The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela held their first bilateral meeting in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, on Tuesday, where they discussed topics including trade, human rights, and protecting the Amazon rainforest.

Among other things, Colombia's leader also urged Venezuela to reintegrate itself in the inter-American human rights system.

Advocacy group Human Rights Watch recently called on Colombia to use its restored diplomatic relations with Venezuela to help curb human rights violations there.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria destroyed or damaged at least 140 private buildings housing 147 families in January and February 2022 while trying to capture fleeing detainees and Islamic State (ISIS) fighters who attacked a nearby prison, Human Rights Watch said today. Witnesses said the SDF used bulldozers to demolish houses in al-Hasakah city’s East Ghweran and al-Zuhour neighborhoods.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has held high-level talks in Tehran after a trilateral meeting with Russian and Azerbaijani leaders on fighting in the Caucasus region.

Pashinyan was officially received by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday morning, and the two held talks at the Saadabad Palace in the capital Tehran.

Fifty United Nations member countries today issued a joint statement that condemned the Chinese government’s persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang. It was the largest group of states to publicly denounce Beijing’s human rights violations in Xinjiang, which the UN’s human rights office determined may amount to crimes against humanity.

Myanmar’s junta has officially banned the online news outlet The Irrawaddy and charged the outlet’s registered publisher for violating national security laws, state media reported over the weekend, following months of legal harassment.

The ban is the latest on at least 20 media groups—news agencies, publishing houses, and printing presses—since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup and began a crackdown on press freedom in Myanmar.

RP Singh, the national spokesperson for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—one of India’s major political parties—has written to India’s Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah calling for the establishment of a “truth commission” to expose the conspiracy behind the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and take cognizance against the “real culprits."

Singh has also requested the home minister to declassify all documents pertaining to the period leading up to Operation Bluestar and the Sikh pogrom later that year.

Latin America leaders on Sunday congratulated Brazil's Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva after he won a third term as president of the largest country in South America, consolidating the region's "pink tide" of elected leftist leaders. His victory over far-right president Jair Bolsonaro leaves Brazil joining Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Peru in a growing leftist bloc.

Lula narrowly defeated Bolsonaro, winning 50.9 percent of votes, and his inauguration is scheduled for Jan. 1.

Thousands have protested in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) city of Goma, denouncing Rwanda’s alleged support of M23 rebels, as DRC recalled its interim acting ambassador from Rwanda in a further souring of relations.

On October 25, 2022, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum issued a warning of a heightened risk of genocide in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. According to the statement, “the situation has deteriorated exponentially as Ethiopian security forces, supported by Eritrean forces and Amhara special forces, have seized key towns and cities imperiling vulnerable Tigrayan civilians.”

In a resolution passed after a meeting in Washington, DC, on Thursday afternoon, the Organization of American States (OAS) permanent council expressed “solidarity and support” for Peru’s government, “as well as for [the] preservation of the democratic political institutional process."

The left-wing president, who won a hard-fought 2021 election, faces an unprecedented six investigations by the prosecutor’s office, including for influence peddling, obstruction of justice, and directing a criminal organization.