• Italian memorial to war criminal sparks controversy

    A dispute has erupted in Italy, after a memorial was built to honour the fascist military leader Field Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, a convicted war criminal.

    The €130,000 memorial, which includes a park and mausoleum, was built in the town of Affile, south of Rome, at the taxpayer’s expense, igniting outcry from opponents.
  • Burma resists investigations of Rohingya abuses
    Despite UN calls for an investigation, Burma’s human rights commission says that an investigation into communal violence between Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya is not needed.

    The refusal comes after the United Special rapporteur to Burma requested for a
    comprehensive and transparent investigation following his visit to the Rakhine state.

    The chairman of the Burma Human rights commission went on to defend their refusal , claiming that “the observations of U.N Human Rights Special Envoy Toma Ojea Quintana were biased.”
  • Where there's a will...

    After weeks of the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange taking refuge on sovereign Ecuadorian soil at the embassy in London, the British government has announced that the embassy may not be so immune from the Metropolitian police after all.

    The Foreign Office spokesperson said on Wednesday:

  • Assange granted political asylum in Ecuador

    Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been granted political asylum by the Ecuadorian government.

    Assange has been stuck in the embassy of Ecuador in London, since he took refuge there two months ago, to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he faces trial for sexual assault.

    A foreign office spokesperson warned on Wednesday that they may be forced to lift diplomatic immunity on the premises and enter the embassy to arrest Assange.

    The foreign minister Ricardo Patiño announced the decision to applause at a press conference in Quito.

  • Bahraini activist sentenced to 3 years imprisonment
    A prominent Bahraini human rights activist has been sentenced to three years in prison for attending “illegal demonstrations”, sparking outcry across the world.

    Nabeel Rajab, an activist who heads the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, was already serving a prison sentence for posting anti-government comments on Twitter (see his account here).

    Rajab’s sentencing comes as US Congress members wrote to Bahrain’s King Hamad al-Khalifa, requesting that he
    “unconditionally and immediately release all Bahrainis being held for crimes related to freedom of expression.”
    See the full letter here.

    Maryam Khawaja, acting president of the BCHR, said,
    “The Bahraini judicial system has been used as a tool to harass democracy activists”.
  • 90-year-old Nazi suspect escapes extradition from Australia

    A 90-year-old man accused of war crimes has won a legal battle against attempts to extradite him to Hungary, to face charges of war crimes.

    Charles Zentai, who has lived in Australia for almost 60 years, won the battle after the High Court up held a decision stating he could not be extradited because the offence of “war crimes” did not exist in Hungarian law at the time of the alleged offence.

    The US based Simon Wiesenthal Center lists Zentai amongst the top 10 most wanted for having "participated in manhunts, persecution, and murder of Jews in Budapest in 1944."

  • Aleppo hospital attack is 'no accident' - HRW

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirmed that the Syrian government's fighter planes had fired rockets on the main emergency hospital in Aleppo on Tuesday. The hospital had also been attacked two days prior by government aircraft, as well as a nearby school. Four civilians were killed and three wounded.

    HRW visited the hospital after the attack, where hospital staff told them that no opposition fighters were at the hospital, only armed guards providing security.

  • Iran performs U-turn accepts offers of aid

    The Iranian government has said it will accept foreign aid from certain countries after an earthquake devastated cities and killed over 300 in the north-west of the country on Saturday.

    For two days Iran insisted it was not in need of foreign assistance.

    However, after scathing criticism at home over the slow response, the Iranian government has now said it will accept offers of aid.

  • UN report on Syria: war crimes on both sides

    A UN report on the Syrian conflict published on Wednesday, concluded that President Assad’s forces and pro-government Shabiha fighters are were responsible for perpetrating most of the war crimes and crimes against humanity on Syrian civilians.

    The report held the government and its allied militia were responsible for the killing of more than a 100 civilians in May and indicated that murders, unlawful killings, torture, sexual violence and indiscriminate attacks indicated “the involvement at the highest levels of the armed security forces and the government."

    The panel also acknowledged that anti-government armed groups had committed war crimes including murder, extrajudicial killings and torture, but noted that these crimes were of a lesser frequency and scale.

  • Assad aide visits China

    A senior aide to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has flown to China to discuss the crisis.

    Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said that Bouthaina Shaaban would meet foreign minister Yang Jiechi later today.

    In a statement he said that China had always "actively balanced its work between the Syrian government and the opposition".

  • Defence opens for Bemba war crimes trial
    The defence for accused war criminal Jean-Pierre Bemba have opened their case before the International Criminal Court earlier on Tuesday, where he faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    Bemba, the former Vice President of the DR Congo, faces three counts of war crimes and two of crimes against humanity, for alleged atrocities committed by troops of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), after he deployed them into the Central African Republic in 2002 and 2003.
  • UN drops food aid to Sudanese refugees in South Sudan

    The UN has started to deliver airdrops of food aid to refugee camps in the South Sudan border region, where refugees from Sudan have sought safety.

    Over 170,000 people are believed to have fled Sudan according to the UN World Food Program (WFP).

  • Israeli soldier jailed for 45 days over Palestinian deaths

    A former Israeli soldier has been sentenced to 45 days in prison for the killing of a Palestinian mother and her daughter, after avoiding manslaughter charges.

  • US ‘expected’ Egypt army reshuffle

    US officials have informed reporters that they expected changes in the military after the election of President Mursi.

    "We had expected President Mursi at some point to co-ordinate changes in the military leadership, to name a new team," Pentagon spokesman George Little told reporters.

  • Global Islamic body suspends Syria – Reuters

    The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has agreed to suspend Syria from the body, according to an OIC source.

    The source told Reuters that foreign ministers agreed to the suspension at a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Monday.

    "The session just ended. The ministers adopted the resolutions, including the suspension of Syria," the source told Reuters.

    Iran opposed the suspension from the 57-member body.

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