GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations urged Sri Lanka in a resolution on Thursday to carry out credible investigations into killings and disappearances during its nearly 30-year civil war, especially in the brutal final stages in 2009.

It voiced concern at reports of continuing violations including killings, torture, curbs on the right to freedom of expression, and reprisals against activists and journalists.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Nearly half a million people sought asylum in the developed world last year, a 10-year high, with the sharpest rise in requests from Syrians fleeing war and persecution, the United Nations said on Thursday.

In all, 479,300 asylum applications were lodged in 44 industrialised countries, a rise of 8 percent on the previous year, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in its annual report, entitled Asylum Trends 2012.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Nearly half a million people sought asylum in the developed world last year, a 10-year high, with the sharpest rise in requests from Syrians fleeing war and persecution, the United Nations said on Thursday.

In all, 479,300 asylum applications were lodged in 44 industrialized countries, a rise of 8 percent on the previous year, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in its annual report, entitled Asylum Trends 2012.

LONDON/GENEVA (Reuters) – Deadly strains of tuberculosis that are resistant to multiple drugs are spreading around the world, and authorities urgently need another $1.6 billion a year to tackle them, global health officials said on Monday.

Donors should step up with “significant funding” to help experts track down all existing cases and treat the most serious ones, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria said in joint statement.

GENEVA (Reuters) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) appealed to foreign powers on Friday to press combatants in Syria to halt attacks on civilians and aid workers, saying all sides were violating the Geneva Conventions.

“Many atrocities against civilians have been reported or witnessed over the past two years and we have also seen indiscriminate attacks against civilians and the targeting of health-care personnel and aid workers,” said Robert Mardini, head of ICRC operations for the Near and Middle East.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Western powers are trying to sabotage Iran’s presidential election in June but the vote will go ahead and offer a fair choice between reformists and conservatives, a senior Iranian official said on Thursday.

Journalists and others suspected of complicity in a plot to destabilize the Islamic Republic have been arrested and will receive due process, said Mohammad Javad Larijani, secretary-general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Iran’s silencing of journalists and opposition leaders could jeopardize the legitimacy of the presidential election in June, a United Nations human rights investigator said on Tuesday.

Ahmed Shaheed, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, said that dozens of Iranian journalists were behind bars, including 17 arrested during one week in January and charged with communicating with foreign news outlets or rights groups.

GENEVA (Reuters) – The Syrian government has stepped up indiscriminate, heavy bombardments of cities while rebels are executing prisoners condemned in their own makeshift courts without due process, U.N. investigators said on Monday.

The independent investigators said they were looking into 20 massacres committed by one or the other side and hundreds of “unlawful killings”, cases of torture and arbitrary arrests since September in the two-year-old conflict.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Myanmar must pursue crimes committed by the former junta but neither the quasi-civilian government nor opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi have any appetite to do so for now, a United Nations investigator said on Friday.

Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said accountability for decades of violations was crucial for healing as well as for solidifying reforms.

GENEVA, March 8 (Reuters) – Myanmar must pursue crimes
committed by the former junta but neither the quasi-civilian
government nor opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi have any
appetite to do so for now, a United Nations investigator said on
Friday.

Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights
in Myanmar, said accountability for decades of violations was
crucial for healing as well as for solidifying reforms.