Washington Post: "The United States defended its record on prisoner treatment, racial profiling, immigration and the death penalty on Monday in its first appearance before a top United Nations human rights panel in 11 years."
Reuters: "Iraq will ask the United Nations to end immunity from local law for U.S. troops, the government said on Monday, as the U.S. military named five soldiers charged in a rape-murder case that has outraged Iraqis.
UN News Service: "Concerned at the situation facing civilians in strife-torn Gaza, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today issued a strong appeal for urgent action to alleviate their plight, calling on Israel to lift restrictions hampering the work of UN agencies there.
Given the scale of killings, rape, looting and destruction of villages in Darfur, Sudan the Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations-backed criminal court said today he anticipates the prosecution of a sequence of cases, rather than a single case, of possible war crimes in the conflict between the Khartoum Government, allied militia and rebels.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan vowed to continue working for the release of Myanmar democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whose house arrest the authorities have extended.
"Human rights in Iraq are being "severely undermined" by growing insecurity, violence and a "breakdown of law and order" caused by militias and criminal gangs, the U.N. mission here said Tuesday.
AP: "The United States should close its prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and avoid using secret detention facilities in the war on terror, the U.N. panel that monitors compliance with the world's anti-torture treaty said Friday.
"U.N. human rights investigators called on Myanmar's junta on Tuesday to stop targeting members of the country's ethnic Karen minority and cited allegations of killings, rape and torture by soldiers." [Read more]
"Ethiopia is holding opposition figures under laws that may violate its constitution, Somalia urgently needs international attention, and despite assertions by Sudan's Government, displaced women in that country's Darfur region are still being raped on a large scale, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said today.
Just back from a two-week mission to the Horn of Africa, she told reporters at the UN complex in Geneva that in Ethiopia, thousands of people were imprisoned after events following last year's elections year. Of these just over 100 remained, comprising elected officials, journalists and other members of civil society charged with genocide and treason." [Full story]