Switzerland

GENEVA (AP) — The head of the U.N. refugee agency says he is “very worried” about the impact of the coronavirus in Latin America, where millions of Venezuelans have fled upheaval at home and could face hardship abroad among lockdowns and other restrictive measures to fight the pandemic.

(Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was moving to update its guidelines on treating people stricken with COVID-19 to reflect results of a clinical trial that showed a cheap, common steroid can help save critically ill patients.

Trial results announced on Tuesday showed dexamethasone, used since the 1960s to reduce inflammation in diseases such as arthritis, cut death rates by around a third among the most severely ill COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital.

GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. human rights experts said on Tuesday that Israel’s plan to annex significant parts of the occupied West Bank would violate international law banning the taking of territory by force, and urged other countries to actively oppose it.

A joint statement, signed by nearly 50 independent experts, also voiced dismay at U.S. support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “unlawful” plan to extend sovereignty, de facto annexation of land that the Palestinians seek for a state.

GENEVA (Reuters) - African countries are lobbying to set up a U.N. inquiry into “systemic racism” and “police brutality” in the United States and elsewhere, aiming to defend the rights of people of African descent, a draft resolution seen by Reuters shows.

The text, circulating among diplomats in Geneva, voices alarm at “recent incidents of police brutality against peaceful demonstrators defending the rights of Africans and of people of African descent”. It is due to be considered at an urgent debate of the U.N. Human Rights Council on Wednesday.

GENEVA, June 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) – The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, urged the United States to make immediate structural reforms, to end racial discrimination and to uphold its obligations under the relevant international conventions.

GENEVA, June 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — African countries called on the UN Human Rights Council to urgently debate racism and police brutality amid the unrest in the US and beyond over George Floyd’s death.

In a letter written on behalf of 54 African countries, Burkina Faso’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva asked the UN’s top rights body for an “urgent debate” on “racially inspired human rights violations, police brutality against people of African descent and the violence against the peaceful protests that call for these injustices to stop.”

GENEVA, June 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Health Organization said that the coronavirus pandemic situation was worsening around the globe, as it warned against complacency.

The WHO said it had recorded its highest daily tally of new infections, with COVID-19 raging in the Americas.

And as mass protests for racial justice sweep across the United States and beyond, the United Nations’ health agency urged anyone demonstrating to do so safely.

GENEVA, June 6. /TASS/: Nearly 120,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection were registered worldwide in the past day, with the overall number of such cases exceeding 6.5 million, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its daily bulletin published on Friday night.

GENEVA, June 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Health Organization announced that clinical trials of the drug hydroxychloroquine will resume as it searches for potential coronavirus treatments.

On May 25, the WHO announced it had temporarily suspended the trials to conduct a safety review, which has now concluded there is “no reason” to change the way the trials are conducted.

The UN health agency’s decision came after a study published in The Lancet medical journal suggesting the drug could increase the risk of death among COVID-19 patients.

GENEVA, June 4 (NNN-Xinhua) — The grievances at the heart of the protests that have erupted in hundreds of U.S. cities need to be heard and addressed, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said.

“The voices calling for an end to the killings of unarmed African Americans need to be heard. The voices calling for an end to police violence need to be heard. And the voices calling for an end to the endemic and structural racism that blights U.S. society need to be heard,” Bachelet said in a press statement.