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UNITED NATIONS, Feb 15 (APP): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “deeply concerned” over the increased use of force and the reported deployment of armoured vehicles in Myanmar, according to his spokesman.

In a statement issued on Sunday night by Spokesman Stephane Dujarric, the UN chief called on the military and police of Myanmar to ensure that the right of peaceful assembly is “fully respected” and demonstrators are “not subjected to reprisals”.

“Reports of continued violence, intimidation and harassment by security personnel are unacceptable”, he added.

NEW YORK, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has applauded China's determination to prioritize the climate and its contributions to carbon reduction, saying the world benefits from the country's efforts to make green energy more affordable.

"It's great that President Xi is making climate a priority and wants to work with other countries on this," said Gates, also co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua.

NEW YORK, Feb 14 (APP): A prominent Kashmiri leader, voicing his outrage over the escalating atrocities by Indian occupation forces in Kashmir, has made a clarion call for a “united front” among the Kashmiri diaspora to accomplish the ultimate objective — the UN-promised right to self-determination.

NEW YORK, Feb 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A total of 500 more police officers will be deployed immediately to patrol New York City’s transit system both on ground and underground following four stabbing incidents within 24 hours, said New York Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Dermot Shea.

The separate incidents happened from Friday to early Saturday on A line subway trains or along its subway stations, leaving two people dead, said the NYPD in a press briefing.

Three of the incidents appeared to be connected, and all the victims appeared to be homeless, it added.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote a book on managing the COVID-19 crisis. Now he faces intensifying accusations that he covered up the true death toll of the pandemic on nursing home residents, attacks that challenge his reputation for straight-shooting competency and could cloud his political future.

State lawmakers called for investigations, stripping Cuomo of his emergency powers and even his resignation after new details emerged this week about why certain nursing home data was kept under wraps for months, despite requests from lawmakers and others.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Republican Party still belongs to Donald Trump.

After he incited a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol last month, the GOP considered purging the norm-shattering former president. But in the end, only seven of 50 Senate Republicans voted to convict Trump in his historic second impeachment trial on Saturday.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — British human rights lawyer Karim Khan was elected as the new prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a politically daunting position whose incumbent was slapped with US sanctions.

Khan, 50, previously led a special UN probe into crimes by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) extremist group in which he pressed for a trial on the lines of Nuremberg for Nazi war criminals.

More controversially, he also represented late Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam.

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon is suing the attorney general of New York in a bid to stop her from suing the company over its coronavirus safety protocols and the firing of one of its outspoken workers.

In the lawsuit filed Friday in Brooklyn federal court, Amazon said Attorney General Letitia James overstepped her authority by trying to regulate coronavirus safety protocols at its warehouse in New York’s Staten Island borough.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top aide told Democratic lawmakers that the administration took months to release data revealing how many people living at nursing homes died of COVID-19 because officials “froze” over worries the information was “going to be used against us.”

NEW YORK, Feb 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Biden administration asked a US court to suspend litigation connected to former president Donald Trump’s proposed ban on WeChat while it reviews the policy.

The Justice Department filed a request with the US Court of Appeals seeking a suspension of the case. That follows action Wednesday when the department asked a federal court for a pause on proceedings aimed at banning TikTok.