UK calls for UN access to Chinese detention camps in Xinjiang

Foreign Office responds after leaked China cables appear to confirm brainwashing centres

The UK has urged China to give United Nations observers “immediate and unfettered access” to detention camps in Xinjiang, where more than a million people from the Uighur community and other muslim minorities are being held without trial.

The call from the Foreign Office was in response to the China cables, a leak of classified documents from within the Communist party which appear to provide the first official confirmation that the camps were designed by Beijing as brainwashing internment centres.

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Labour would return Chagos Islands, says Jeremy Corbyn

UK criticised for defying UN deadline to hand over control of Indian Ocean territory

Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to renounce British sovereignty of the remote Chagos Islands and respect a UN vote calling for the archipelago to be handed back to Mauritius.

In comments that appear to commit Labour to return the Indian Ocean islands, the party’s leader said on Friday he intended to “right one of the wrongs of history”.

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The Guardian view on Israeli settlements: still illegal | Editorial

The Trump administration’s declaration cannot change international law. But it will be seen as a green light for expansion and annexation

The secretary of state’s announcement that the US no longer considers Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land to be illegal is appalling. It is also the dismal culmination of the Trump administration’s record.

Washington has done all it can to aid Israel’s rightwing government, punish Palestinians and bury the two-state solution: moving its embassy to Jerusalem, ending funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency, and recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

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UN urges Iran restraint amid reports of high protester death toll

Concerns raised over alleged use of live ammunition against petrol price demonstrators

The United Nations has urged Iran to end its shutdown of the internet and ensure its security services show restraint after the “clearly very serious” extent of casualties in protests that have swept the country in response to steep petrol price rises.

The office of the United Nations high commissioner for human rights said it was “deeply concerned” about reports of live ammunition being used against demonstrators.

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UN agency to take ‘aggressive’ action if sexual abuse claims substantiated

An internal survey revealed hundreds of allegations of abuse, including rape and sexual assault, at the World Food Programme

The head of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has vowed to take “aggressive” action against sex abusers, following an internal survey that found multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault at the agency.

“If we have a claim of rape by anyone in the WFP, if we can substantiate, I can’t begin to tell you how aggressive” actions will be, executive director David Beasley told news agency Associated Press.

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Greta Thunberg asks for lift back across Atlantic as climate meeting shifts to Madrid

Swedish teenager needs help getting back to Europe following the COP25 meeting’s move from Chile to Spain

As delegates to the COP25 climate summit scramble to adjust to a last-minute change of venue from Santiago to Madrid, one of the highest-profile attendees has stuck out a metaphorical thumb on social media to ask for a lift across the Atlantic.

Teenage Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was speaking in California during a stop on her low-emissions journey from Sweden to Chile, tweeted that she was now in need of a ride to Spain.

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US effort to remove ‘sexual health’ from UN agreement may violate law, say senators

Trump administration may have violated Siljander amendment by lobbying to remove protections, four Democrats said in letter

The Trump administration may have violated federal law by lobbying more than 70 countries to remove protections for “sexual and reproductive health” from a UN agreement, according to a letter from four US senators seen by the Guardian.

The letter from the senators, all high-ranking Democrats, focuses on an effort from the Trump administration to remove “sexual and reproductive health” from a high-level UN agreement on universal health coverage.

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China warns US: criticism of Uighur detentions is not ‘helpful’ for trade talks

Beijing voices anger over ‘gross interference’ after 23 countries criticise arbitrary detentions in Xinjiang

China’s UN envoy has sounded a warning note over trade talks with Washington after the US joined 22 other countries at the UN in criticising Beijing over the detention of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims.

China has been widely condemned for setting up internment camps in the western region of Xinjiang that it describes as “vocational training centres” to stamp out extremism and give people new skills. The United Nations says at least a million Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained.

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Venezuela wins UN human rights council seat despite record of abuses

Other seat for Latin America went to Brazil, whose far-right leader has expressed contempt for the concept of human rights

Activists have responded with outrage after Venezuela won a fiercely contested vote for a seat on the UN’s human rights council on Thursday, despite its well-documented record of human rights abuses.

The 193-member world body elected 14 members to the 47-member council on Thursday for three-year terms starting in January, with Venezuela claiming one of the two seats allocated to Latin America with 105 votes.

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Workers making £88 Lululemon leggings claim they are beaten

Exclusive: Upmarket brand, which has just launched UN partnership, opens investigation as female labourers in Bangladesh factory say they suffer regular abuse

Lululemon, an athleisure brand whose £88 leggings are worn by celebrities and Instagram influencers, are sourcing clothing from a factory where Bangladeshi female factory workers claim they are beaten and physically assaulted.

The Canadian brand recently launched a partnership with the United Nations to reduce stress levels and promote the mental health of aid workers.

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MI6 accused of thwarting effort to solve 1961 killing of UN chief

Files on Dag Hammarskjöld plane crash are being withheld, says inquiry

MI6, the secret intelligence service, is under pressure to share its files on the mysterious death of a UN secretary general who was killed in an air crash almost 60 years ago.

