The Good Place or The Bad Place?

India: Counterterrorism Raids Targeting Peaceful Critics Stop Unlawful Operations Against Kashmiri and Other Rights Groups 202010asia_india_kashmirClick to expand Image An Indian paramilitary soldier stands guard as National Investigation Agency personnel search the residence of Agence France-Presse’s correspondent Parvaiz Bukhari on the outskirts of Srinagar, Kashmir, October 28, 2020. © 2020 AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan (New York) – The Indian government is using counterterrorism operations to silence peaceful dissenters, human rights activists, and journalists, Human Rights Watch said today. On October 28 and 29, 2020, the authorities carried out several raids on the offices of nongovernmental organizations, activists’ homes, and a newspaper office in Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, and Bangalore. The raids are part of a crackdown by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on civil society groups. The authorities have increasingly brought politically motivated criminal cases, including under ...

The two presidents drove out 10,000 Cuban doctors and nurses. They defunded the region’s leading health agency. They wrongly pushed hydroxychloroquine as a cure. By David D. Kirkpatrick and José María León Cabrera The coronavirus was gathering lethal speed when President Trump met his Brazilian counterpart, Jair Bolsonaro, on March 7 for dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Bolsonaro had canceled trips that week to Italy, Poland and Hungary, and Brazil’s health minister had urged him to stay away from Florida, too. But Mr. Bolsonaro insisted, eager to burnish his image as the “Trump of the Tropics.” His grinning aides posed at the president’s resort in green “Make Brazil Great Again” hats. Mr. Trump declared he was “not concerned at all” before walking Mr. Bolsonaro around the club shaking hands. Twenty-two people in Mr. Bolsonaro’s delegation tested positive for the virus after returning to Brazil, yet he was not alarmed. Mr. Trump had shared a cure, Mr. Bolsonaro told advisers: a box of the ...

Azerbaijan: Cluster Munitions Used in Nagorno-Karabakh Stop Use of Banned Weapons; Secure and Destroy Stocks A shop burnsClick to expand Image A shop containing toilets, tiles and other housewares burns in Stepanakert on the night of October 3, 2020 after the city is shelled. © 2020 Union of Informed Citizens. Azerbaijan has repeatedly used widely banned cluster munitions in residential areas in Nagorno-Karabakh, Human Rights Watch said today. During an on-site investigation in Nagorno-Karabakh in October 2020, Human Rights Watch documented four incidents in which Azerbaijan used cluster munitions. Fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia and the de-facto authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh dramatically escalated on September 27, 2020. Two humanitarian ceasefires brokered by members of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe have failed to halt the fighting. According to authorities from all parties, scores of civilians have been killed or injured in a...

End Sars protests: People 'shot dead' in Lagos, Nigeria Published16 minutes ago Related Topics #EndSars protests A protester sits on a barricade blocking a road in Lagos, Nigeria. Photo: 20 October 2020 IMAGE COPYRIGHTREUTERS image captionProtesters in Lagos built barricades, blocking roads in Nigeria's commercial hub A number of people taking part in a protest against police brutality have reportedly been shot dead or wounded in Nigeria's biggest city, Lagos. Witnesses said up to 12 people were killed and others wounded when soldiers opened fire. Amnesty International said it had "credible reports" of deaths. The state governor, however, said there had been no fatalities, although about 25 people had been wounded. An indefinite 24-hour curfew has been imposed on Lagos and other regions. On Wednesday, police in different districts of Lagos fired shots in the air to disperse protesters defying the curfew, the BBC's Nduka Orjinmo reports from the capital, Ab...

Tens of thousands protest outside L.A.’s Turkish Consulate in solidarity with Armenia Protesters with red blue and orange Armenian flags raise their fists in a park Members of the Armenian American community and supporters gather Sunday at Pan Pacific Park in Los Angeles before marching to the Turkish Consulate in Beverly Hills.(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) By LILA SEIDMAN OCT. 11, 20206:28 PM UPDATEDOCT. 11, 2020 | 11:12 PM Tens of thousands of demonstrators protested outside the Turkish Consulate in Beverly Hills on Sunday afternoon in a show of solidarity with Armenia in its battle with neighboring Azerbaijan over a tiny separatist region on the border of the former Soviet republics. The crowd was estimated at 35,000 people, at its height stretching down Wilshire Boulevard from Fairfax Avenue to La Cienega Boulevard, Beverly Hills Police Lt. Todd Withers said. The Los Angeles Police Department’s Wilshire Station later tweeted that the crowd had reached 100,000. Protesters i...

