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Syria: ‘Key priority’ is to preserve evidence of crimes – UN investigators

Syria: ‘Key priority’ is to preserve evidence of crimes – UN investigators

IN Syria, new access to evidence of horrific human rights violations means that accountability may be closer than ever – if only proof can be preserved, a top UN investigator said on Tuesday. The head of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism Investigating Serious Crimes in Syria (IIIM), Robert Petit, told reporters in Geneva that with an “interlocking series of crime scenes” across the country now accessible, there is the possibility of accessing evidence and “finally” establishing the fate of tens of thousands who had been “illegally arrested, detained and suffered years of violence inside the prison system”, almost 14…
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South Korea at a crossroads after president is impeached – here’s what will happen next

South Korea at a crossroads after president is impeached – here’s what will happen next

SOUTH Korea’s National Assembly passed an impeachment motion against President Yoon Suk-yeol on Saturday, December 14. The vote marks the third time a president has been impeached in the country’s constitutional history. Out of 300 assembly members, 204 voted in favour of the motion, 85 voted against, three abstained, and eight votes were declared invalid. This outcome indicates that at least 12 votes in favour came from Yoon’s conservative ruling People Power party. The vote was the second impeachment attempt since Yoon’s shock move to declare martial law for the first time in almost five decades on December 3. The…
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How evidence of attacks on aid could be used in international courts

How evidence of attacks on aid could be used in international courts

This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian.By Eric Reidy LEGAL and humanitarian experts say that Israel’s attacks on aid in the Gaza Strip, detailed in a months-long investigation by The New Humanitarian, may be relevant to ongoing international cases about alleged Israeli genocide and war crimes against Palestinians and are part of a wider global pattern of striking aid activities with impunity. Published earlier this month, The New Humanitarian’s investigation shows how Israeli forces carried out a series of apparently targeted attacks, killing dozens of Palestinians who had partnered with UN agencies to secure food aid deliveries to…
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Syria: Mass grave in Damascus should be protected, investigated

Syria: Mass grave in Damascus should be protected, investigated

THE state of a mass grave in Damascus and statements by people living in the surrounding area suggest that the area is a mass crime scene and may have been the site of other summary executions, Human Rights Watch said today.  Human Rights Watch visited the site in the southern Damascus neighbourhood of Tadamon on December 11 and 12, 2024, finding scores of human remains both at the location of an April 2013 massacre and strewn throughout the surrounding neighbourhood. Transitional Syrian authorities should take steps to urgently secure and preserve physical evidence across the country of grave international crimes…
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Texas files first lawsuit against out-of-state abortion provider

Texas files first lawsuit against out-of-state abortion provider

TEXAS Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit accusing a New York doctor of prescribing abortion drugs to a Texas resident in violation of state law. This lawsuit is the first attempt to test what happens when state abortion laws are at odds with each other. New York has a shield law that protects providers from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions, which has served as implicit permission for a network of doctors to mail abortion pills to states that have banned the procedure. Texas has vowed to pursue these cases regardless of those laws, and legal experts are divided on where the…
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Hamas – hemmed in and isolated – finds itself with few options for the day after the Gaza war

Hamas – hemmed in and isolated – finds itself with few options for the day after the Gaza war

IN early December 2024, Hamas announced a major concession: It was prepared to cede future governance of Gaza to a unity Palestinian committee, working alongside its chief political rival, Fatah, to create the body. Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, has since expressed hesitancy about such an arrangement – which, in any event, would face stern opposition from Israel and likely the U.S., too. But the fact that Hamas would strike such a deal with a faction it took up arms against for the right to govern Gaza in the first place points to the militant group’s…
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UNHCR urges more support for Syria and safety for aid workers as humanitarian activities slowly resume

UNHCR urges more support for Syria and safety for aid workers as humanitarian activities slowly resume

OVER the past 14 years of conflict and crisis, more than 13 million Syrians were forced from their homes. During this time, UNHCR and its partners have been and continue to be on the ground in Syria, delivering life-saving assistance wherever the situation allows. Figures are not yet available, but thousands of Syrian refugees have started returning to the country from Lebanon via the official Masnaa border point and other unofficial border crossings. At the same time, other Syrians have fled in the opposite direction into Lebanon.  Refugees are also returning from Türkiye through the Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salam…
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Republicans soared in the recent US elections, but Democrats have reasons for optimism for 2026

Republicans soared in the recent US elections, but Democrats have reasons for optimism for 2026

THIS article is based on a presentation by the author to the Electoral Regulations Forum. At the November 5 US presidential election, Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in the Electoral College by 312 electoral votes to 226, winning the seven key states of Nevada (six electoral votes), Wisconsin (ten), Arizona (11), Michigan (15), Georgia (16), North Carolina (16) and Pennsylvania (19). Trump also won the national popular vote by 49.8–48.3% over Harris, becoming the first Republican to win the popular vote since 2004. (Republicans won the presidency but not the popular vote in both 2000 and 2016.) In…
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Assad’s fall in Syria will further weaken Hezbollah and curtails Tehran’s ‘Iranization’ of region

Assad’s fall in Syria will further weaken Hezbollah and curtails Tehran’s ‘Iranization’ of region

THE fall of President Bashar Assad will not only affect the 24 million Syrians who lived – and largely suffered – under his brutal rule. Over the border in Lebanon, the impact will be felt, too. The collapse of Assad’s government provided another blow to its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, which was already reeling from an Israel conflict that weakened its capabilities and decimated its leadership. But many others in Lebanon will be rejoicing, not least the 1.5 million refugees who fled Syria to escape Assad and a 13-year civil war. As an expert on Lebanese history and culture, I believe…
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Aid agencies: History will judge your failure to call out Israeli war crimes as complicity

Aid agencies: History will judge your failure to call out Israeli war crimes as complicity

This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian. IT took 50 years for the International Committee of the Red Cross to admit its “moral failure with regard to the Holocaust”. Half a century after the Nazis killed more than six million Jews, ICRC President Cornelio Sommaruga finally acknowledged this in his annual press conference, adding that the ICRC “did not succeed in moving beyond the limited legal framework established by states”. Later statements, commentary, research, and apologies have gone much further: The pre-eminent aid group of the time knew about the Nazi genocide against Jews and other minorities, but…
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