Top UN human rights investigators said on Thursday that war crimes may have been committed in predominantly Alawite areas of Syria in a wave of deadly violence earlier this year.

NAIROBI, August 13 (IPS) - Current rates of land degradation pose a major environmental and socioeconomic threat, driving climate change, biodiversity loss, and social crises. Food production to feed more than 8 billion people is the dominant land use on Earth. Yet, this industrial-scale enterprise comes with a heavy environmental toll.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, August 13 (IPS) - When Kenita Placide co-founded United and Strong, St Lucia’s first LGBTQI+ organisation in 2001, death threats were routine. Over the years, several friends were murdered for being gay. But 24 years on, Kenita’s Caribbean island nation has become the latest to overturn a colonial legacy that criminalised LGBTQI+ people.

MANILA, Philippines, August 13 (IPS) - In an interconnected world when infections can circle the globe in hours, cooperation in preparing for pandemics is essential. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted just how vulnerable countries are when surveillance is fragmented, laboratory networks are underfunded and underequipped, and vaccines are not dispersed equitably.

July saw the highest civilian casualties in Ukraine since May 2022, with 286 people killed and 1,388 injured, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in the country (HRMMU).

Sri Lanka’s Government has a “historic opportunity” to end decades of impunity and deliver justice for victims of past violations, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) has said, urging sweeping reforms to address crimes committed during and after the country’s civil war.

The UN Security Council has rejected the Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) declaration last month of a rival administration in parts of Sudan it controls, warning the move threatens the country’s unity and risks worsening the brutal conflict between the militia and forces of the military government.

At least 100 children in Gaza have died from malnutrition and hunger, prompting humanitarians to underscore the need to speed up medical evacuations from the enclave while also allowing more food to enter.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk has expressed outrage over Monday’s deadly large-scale attack by the Rapid Support Forces militia on El Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, which has been besieged by the RSF since April last year.

Across the globe, consumers and small-scale fishers alike are facing a growing challenge: seafood fraud.