General Assembly
latest news & developments
Beyond “Africans sold Africans”: What Ghana’s UN slavery motion demands
Almost immediately after the vote, critics in Ghana and beyond have argued that Africans, having participated in the slave trade, cannot frame it as the gravest crime against…
The UN at 80: Adapt or Die
With US President Donald Trump blithely brushing aside the United Nations’ many achievements, it is worth revisiting the organization’s successes and failures over the years.…
Three reasons the United Nations cannot intervene in Russia’s war on Ukraine
These are the veto power of the Security Council, major powers ignore the UN and the UN secretary general cannot favour either side in the war
The world needs to take human rights seriously
Freedom of conscience and movement cannot be used as a reason not to wear a mask or to be vaccinated
Britain faces UN defeat over Chagos islands
The Indian Ocean archipelago has been at the centre of a decades-long dispute over Britain’s decision to separate it from Mauritius in 1965
UN calls for moratorium on death penalty
The United Nations General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution on Tuesday calling for a moratorium on the death penalty, overcoming protests from a bloc of states that said…
Not all rape is the same
In 2005 I spoke to a traumatised filmmaker who had returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo where he interviewed a 19-year-old woman who 18 months before had been raped by…
Tutu calls for global death-penalty ban
The death penalty is a violation of fundamental human rights, and it should be abolished around the world, Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote in the Guardian on Tuesday, ahead of a…
SA responds to US in UN rape resolution row
South African diplomats have expressed shock at strong United States government criticism in the New York Times this week of the country’s stance over a United Nations…
Libya, Vietnam, Burkina Faso elected to UN council
Libya, Vietnam and Burkina Faso were on Tuesday elected to non-permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council for the years 2008/09. The three countries were unopposed…
UN envoy meets Burma junta chief, Suu Kyi
United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari met Burma junta chief Than Shwe and detained opposition Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday at the end of four-day mission to halt a bloody crackdown…
Rwanda joins push for moratorium on executions
Rwanda joined other countries on Friday in appealing for a global moratorium on executions, saying that if its government could abolish the death penalty while perpetrators of…
Mugabe slams ‘Almighty Bush’ over human rights
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe accused United States President George Bush of ”rank hypocrisy” on Wednesday for lecturing him on human rights, and likened the US Guantánamo Bay…
Zim, Iran seek ‘coalition for peace’
The leaders of Zimbabwe and Iran are looking to form a ”coalition for peace” after receiving a tongue-lashing from United States President George Bush. ”The United States and its…
Protests in Burma dominate UN agenda
President George Bush announced new United States sanctions against Burma on Tuesday as world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly focused on rising protests against…