Switzerland

GENEVA, March 17 (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights chief said on Thursday that nearly 1,100 activists, opposition members and journalists are being detained on "politically motivated charges" in Belarus and called for their release.

Michelle Bachelet said the government of President Alexander Lukashenko was carrying out violations of a "widespread and systematic nature" since large-scale protests against his contested victory in 2020's elections.

GENEVA, March 16 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) sounded the alarm on Wednesday over a global spike in COVID-19 cases, despite reduced testing and several weeks of declining infections.

WHO said cases are especially on the rise in parts of Asia, urging for vaccination coverage to be extended and caution to be exercised in lifting pandemic response measures.

GENEVA (AP) — The number of new coronavirus deaths reported worldwide fell by 17% in the last week while COVID-19 infections rose, reversing a decline in cases that first began in January, according to the World Health Organization.

In the U.N. health agency’s weekly report on the pandemic issued late Tuesday, WHO said there were more than 11 million new COVID-19 infections last week - about an 8% rise - and 43,000 new deaths. The number of COVID-19 deaths globally has been dropping for the past three weeks.

GENEVA, March 14 (Reuters) - Hundreds of negotiators arrived in the Swiss city of Geneva on Monday for final U.N. talks on an ambitious pact that aims to halt and reverse the loss of habitats for endangered species ahead of a summit in China later this year.

The in-person talks are the first time negotiators from some 164 countries have met in two years due to COVID risks. They are seen as the last chance to thrash out details of the "post-2020 global biodiversity framework" to help protect species thought to be going extinct at the fastest rate in 10 million years.

GENEVA, March 11 (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights office said on Friday it had received "credible reports" of several cases of Russian forces using cluster munitions in populated areas in Ukraine, adding that indiscriminate use of such weapons might amount to war crimes.

GENEVA — The International Organization for Migration says 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded more than two weeks ago.

IOM spokesman Paul Dillon said in a text message that the figures, taken from national governments, were up to date through Friday morning.

He said that more than 1.5 million refugees have gone to neighboring Poland and that some 116,000 of the refugees are “third-country nationals,” not Ukrainians.

GENEVA, March 9 (Reuters) - Syria's war has escalated in the last months, marked by intensified shelling and aerial bombing by Syrian and Russian forces on rebel-held areas, U.N. war crimes investigators said on Wednesday.

Families in Syria, where rampant inflation hit 140% at the start of 2022, would be hard-hit by any disruption of wheat imports from Ukraine or Russia that could make prices for basic goods soar even further, they said.

GENEVA, March 8 (Reuters) - The United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday that it had verified 1,335 civilian casualties in Ukraine, including 474 killed and 861 injured, since Russia's invasion began on Feb. 24.

But the civilian toll was incomplete pending corroboration of reports, it said in a statement: "This concerns, for example, the towns of Volnovakha, Mariupol, Izium where there are allegations of hundreds of civilian casualties."

Its previous death toll for civilians killed, issued on Monday, was 406 civilians. 

GENEVA, March 8 (Reuters) - U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Tuesday that she has reached an agreement with China for a visit, "foreseen" in May, and that she had raised with Beijing the arrests of activists to support their freedom of expression.

Her visit would include a stop in the remote western region of Xinjiang, where activists say some 1 million Uyghurs have been held in mass detention, she told the Human Rights Council.

ZURICH, March 5 (Reuters) - At least 351 civilians are confirmed to have been killed in Ukraine since Russian troops invaded on Feb. 24, and another 707 wounded, although the true numbers are probably "considerably higher", a U.N. monitoring mission said on Saturday.

Most of the civilian casualties were caused by explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and from missile and air strikes, monitors from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said.