List of All Articles with Tag 'w'

Russia’s desperate bid to rejoin the UN’s top human rights body will be tested in the General Assembly vote on Tuesday, more than a year after it was booted out for invading Ukraine. The 193-member assembly will be electing 15 members to the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council, with candidates put forward by the UN’s five regional groups. Russia will be competing against Albania and Bulgaria to win back two seats reserved for the East European regional group and will need majority votes from the assembly. A total of 47 member states are part of the UNHRC based on the geographic distribution. The UN’s five regional groups have sent names to shortlist 15 members to the body. Experts told The Independent that Russia will try to lure African and other ally nations with stolen Ukrainian grain and arms in exchange for votes. World leaders have cautioned against bringing Russian president Vladimir Putin’s membership back on the panel amid the continuing invasion, especially with the latest attack on Ukrainian village of Hroza in Kharkiv. At least 51 people died in the missile attack, wiping out members from almost every family. While Russia says it does not strike civilian targets, A two-day-old baby boy was killed after a Russian missile struck a hospital in the city of Vilniansk, Zaporizhzhia. A child was also among the dozens killed when Russian missiles hit a grocery store and café in the village of Hroza. US’s deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the Security Council that Russia’s re-election “while it openly continues to commit war crimes and other atrocities would be an ugly stain that would undermine the credibility of the institution and the United Nations”. Diplomats aware of the voting pitch by Russia to woo other nations using grains said that the US and others have distributed letters to many of the 193 members of the General Assembly, asking nations to vote against Russia. Moscow’s competitor Albania vying for the seat has also ramped up its campaign to join the UNHRC by highlighting Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine. Albanian UN ambassador Ferit Hoxha said those who care about human rights and the “credibility of the Human Rights Council and its work” should oppose the nation which kills innocent people, destroys civilian infrastructure, ports and grain silos and “then takes pride in doing so”. International rights group Human Rights Watch has said Russia and China are unfit to serve on the Human Rights Council. “Every day, Russia and China remind us by committing abuses on a massive scale that they should not be members of the UN Human Rights Council,” Louis Charbonneau, UN director of Human Rights Watch said last week. The rights group said Russian forces in Ukraine continue to commit apparent war crimes, including unlawful attacks and crimes against humanity, torture and summary executions. It pointed out how Mr Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights Maria Lvova-Belova are sought by the International Criminal Court for alleged unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children. Experts have warned against Russia’s pattern of “flagrant disrespect” towards international law as Moscow expected the world to turn a blind-eye to the latest missile attacks inside Ukraine. “Russia’s pattern of flagrant disrespect towards international law remains shockingly consistent. War crimes committed by Russia over the past months are no less cruel or widespread than the ones committed in Bucha in spring 2022, when Russia was suspended from the Human Rights Council,” said Anna Mykytenko, senior lawyer and the Ukraine country manager for Global Rights Compliance headquartered at the Hague. “Although now most of these crimes do not make it to the front pages of the international media, the aggressor state that keeps on committing war crimes and violating human rights cannot benefit from decreasing attention to the war in Ukraine and an opening to slink back into a UN Human Rights Council seat,” she told The Independent. Wayne Jordash KC, president and co-founder of Global Rights Compliance, said any attempts to allow Russia back to the seat of the Human Rights Council are “not only unacceptable and indecent but signify a dangerous global drift into untrammelled violence against the most vulnerable and innocent”. Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary Putin’s shameless UN charm offensive - with stolen grain from Ukraine Russia tries to rejoin UN Human Rights Council Truss calls on Russia to be suspended from UN human rights council after ‘heinous butchery’ in Bucha Ukraine finds evidence of torture on bodies exhumed from Izyum burial site Russia should be thrown off UN Human Rights Council over its role in Syria, global coalition demands

Jimmy Kimmel joked that if Trump were still president, 'we'd all be blissfully downing jiggers of bleach'

Manchester City remain interested in signing Joshua Kimmich from Bayern Munich and could firm up their interest in 2024. The German champions blocked a potential exit this summer, but the midfielder is now set to enter the last 18 months of his contract.

Adin Ross said, 'We haven't hung out in a year, you don't even know that I am super different, we haven't hung out'

Morgan Stanley sold and paid out the $20 million option that federal prosecutors allege motivated Glen Point Capital

The stock of China’s biggest food delivery platform has almost halved since a January peak and if traders

As war ravages between Israel and Hamas, people have understandably taken an interest in the unfolding tragedy, sharing information about it on social media. Palestinian militant group Hamas sent fighters across the border to Israel and fired thousands of rockets in an unprecedented attack on Saturday. At least 900 people have reportedly been killed in Israel and more than 600 have been killed in Gaza, with dozens more taken hostage by Hamas. But not everything shared about this conflict on platforms such as X/Twitter can be characterised as information. Indeed, there has instead been a torrent of misinformation and fake news corrupting the internet, creating false narratives and warping people's minds. For instance, X/Twitter placed a "media manipulation" warning on a tweet by Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that featured a 28-second video claiming to show Hamas firing rockets towards Israel during the latest round of violence - footage he said was evidence of a "war crime". However, it has since emerged that the video in question is at least two years old. The tweet has now been deleted. Meanwhile, the i reports that false reports that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had been taken to hospital circulated on the platform. A fake Jerusalem Post account circulating the reports has now been removed from X. CNN reports another viral video claiming to show Israel generals after being captured by Hamas fighter was viewed more than 1.7 million times by Monday. The video however actually shows the detention of separatists in Azerbaijan. Here are some more fake posts, as debunked by BBC journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh: One in five social media accounts participating in online conversations about the Hamas attacks and their aftermath are fake, according to Cyabra, an Israeli analysis firm. As reported by the Guardian, the company found that approximately 30,000 fake accounts have been spreading pro-Hamas disinformation or gathering sensitive details about their targets. “In times of war, social media becomes a propaganda battlefield; there is always an element of disinformation and exaggeration,” Emerson Brooking, senior resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab told CNN. “Today, X is the main platform where this online battle plays out.” "In crises like terrorist atrocities, wars and natural disasters, people tend to descend on social media platforms for quickly accessible information," Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, told AFP. "(But) the flood of grifters spreading lies and hate to garner engagement and followers, combined with algorithms that promote this extreme and disturbing content, is why social media is in fact such a bad place to access reliable information." Be careful with what you see on social media. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Michael Strahan created history by flying onboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket

For the most recent Chiefs game, Kelce arrived dressed in a pair of brown velvet cargo pants, a silky white button-up shirt, and matching Nikes

Mark Ruffalo has joined the growing list of celebrities facing criticism for their comments on the conflict between Hamas and Israel

Liberian President George Weah is seeking a second term in office, facing a rematch against his main challenger from the 2017 election

Tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are packed into United Nations shelters as Israeli warplanes pound the tiny territory of 2.3 million people after their Hamas militant rulers launched an unprecedented weekend attack on Israel