New agreement in Iraq signals ‘a first and important step’ toward a better future Holding a 13-day-old infant, an elderly Yazidi woman who fled Sinjar Mountain re-enters Iraq from the Syria. (file) © UNICEF/Wathiq Khuzaie Holding a 13-day-old infant, an elderly Yazidi woman who fled Sinjar Mountain re-enters Iraq from the Syria. (file) 9 October 2020 Peace and Security An agreement between Iraq’s Federal and the Kurdish Regional governments on Friday paves the way for reconstruction in the north of the country, in what the UN has called “a first and important step in the right direction”. The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) expressed hope that the new pact, on the status of northern Iraq’s Sinjar district in Ninewa, would pave the way for a better future. An uphill battle In 2104, ISIL terrorist fighters took control of significant swathes of the north, committing atrocity crimes including genocidal acts against the Yazidi minority, centred around their centuries-old an...

‘Rape, beatings and death’ at Kakuzi, the Kenyan farm that helps feed the UK’s avocado habit Court papers allege guards at a British estate in Kenya that supplies Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Lidl have committed human rights abuses ILLUSTRATION: TONY BELL Emily Dugan, Nairobi Sunday October 11 2020, 12.01am BST, The Sunday Times The British owners of an avocado farm in Kenya that supplies supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Lidl — and until recently Marks & Spencer — are being sued over a string of alleged human rights abuses. Guards working for Kakuzi, a farming estate the size of Manchester, are accused of extreme violence against the local community in 79 claims. SPONSORED Spain, an edible treasure trove Spain, an edible treasure trove 9 post-lockdown transition tips every manager should know 9 post-lockdown transition tips every manager should know The allegations, dating from 2009 to January this year, include battering a 28-year-old man to death for allegedly steali...

2020 Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to U.N. World Food Program The agency was awarded the prize for providing food assistance to millions around the world, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic. Food aid from the World Food Program in Beirut last month, in the wake of an explosion in the city’s port in August that killed about 200 people and injured thousands of others. Food aid from the World Food Program in Beirut last month, in the wake of an explosion in the city’s port in August that killed about 200 people and injured thousands of others.Credit...Haytham Al Achkar/Getty Images Megan Specia By Megan Specia Oct. 9, 2020 Updated 6:28 a.m. ET 3 The World Food Program, a United Nations agency, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, with the committee recognizing its efforts to combat a surge in hunger as the coronavirus pandemic has swept around the world with devastating impact. The committee noted that the organization’s work addressing hunger had also laid the foundatio...

China National Day: Hong Kong peace 'is an illusion' 2 October 2020 Share this with Facebook Share this with Messenger Share this with Twitter Share this with Email Share Image copyrightREUTERS/AFP Image caption While 1 October, 2019 was marked by protests and tear gas, this year there were no such scenes One year ago, Hong Kong saw one of its most violent days on 1 October as the pro-democracy movement raged, but this year the city was largely silent. The date marks the founding of the People's Republic of China, widely celebrated on the mainland. In 2019, it was called "day of mourning" by Hong Kong protesters worried about China's growing control. This year, a Beijing-imposed security law and coronavirus have put a stop to most protests. Requests for demonstrations were not granted by the authorities - with the coronavirus pandemic and security concerns cited as reasons. Proponents of the security law say it was required to quell the kind of violence t...

Saudi Arabia: ‘Image Laundering’ Conceals Abuses New Human Rights Watch Campaign Against Whitewashing Rights Violations Nicki Minaj (Beirut) – The Saudi government has spent billions of dollars hosting major entertainment, cultural, and sporting events as a deliberate strategy to deflect from the country’s image as a pervasive human rights violator, Human Rights Watch said today. On October 2, 2020, Human Rights Watch launched a global campaign to counter Saudi government efforts to whitewash its dismal rights record. The two years since the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in October 2018 has brought no accountability for top-level officials implicated in the murder. Since then, the government of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has aggressively organized and bankrolled high-profile events featuring major international artists, celebrities, and sports figures, with plans for many more. Saudi Arabia also currently holds the presidency of the G20, a forum f...

30 Years After Reunification, Old German-German Border Is a Green Oasis Crossing the militarized border that split Germany into east and west once meant risking death. Now? It’s a literal walk in the park. An old watchtower, part of the old border between East and West Germany, is preserved in the village of Mödlareuth. An old watchtower, part of the old border between East and West Germany, is preserved in the village of Mödlareuth.Credit...Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times Christopher F. Schuetze By Christopher F. Schuetze Oct. 2, 2020, 12:10 a.m. ET MITWITZ, Germany — Two men, one riding a bicycle, the other wearing binoculars, met in a field in the middle of Germany on a recent afternoon. Both 61, they started arguing politely, the way strangers do, about where exactly the border between East and West Germany had been. Soon, it became clear that both had good reason to think they were right. One used to be an East German border guard; the other grew up just west of the bor...