Human Rights

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI called Wednesday for greater international efforts to ensure basic human rights for children, saying he was praying for all young people who suffer. Full Story »

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Up to 2,700 Zimbabwean asylum seekers have set up a temporary "safety camp" in a rural South African town following attacks on their shacks in a dispute over jobs, a human rights group said Wednesday. Full Story »

CANBERRA, Australia - Australia must abolish policies that discriminate against Aborigines in its quest to lift its indigenous population out of Third World poverty, the head of an international human rights group said Wednesday. Full Story »

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The European Union and Russia hope to lay the foundations of a new economic and political partnership at a summit on Wednesday despite differences over energy, trade, human rights and climate change. Full Story »

BEIJING - President Barack Obama is pushing China on human rights, telling President Hu Jintao the U.S. believes all men and woman have "certain fundamental rights." Full Story »

BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he told China that all minorities should enjoy human rights and urged China to resume talks with the Dalai Lama's representatives. Full Story »

BEIJING - Police detained dozens of activists and petitioners in Beijing and elsewhere in China as President Barack Obama arrived on his first state visit to the country, friends, family members and a human rights group said Monday. Full Story »

JOHANNESBURG - An African took over as director of Greenpeace Monday, bringing experience honed as a teenage opponent of white rule in South Africa and a network of powerful contacts to the battle against global warming. Full Story »

PARIS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy's special envoy to North Korea said Sunday that he had long talks with officials there about sensitive issues including nuclear proliferation and human rights. Full Story »

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Union and Iraq have agreed the outlines of a partnership covering counter-terrorism, human rights and trade, the European Commission said Friday. Full Story »

JOHANNESBURG - An Ethiopian human rights activist who was jailed for 2 1/2 years said Friday that his country is less free today than it was during its disputed 2005 election. Full Story »

BEIJING (AFP) - France's special envoy to North Korea, Jack Lang, said Friday following a five-day visit to the reclusive state that Pyongyang had agreed to an "exchange" with Paris on human rights issues. Full Story »

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine president signed a bill criminalizing all forms of torture and prohibiting state authorities from using secret detention centers, her spokesman announced Friday. Full Story »

ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) - Iraq's Kurdish regional government said on Thursday it is willing to probe allegations that its forces had abused ethnic minorities, but rejected claims by Human Rights Watch of widespread abuse. Full Story »

HONG KONG (AFP) - US President Barack Obama must press China on human rights violations in Tibet and its far-west Xinjiang region during his upcoming Asian tour, Human Rights Watch said Thursday. Full Story »

BEIJING - Kidnapping villagers who have traveled to Beijing to lodge complaints with China's central government and keeping them in unofficial jails to silence them has evolved into a lucrative cottage industry that police refuse to crack down on, a human rights group said Thursday. Full Story »

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese state agents regularly abduct citizens and detain them for days or months in secret, illegal "black jails", subjecting them to physical and psychological abuses, Human Rights Watch said Thursday. Full Story »

LONDON - Britain said Wednesday it plans to get rid of DNA profiles of most innocent people after six years in response to a European Court ruling that said keeping the information indefinitely was a violation of human rights. Full Story »