Media Coverage

For nearly two centuries after France abolished slavery, the colonial-era law that classified humans as property has remained quietly on the books. On Thursday, the lower house of parliament voted to wipe it from French law. The National Assembly voted 254-0—a rare show of unanimity—to adopt a bill...

A group led by a Roman Catholic bishop in the Philippines launched a fact-finding body Wednesday to document accounts of witnesses and other details of ex-President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody anti-drugs crackdown that the government can use to prosecute law enforcers. Duterte, who ended his stormy six...

After years of allegations of land dispossession by a now-dissolved Catholic group, the highest ecclesiastical authorities in the Andean country on Saturday held a symbolic reparation ceremony for the Indigenous people whose land was taken away. The Peru-based Sodalitium Christianae Vitae was...

Hundreds of Ukrainians marched through the capital on Friday, demanding that the government veto a bill that families of missing soldiers say could lead to their loved ones being prematurely declared dead. The protesters gathered to oppose Bill No. 13646, which addresses the legal status of missing...

Étienne Davignon, former European Commission vice president and veteran Belgian diplomat accused of involvement in the 1961 detention and mistreatment of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, has died at the age of 93, Belgian media reported Monday. Davignon was ordered by a Brussels court in March to...

Félicien Kabuga, accused of bankrolling the Rwandan genocide, died on Thursday in a hospital in The Hague while in custody, a UN court said. Kabuga, whose exact birthday is not known but was over 90, was suffering from dementia and has been stranded in legal limbo since 2023 when judges ruled that...

Syria has begun its first public trial of officials who served under longtime leader Bashar al-Assad, 15 years after the start of the civil war. Trial proceedings opened in Damascus on Sunday for Atef Najib, the former head of political security in southern Syria’s Deraa province. He is accused of...

Australia’s most decorated living veteran, Ben Roberts-Smith, walked free on bail from a Sydney prison on Friday, 10 days after he was charged with war crimes in the killings of five people while serving in Afghanistan. Judge Greg Grogin granted Roberts-Smith bail in a Sydney court around five hours...

Burkina Faso’s military is committing atrocities, including the ethnic cleansing of Fulani civilians, Human Rights Watch has found, which amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West African country. In a report released on Thursday and titled “None Can Run Away,” the New York-based...

The UN General Assembly’s resolution on Wednesday declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans “the gravest crime against humanity” and calling for reparations is being welcomed across Africa and among slave descendants and advocates of restorative justice. About 12 million Africans were...