Dag Hammarskjöld died with 13 others in September 1961, when his plane crashed near Ndola, in what was then Northern Rhodesia. There has been speculation that the plane was brought down deliberately. A film released this year, Cold Case Hammarskjöld, a winner at the 2019 Sundance film festival, has continued to stir interest.

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‘Inspirational’: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez applauds mayors’ Global Green New Deal

Mayors of more than 90 of the world’s biggest cities voice support for bold proposal to fight climate change as they lambast ‘failed’ UN climate summit

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she was ‘inspired’ by the Global Green New Deal, a bold proposal to fight climate change announced today by the C40 group of global mayors.

To kick off their major summit this week the group, which represents more than 90 of the world’s biggest cities, voiced their backing for the plan and said it reaffirmed their “commitment to protecting the environment, strengthening our economy, and building a more equitable future by cutting emissions”.

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Unicef now accepting donations through bitcoin and ether

Use of cryptocurrencies allows children’s agency to bypass fees of moving cash overseas quickly and increase financial transparency

The UN children’s agency, Unicef, has announced it is accepting and disbursing donations through cryptocurrencies ether and bitcoin.

Unicef’s new Cryptocurrency Fund is the latest in a series of efforts by aid organisations to experiment with “blockchain” currencies, which have the potential to transform charitable giving and increase financial transparency.

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I thought I’d seen all the horrors possible here in Idlib – until now | Raed Al Saleh

The terror being unleashed from the sky is the worst it’s ever been in my eight years of leading White Helmet rescue workers

Most of my country is in ruins. But the worst crisis of Syria’s conflict is unfolding now. Beautiful cities have become ghost towns, their inhabitants forced to flee the country or pushed into one of the last remaining areas outside of Assad’s control. More than 3 million people, half of whom are children, are trapped in Idlib, where a tyrant is unleashing horror from the sky. It’s the largest displacement crisis of the 21st century and yet Idlib’s people have been abandoned by the world.

After eight years leading teams of volunteer rescue workers, the White Helmets, I thought I had seen all the horrors possible. But looking at the state of Idlib today, I can honestly say it’s the worst my country has been.

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Trump to blame for failure of US-Iran nuclear talks – Rouhani

Iranian president tells cabinet the country had been ready to accept terms of French UN plan

The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, has told his cabinet that while the country had been ready to end its nuclear stand-off with the US broadly on terms set out by France at the United Nations, Donald Trump was not prepared to make public an apparent private offer to lift sanctions.

Although his account is inherently not impartial, it is the fullest version of behind-the-scenes diplomacy at the UN general assembly provided by the Iranians.

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Haitians urge judges to find UN culpable for cholera outbreak that killed thousands

  • Supreme court consider whether to take up Laventure v UN
  • UN peacekeepers introduced disease after 2010 earthquake

Victims of the 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti, which killed at least 10,000 people and infected hundreds of thousands more, are petitioning the US supreme court on Tuesday to hold the UN accountable for having brought the disease to the stricken country.

The nine supreme court justices will meet in conference to discuss whether to hear Laventure v UN as one of their cases of the new term. The petition goes to the heart of the question: should the world body be answerable in domestic courts for the harm it causes people it is there to serve?

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Amal Clooney: give UN power to investigate journalist deaths

UK media freedom envoy speaks out after targeted killing of Jamal Khashoggi

A “glaring gap” exists in the world’s ability to investigate targeted state killings of human rights defenders and journalists such as Jamal Khashoggi, said Amal Clooney, the UK special envoy on media freedom.

She also said the UN special rapporteur Agnès Callamard, who undertook the UN’s investigation into Khashoggi’s murder, “had been forced heroically to manage a large-scale investigation with ridiculously few resources”.

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Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of Congo – in pictures

This is the 10th Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s also the largest and longest ever. More than 2,000 people have died since the outbreak started in August 2018. As part of the UN Ebola emergency response, the Red Cross is working with the World Health Organisation and the ministry of health to help stop the spread of the disease. Infection can occur from touching the bodies of those who have died. This practice is part of traditional burial rituals in eastern DRC, so the rituals need to be modified so that family members can say goodbye to their loved ones without becoming exposed to the virus. The Red Cross has trained specialist burial teams in remote communities to safely bury people who have died of Ebola

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When Donald met Scott: a reporter’s view of Trump and his White House wonderland

Australian PM Scott Morrison received a full-blown welcome from the US president. Katharine Murphy was on hand for an inside account

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Scott Morrison has made his first visit to the United States as prime minister. It was a trip that included a close encounter with the unpredictability of the Trump White House, a foreign policy pivot, and a backlash about a lack of climate policy action. Guardian Australia’s political editor, Katharine Murphy, travelled, with the prime minister. Here is what she witnessed:

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Imran Khan warns UN of potential nuclear war in Kashmir

Pakistan PM says he has tried to tell world leaders of growing risk of conflict with India over disputed region

Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, has said he has been trying to raise the alarm at the United Nations this week about the danger of a nuclear war breaking out over Kashmir.

India and Pakistan came close to a conflict in February when India bombed Pakistani territory for the first time in a half century and warplanes from both countries fought a dogfight over the divided region.

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