UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, is boosting its response in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province, where a recent escalation of violence has forced thousands to flee for their lives. At least 100,000 people are now displaced throughout the province. There has… Read moreISIS behind Mozambique insurgency?
Burma's ruling junta acknowledged that it withdrew its forces from a key city on the border with China after it was seized by an alliance of ethnic rebel armies. The fall of Laukkai is the most significant defeat the junta has suffered since the self-declared Three Brotherhood Alliance launched its offensive in northeastern Shan state in October. Days earlier, at least 150 junta soldiers fled across the border into India's Mizoram state, driven from their outposts in Burma's northwestern Chin state by the rebel Arakan Army. The soldiers turned themselves over to a detachment of India's paramilitary Assam Rifles, and had to be flown back to Burmese territory. (Map: PCL)
Amnesty International named 87 Iranian security and Interior Ministry officials who it says should face criminal investigation for crimes against humanity committed during the 2022 crackdown on the Woman Life Freedom protests, and urged the UN Security Council to refer Iran's situation to the International Criminal Court. The 1,161-page report, titled "Architects of Atrocities," documents 377 fatalities among protesters and bystanders between September and December 2022, of whom 56 were children, along with widespread torture, rape, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary imprisonment. (Photo: Taymaz Valley, Ottawa, via Wikimedia Commons)
Amnesty International accused Argentina of putting in place a "techno-authoritarian" surveillance infrastructure without adequate legal safeguards, as the government's newly created AI security unit expands state monitoring powers over citizens' online communications and physical movements. In a new report, the rights group stated that Argentina's Ministry of Security spent at least $1.2 million on surveillance technology between 2024 and 2025, including social media monitoring tools, facial recognition software, and thermal-sensing camera-equipped drones with automatic tracking of targets and capacity to transmit images in real time. (Image: Celina Hilbert)
Chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) Karim Khan visited Kharkiv with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova to document evidence of war crimes. During his visit Khan called the city a "crime scene," and toured areas hardest hit by Russian bombing. "We must make sure that the whole world sees that the law works," Khan said, promising to prosecute war criminals. Venediktova praised Khan for his visit, saying, "Prosecutors are working even under fire gathering evidence for [Ukrainian and international] courts." Venediktova reports that 760 civilians have been killed, over 1,000 injured, and 4,000 buildings destroyed in Kharkiv oblast due to Russian shelling. (Photo via Wiadomosci)
Human Rights Watch called on authorities in Thailand to take urgent measures to address a wave of online death threats and harassment against members of parliament Angkhana Neelaphaijit and Romadon Panjor, as well as human rights activist Anchana Heemmina, after they voiced their disapproval of actions of the Thai military and expressed their support for the Muslim community in the country's Deep South. The online campaign of threats and disinformation comes as the long-simmering insurgency in the Deep South is again escalating. (Photo: Front Line Defenders)
The Zionist-fascist convergence under Bibi's regime is getting too blatant even for the habitually pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League, whose leader stayed away from a supposed "International Conference on Combating Antisemitism" held in Jerusalem under auspices of the Israeli government, headlining Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu—and also featuring several figures from the European and American xenophobic (and even anti-Semitic!) far right. (Image via frgdr Blog. Hebrew lettering in background spells names of places in Europe where Jews were exterminated.)
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) filed an application to bring proceedings against Rwanda over decades of war crimes and violence perpetrated in the DRC's east. The case filed with the International Court of Justice cites "abuses attributable to Rwanda over a period extending from 1996 to the present day," including massacres, forced displacement, and other atrocities. The case comes after years of worsening tensions, with the Congolese government repeatedly accusing Rwanda of supporting armed groups operating in the eastern DRC, particularly the M23 rebel army, which has seized large areas of territory in recent years. (Photo: ICJ)
Amnesty International raised concerns over an absolute blanket ban by the Turkish government on all protests in the capital Ankara ahead of the NATO summit that is to be held in the city next week. The statement also decried the pretrial detention of more than 100 people in the city, including lawyers, academics and activists. Amnesty describes the measures as "excessive" and constituting an attack on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. (Map: CIA)
UN rights experts condemned Nigerian authorities in response to ongoing reports that mass killings, kidnappings, forced conversion, sexual violence, and enforced disappearances are disproportionately targeting women and girls in Christian and minority religious communities. (Photo: Hilary Matfess/IRIN)
Amnesty International called on the Philippines to apprehend Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, expressing deep concern over reports that he fled the Senate building to evade an International Criminal Court arrest warrant. Following reports that a warrant had been issued for his arrest for crimes against humanity, dela Rosa disappeared from public view, re-emerging this week to participate in a Senate leadership vote. He apparently fled the chamber after spotting Philippine government agents waiting to arrest him, and spent two days barricaded in the Senate building. He escaped the building after gunfire erupted, and his present whereabouts are unknown. (Photo: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons)
Yemen's unrecognized Houthi administration warned that they are prepared to close the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait, mouth of the Red Sea. This is a second maritime chokepoint for oil from the Arabian Peninsula after the Strait of Hormuz, now effectively closed due to Washington's conflict with Iran. In a post on X, Houthi deputy foreign minister Hussein al-Ezzi said: "If Sana'a decides to close the Bab al-Mandab, then all of mankind and jinn will be utterly powerless to open it." In a speech, Houthi leader Abdel Malek al-Houthi subsequently warned, "Sanaa will not remain neutral," framing the current maritime tensions as part of a wider conflict targeting the "Islamic nation." He said that any further military escalation would be met with an "equivalent response," calling for increased coordination among members of the "axis of resistance" (meaning Iran, the Houthis and Hezbollah). (Map via PCL)
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