New York

WEST POINT. N.Y. (AP) — As the nation continues to grapple with its racial past, President Donald Trump urged West Point’s graduating class Saturday to “never forget” the legacy of soldiers before them who fought a bloody war to “extinguish the evil of slavery.”

13 June 2020; MEMO: The UN human rights office said Friday it regrets a set of sanctions authorised by the administration of US President Donald Trump against International Criminal Court (ICC) officials who prosecute American troops, Anadolu Agency reports.

Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a video press briefing expressed the regret and impact the US measures may have on the investigations and trials underway in the ICC.

13 June 2020; AFP: African countries called Friday 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.

NEW YORK, June 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The state of New York adopted a series of laws designed to put an end to police brutality against the African American community, a sign of the impact that nationwide protests over the George Floyd are having.

Governor Andrew Cuomo officially signed 10 laws that the two houses of the state legislature passed earlier in the week.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed deep shock late Friday at the discovery of mass graves in Libyan territory recently recaptured from forces commanded by Khalifa Hifter, and called for a transparent investigation.

UNITED NATIONS, June 11 (Xinhua) -- With the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on top of armed conflict and natural disasters in Afghanistan, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Thursday that it hopes to reach 11.1 million people there with aid.

The OCHA put the cost of assisting them at 1.1 billion U.S. dollars.

"Even before the pandemic reached Afghanistan, 9.4 million people needed humanitarian assistance to obtain food, clean water, basic healthcare and other essentials," the office said.

NEW YORK, June 11 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks ended sharply lower on Thursday with the Dow plunging more than 1,800 points amid a broad market sell-off.

The 30-stock index shed 1,861.82 points, or 6.9 percent, to 25,128.17. The S&P 500 sank 188.04 points, or 5.89 percent, to 3,002.1. The Nasdaq decreased 527.62 points, or 5.27 percent, to 9,492.73. The major averages posted their worst day since mid-March.

All the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors tumbled, with energy and financials down 9.45 percent and 8.18 percent, respectively, leading the losses.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee said Thursday the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates “the gross inequality” of a world where almost half the population is unable to connect to the internet.

He told a high-level U.N. meeting “our number one focus must be to close the digital divide.”

(AP) --- The rapidly unfolding movement to pull down Confederate monuments around the U.S. in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police has extended to statues of slave traders, imperialists, conquerors and explorers around the world, including Christopher Columbus, Cecil Rhodes and Belgium’s King Leopold II.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 11 (APP): A top Pakistani diplomat has urged the world community to intervene and hold India accountable for its “grave” breaches of international humanitarian law and war crimes in occupied Kashmir, as he highlighted the decades of Kashmiri people’s sufferings now compounded by the coronavirus pandemic.