Human Rights | WPN World People News

Mother and children waiting with other refugees to enter Vinojug reception centre at Gevgelija, in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, at the border with Greece.

The European Union deal with Turkey is a flawed and potentially dangerous policy response to refugee flows across the Aegean Sea. EU and Turkish leaders will meet in Brussels on March 7, 2016, to discuss implementation of a joint action plan that the EU hopes will limit migration and refugee flows from Turkey to Greece.

The government of Maharashtra has finally woken up to the agrarian crisis that has, according to official statistics, already ensnared the lives of 124 farmers in the state in the first 45 days of the year. Awoken, the government has decided to take action. And, the action that the government has decided to take is to send its Council of Ministers on a tour of three of the worst hit districts: Beed, Osmanabad, and Latur.

A deminer outside of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in November 2011.

Zero Discrimination Day is an opportunity to join together against discrimination and celebrate everyone’s right to live a full and productive life with dignity.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with its presence in more than 170 poor and vulnerable countries, must rise to the challenge of advancing a “big, new, more complex, and transformational” sustainable development agenda, the head of the agency said on 24 February at a ministerial meeting to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its founding.

Public health-The European Parliament made the case on Thursday for EU-wide data sharing on the registration of cats and dogs to tackle the illegal trade in pets that are often badly bred and at risk of spreading diseases. Trafficking of pets, including wild and exotic animals, is increasingly linked to organised crime and poses a public health risk, say MEPs.

On February 8, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the appointment of Philip Ruddock – the former immigration minister who presided over the Howard government’s notorious “Pacific Solution” to divert asylum seekers from its shores – as Australia’s first special envoy for human rights. This surprising recycling of Ruddock is a part of the government’s campaign for a seat at the United Nations Human Rights Council for the 2018-2020 term.

A life sentence apparently handed down by mistake to a 3-year-old boy on February 16, 2016, exemplifies the arbitrariness of Egyptian courts that are used to punish political opponents of the government.

Democratic Republic of Congo authorities have arbitrarily arrested eight youth activists, Human Rights Watch said on February 23, 2016. The youth activists and at least 30 political opposition supporters were detained on or around February 16, 2016, in connection with a national strike, or “ville morte” (dead city), to protest delays in organizing presidential elections. Other activists who supported the ville morte have received text message threats from unknown phone numbers.