A Damascus criminal court sentenced ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia Tuesday after convicting him of murder, torture, arbitrary detention, and crimes against humanity. This was the first judgment issued by Syria’s own courts against the head of a government that ruled the country for decades and put down a 2011 uprising [...]

Türkiye’s Parliament on Monday announced that it has passed a new law creating conditional legal mechanisms for certain members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a shift signifying an advance for the government’s “Terror-Free Türkiye” initiative and potentially opening a new phase in the country’s decades-long conflict with Kurdish militants. The Law on Strengthening National [...]

UN experts on Monday decried the recent surge of violence and human rights abuses against civilians across Gaza and the Occupied West Bank, voicing concern that the rights crisis in the Palestinian territories continues to deteriorate at an accelerated rate, leaving civilians with no form of protection despite international appeals. Fifteen UN experts stated that, [...]

Amnesty International on Monday urged candidates in Zambia’s upcoming general elections to show a clear and genuine commitment to reversing the nation’s troubling authoritarian slide, warning that persistent state crackdowns on free speech and peaceful assembly now pose a serious threat to fundamental rights in the tense run-up to polling day, on election day itself, [...]

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday urging states to scale back school immunization requirements and directing the Attorney General to pursue litigation against states that fail to provide religious and medical exemptions. The order declares a set of “Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations” that would reduce the list of diseases against which all [...]

The Hong Kong Court of Appeal on Monday granted leave to 11 applicants to appeal their national security convictions to the city’s apex court. The applicants were among the 45 pro-democracy activists who were convicted of subversion in November 2024 for their alleged roles in the July 2020 unofficial primary election. The appellate court sided [...]

Pakistan on Thursday announced its implementation of the Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines 2026 (the Guidelines), imposing strict regulatory limits on foreign journalists and local nationals working for international media outlets. The six-page document mandates that all international media operations and their personnel register directly with the External Publicity Wing of the Ministry of Information and [...]

The United Nations reported on Friday that the cost of key foods increased in July as a result of searing heatwaves and ongoing geopolitical instability, which have affected global energy prices amid persistent hunger risks in multiple countries. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Food Price Index (FPI) averaged 131.1 points [...]

Three environmental advocacy groups, represented by Earthjustice, filed a lawsuit against the New York State Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday, accusing the DOH of failing to protect tenants, especially children, from lead poisoning due to inadequate enforcement of the state’s Proactive Lead Inspection Law (PLIL), which took effect in November 2025. The suit focuses [...]

UN human rights experts on Thursday condemned the recent measures by the United States against Cuba, calling them attempts to “alter the constitutional order of a sovereign State through threats and coercion,” and demanding that the Security Council and the General Assembly take action on the matter. Accusing the US of contraventions of Article 2 of [...]