Hi there, this is Michelle. Negotiations between the US and Iran have been head-spinning, between strikes and calls to return to the talks. One thing that is certain is that Iranians’ human rights have not been part of the agenda. My colleague Paula spoke to the UN’s top rights expert on Iran, Mai Sato, about this glaring absence.
The Human Rights Council is convening an emergency meeting this Friday amid warnings of an imminent assault on Sudan’s El Obeid that could lead to atrocities echoing those in El Fasher last fall. Plus, the devastating earthquake in Venezuela has crippled the country’s health system as thousands are still trapped under the rubble. |
Iranian women hold pictures of their relatives during a memorial ceremony for those killed in anti-government protests earlier last month, at the Mosallah mosque in Tehran, Iran, 17 February 2026. (Keystone/EPA/Abedin Taherkenareh)
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Here's what else is happening
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🇻🇪Venezuela health system strained after earthquakes, WHO says.
Out of 21 hospitals that the UN health agency has assessed, at least three are critically damaged, six are damaged or only partially functional, while the rest remain operational but with severe constraints.
Reuters (EN)
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🦠Ebola outbreak could cost Africa up to $3.6 billion, UN says.
The UN Development Programme warned of the economic fallout of the health crisis, amid trade disruptions, border delays and a decline in consumer confidence already straining the DR Congo’s economy.
Reuters (EN)
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🛫How a UN agency helps to enable US policy on third-country deportees.
The International Organization for Migration was reportedly awarded $85 million by the US for its work in the Central African Republic this year, where it provides “post-arrival humanitarian assistance” to the deportees, according to its spokesperson.
PassBlue (EN)
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🚴♂️Cern bids to host a time trial for the 2029 Tour de France.
The international physics laboratory wants to mark its 75th anniversary by hosting Geneva’s first men’s Tour de France stage, around its 27km Meyrin campus, since 1990.
Léman Bleu (FR)
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🇨🇳ICYMI: China’s new ethnic unity law legalising cultural ‘erasure’, minorities warn at UN.
Tibetan and Uighur representatives at a United Nations meeting in Geneva warned that a new Chinese law coming into effect today threatens to erase minority communities.
The Straits Times (EN)
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(UN Human Rights Council/X)
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Gustavo Gallón, Colombia’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, passed away
at 74 years of age after being hospitalised in Switzerland over the weekend. The news was confirmed through a post on X by Colombian president Gustavo Petro, who described him as “a hero of the fight for human rights” and praised his devotion to help “massacred and persecuted communities”.
Gallón was a renowned human rights figure who founded the Colombian Commission of Jurists and whose work made him a target of Colombian paramilitary groups. He served as the now-defunct Human Rights Commission’s representative for Equatorial Guinea in the early 2000s and the Human Rights Council independent expert on Haiti from 2013 to 2017 before being appointed as Colombia’s top diplomat in Geneva in 2022.
Foreign minister Yolanda Villavicencio lamented his passing, crediting him with spearheading efforts for the establishment of the UN Human Rights Office’s local branch in Colombia.
EFE via Swissinfo (ES)
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