East Timor on Friday marks 20 years since a UN-backed vote ended a bloody, decades-long occupation by Indonesian forces and paved the way for it to become an independent nation.On 30 August 1999, nearly 80 percent of East Timorese voted to split from neighbouring Indonesia, which invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975, starting a brutal 24-year military occupation.But joy over independence quickly turned to terror as Indonesian security forces and proxy militias went on a scorched-earth

Teenage climate campaigner Greta Thunberg said the “war on nature must end” and called on Donald Trump to listen to science after she sailed into New York on a zero-emissions yacht Wednesday.The 16-year-old completed a 15-day journey across the Atlantic shortly after 4:00 pm (2000 GMT), stepping off the boat onto a Manhattan dock to cheering crowds chanting her name.“It is devastating and so horrible. It’s hard to imagine.

The Malaysian government should take a long, hard look at the mirror and ask itself if the country really is the world champion of conquering poverty.The United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, spent 11 days in Malaysia meeting state and federal government officials, international agencies, civil society, academics and people affected by poverty in urban and rural areas this month.His travels through five states saw him visit a soup kitchen,

Talks between Myanmar and Rohingya leaders will be extended after "positive" discussions about the refugees' return to their homeland, Bangladesh officials said. Some 740,000 Rohingya fled a 2017 crackdown by Myanmar's military and joined another 200,000 already living in squalid conditions in nearly three dozen camps in Bangladesh's coastal Cox's Bazar district.The two nations signed a repatriation deal two years ago but so far virtually no Rohingya hav

A United States (US) travel ban on Myanmar's army chief and three other top officers for their role in orchestrating a crackdown against Rohingya Muslims does not go far enough, a United Nations (UN) rights investigator said Thursday.The sanctions announced Tuesday were the strongest censure yet from a Western power since the army launched its offensive against the stateless minority in August 2017 following attacks on police posts.US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said army chief Min Au

United Nations (UN) ambassadors from 37 countries released a letter Friday defending China's treatment of Uighur and other minorities in the Xinjiang region, in direct response to Western criticism earlier this week. Envoys from across the European Union (EU) – along with Australia, Canada and Japan and New Zealand – had earlier co-signed a text denouncing China's conduct in Xinjiang, where one million people, mostly ethnic Uighurs, are reportedly being held in internment c

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's narcotics crackdown has become a "systematic" campaign of killing, Amnesty International alleged on Monday, urging the United Nations (UN) to launch a probe into thousands of deaths.The drug war is Duterte's signature initiative and is heavily supported by many Filipinos, but the nightly slaying of suspects by police and masked gunmen has provoked international condemnation.In a speech just hours after Amnesty issued its report attack

Malaysia’s plan to become the first ASEAN country to decriminalise the use and possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use must go hand-in-hand with public awareness programs and on the ground work by non-governmental organisations (NGOs).While the Malaysian public may think drugs will now be sold openly if this landmark decision is implemented, this is simply not true.

The United Nations (UN) has warned it will pare back aid to thousands of Rohingya Muslims left destitute as Myanmar's government closes camps in Rakhine state, over fears its continued support "risks entrenching segregation".Aid agencies are facing an increasingly sharp dilemma in the region as they balance relief for desperate communities with leverage over the government.The majority of Myanmar's Rohingya were driven into Bangladesh by a 2017 army crackdown, but around 4

Despite its best efforts to reach the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) released on Monday stated that on its current trajectory, Asia Pacific will not achieve any of the 17 SDGs by its 2030 target.For more than half of the SDGs, progress has stagnated or heading in the wrong direction.