nuclear threats.
Biden had denounced Vladimir Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons as “reckless” and “irresponsible” and called Russia’s planned annexation of more regions of Ukraine as “an extremely significant violation” of the UN charter. The US president was speaking to the UN general assembly, where he sought to galvanise the outrage of UN member states at the threat that Putin’s actions and “imperial ambitions” posed to the UN’s founding values.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, shrugged off Russian moves to escalate the war, saying his country’s forces would continue their counteroffensive, not giving Russia breathing space to mobilise and dig in on Ukrainian soil. “We can return the Ukrainian flag to our entire territory. We can do it with the force of arms, but we need time,” Zelenskiy said in a recorded broadcast to the UN general assembly on Wednesday, which Russia had tried to stop but was overwhelmingly voted down by member states.
Continue reading...UK PM spurns Russian president’s ‘sabre-rattling’ as she prepares call for democratic renewal in UN address
Liz Truss has dismissed Vladimir Putin’s warning that Russia will use “all the means at our disposal” to protect itself as “sabre-rattling” in advance of her UN speech, where she will warn him: “This will not work.”
The Russian president’s threats in a televised address to the nation appeared to suggest the conflict in Ukraine could spiral into a nuclear crisis, prompting a furious response from world leaders, led by the US president, Joe Biden.
Continue reading...Letitia James accuses former president and his family of fraudulently inflating their net worth for financial benefits
Biden has kicked off his UN speech with strong rhetoric against Russia, pointed to the global body’s own rules to characterize Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine as illegal and reckless.
“A permanent member of the United Nations Security Council invaded his neighbor, attempted to erase a sovereign state from the map. Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenets of the United Nations Charter,” Biden said, as he accused president Vladimir Putin of causing a “brutal, needless war.”
Continue reading...Volodymyr Zelenskiy also spoke to the UN, saying Ukraine’s forces would continue their counter-offensive
Joe Biden and allied leaders have reacted angrily to Vladimir Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons and pledged to maintain support for Ukraine’s support in the face of Russia’s partial mobilisation and planned annexation of more Ukrainian regions.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, also shrugged off Putin’s moves to escalate the war, saying his country’s forces would continue their counter-offensive, not giving Russia breathing space to mobilise and dig in on Ukrainian soil.
Continue reading...Russian announcements cover up fact that mobilisation will take months to have impact
It was inevitable, after Russia’s sudden military reverse near Kharkiv, that Vladimir Putin would respond, announcing a partial mobilisation of extra troops and a fresh bout of sabre-rattling on nuclear weapons a day after announcing plans to hold high-speed annexation referendums in occupied areas of Ukraine.
The timing, on the morning of Joe Biden’s speech to the UN general assembly aimed at rallying support for Ukraine, demonstrates that, to some extent, Putin’s announcements are about news management – to seize the agenda with tenuous claims that Russia is threatened by Nato “nuclear blackmail”.
Continue reading...Amazon ecosystem is on verge of collapse, leaders tell brands such as Apple and Tesla as UN gathers in New York
Indigenous leaders from the Amazon have implored major western brands and banks to stop supporting the ongoing destruction of the vital rainforest through mining, oil drilling and logging, warning that the ecosystem is on the brink of a disastrous collapse.
Representatives of Indigenous peoples from across the Amazon region have descended upon New York this week to press governments and businesses, gathered in the city for climate and United Nations gatherings, to stem the flow of finance to activities that are polluting and deforesting large areas of the rainforest.
Continue reading...Internet blackouts and Instagram blocks also reported amid anger after 22-year-old woman’s death in custody
Iran has sent police on to the streets in a scramble to end protests that have spread to at least 15 cities, as rights groups and local media reported up to seven people had been killed in crackdowns.
There were reports of internet blackouts in parts of the country while Instagram accounts with Iranian IP addresses were also blocked in an apparent attempt to quell growing anger.
Continue reading...UN chief António Guterres criticises airstrikes on Let Yet Kone, which junta claims were to target rebels hiding in the area
At least 11 schoolchildren have died after an airstrike on a village in Myanmar, according to the United Nations children’s agency, in what could be the deadliest attack on children since the junta seized power last year.
UN chief António Guterres on Tuesday condemned the strike, according to his office, which stated that the death toll had climbed to at least 13 people died, including the 11 students whose school was hit.
Continue reading...United Nations mission says President Nicolás Maduro and others ordered ‘grave crimes’ including torture to stifle opposition
Venezuela’s intelligence agencies are committing crimes against humanity as part of a plan orchestrated at the highest level of government to repress dissent, UN experts have concluded.
A team tasked with investigating alleged violations in Venezuela said it had uncovered how members of intelligence services implemented orders by President Nicolás Maduro and others in a scheme to stifle opposition.
Continue reading...Kurdistan governor blames deaths on ‘plot by the enemy’ on fourth day of protests over 22-year-old’s death in custody
Iranian government officials have denounced a fourth day of protests after the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in police custody, claiming the demonstrators have fallen victim to a conspiracy by its enemies.
Mahsa Amini died on Friday after she was arrested by the morality police for not wearing the hijab and her trousers correctly, a tragic episode that has unleashed fury in the streets against the unaccountable and sometimes brutal treatment handed out to women by this branch of the police.
Continue reading...The general assembly is expected to see fresh tussles over future of Ukraine, as well as the threats of famine and the climate crisis in the global south
The UN general assembly summit this week will be dominated by a struggle – between the US and its allies on one side and Russia on the other – for global support over the fate of Ukraine, as the global south fights to stop the conflict from overshadowing the existential threats of famine and the climate crisis.
With a return to fully in-person general debate, presidents and prime ministers will be converging on New York, many of them direct from London, where the diplomacy got underway on the sidelines of the Queen’s funeral.
Continue reading...Battle over influence at Human Rights Council, with Beijing warning of ‘politicisation of human rights’
Western powers are weighing the risk of a potential defeat if they table a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council calling for an independent commission to investigate alleged human rights abuses by China in Xinjiang.
The issue is a litmus case for Chinese influence at the UN, as well as the willingness of the UN to endorse a worldview that protects individual rights from authoritarian states.
Continue reading...Poor nations exhort UN to consider ‘climate-related and justice-based’ tax on big fossil fuel users and air travel
The world’s most vulnerable countries are preparing to take on the richest economies with a demand for urgent finance – potentially including new taxes on fossil fuels or flying – for the irrecoverable losses they are suffering from the climate crisis, leaked documents show.
Extreme weather is already hitting many developing countries hard and forecast to wreak further catastrophe. Loss and damage – the issue of how to help poor nations suffering from the most extreme impacts of climate breakdown, which countries cannot be protected against – is one of the most contentious problems in climate negotiations.
Continue reading...Detainees report feeling humiliated sitting in handcuffs in waiting rooms during medical appointments
The United Nations’ torture prevention watchdog has been urged to investigate Australia’s use of handcuffs on asylum seekers when seeking medical care – a practice advocates condemn as inhumane and unlawful.
In 2020, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (Piac) launched a landmark test case in the federal court alleging the practice of handcuffing immigration detainees for medical transfers was unlawful and traumatic, particularly for those with histories of torture and abuse.
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Continue reading...The filing urges UN special rapporteurs to declare life sentences, including without parole, a violation of incarcerated people’s rights
The moment Terrell Carter learned the death sentence he received decades ago would end, he was filled with extreme happiness and intense sorrow.
Carter had spent 30 years of his life in prison without parole for second-degree murder he committed in Pennsylvania, one of six states in the US where there is no possibility of parole when sentenced to life. In July, after Governor Tom Wolf commuted his sentence, Carter, now 53, regained his freedom after a nearly three-year process petitioning with the state board of pardons. Still, he said he felt “survivor’s guilt”.
Continue reading...Letter from Goldman prize winners aims to block country’s bid to join UN’s human rights council over its jailing of campaigners
More than 50 winners of the world’s most prestigious environmental prize are calling on the UN to reject a bid by Vietnam to join the international organization’s human rights council (UNHRC) amid a crackdown on the country’s climate activists.
In a letter sent on Wednesday, 52 past winners of the Goldman prize for environmentalists have urged the UNHRC to vote against the application from Vietnam, where authorities have this year jailed four climate leaders on disputed tax charges.
Continue reading...Goldman laureates raise concerns over Vietnam’s record on suppressing environmental protest
More than 50 Goldman environmental prize laureates from 41 countries have written to the UN human rights council as it considers admitting Vietnam as a new member.
In the letter, which comes as the council meets for its 51st session (12 September – 7 October), the prize winners raise concerns over Vietnam’s human rights record, in particular the sentencing in June of Nguy Thi Khanh, a fellow Goldman prize winner and Vietnam’s best-known environmental advocate, to two years’ imprisonment for alleged tax evasion.
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