Human rights situation in Myanmar plummets to new low by UN Office for Human Rights (OHCHR)   25 Aug. 2026   Human rights situation in Myanmar plummets to new low amid unrelenting violations and unregulated exploitation of natural resources – UN report.   The human rights situation in Myanmar, in particular that of minority communities, has plummeted to a new low, from the ever-worsening brutal abuse of the Rohingya population to the devastating impact of illicit economies, notably illegal mining for rare earths, a new UN Human Rights report has found.   The report details how unrelenting violence and a conflict economy work hand-in-hand to expose civilian populations to untold misery. It covers the period between 1 June 2025 and 31 May 2026.   “The military’s persistent quest for control and legitimacy has only deepened the suffering and the multiple life-threatening protection and humanitarian concerns civilians face,” the report states. “Military tactics aimed at imposing fear and control, facilitated by the use of new technologies to expand surveillance, permeate every aspect of life.”   Highlighting acts of military violence against the civilian population, the report notes the persistent use of airstrikes, arson attacks, displacement and denial of assistance. It also details the commission – by both the Myanmar military and the “Arakan Army” – of widespread and systematic violations and abuses against the Rohingya, nine years since the terrible violence of 2017 that forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee.   “Across northern Rakhine, the Arakan Army has perpetrated arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, instances of enforced disappearance, forced labour and recruitment, unlawful confiscation of land and residential property, and the destruction of villages, religious and cultural sites, caused renewed Rohingya displacement,” it says.   “Children are systematically used for labour, with witnesses describing workers as young as six years old clearing jungle, constructing buildings and doing menial work for Rakhine families. In one case, a child was forced to clear bones and skulls of victims of a massacre.”   Interviewees reported the arrest and detention of Rohingya attempting to escape forced recruitment, with cases of Rohingya girls resorting to early marriage in the hope that married girls were less likely to be forcibly recruited.   “Once detained, individuals reported being routinely subjected to ill-treatment with former detainees describing beatings with bamboo, rubber pipes, and belts; being burned with matches and cigarettes; being hung upside down with their bodies spun until they passed out; chili being applied to genitals; and removal of fingernails,” the report reads.   The absence of the rule of law across Myanmar has acted as an enabler for illicit economies in the country, helping to finance the conflict, worsen the crisis, and with impacts on the wider region, the report finds. Human rights crises continue to multiply from rising illegal mining, drug production, human trafficking, and scam centres.   Economic collapse and conflict-induced displacement have also generated a labour market that is easy for economic actors and criminal organizations to exploit, the report states, finding that civilians are lured into a system marred by endless human rights violations and abuses.   Unregulated exploitation of natural resources has destroyed the environment, livelihoods, and traditional community-based systems in a growing number of areas in the country, particularly minority areas.   Illicit economies and rare earth mining in Kachin and Shan have strengthened the expansion of transnational criminal networks, irresponsible business practices, and serious instances of transboundary environmental contamination, it finds.   Satellite images confirmed that Kachin remained the primary mining area, with 302 new sites since 2021 – a 149 percent increase. In Shan, sites increased from 12 pre-coup to 85 post-coup.   Despite limited availability of official records, findings indicated a peak in trade flows in 2023 amounting to USD 1.4 billion, the report finds.   Financial investigations have highlighted a complex web of relationships among multiple actors and entities that fostered illicit gains with impunity, the report adds.   Massive volumes of hazardous chemical leaching agents and toxic mining runoff flow directly into local waterways, resulting in severe chemical and transboundary pollution.   “Environmental contamination impacted maternal and reproductive health, with local documentation efforts confirming sharp surges in miscarriages, severe bleeding during pregnancy, childbirth, or after delivery, and pregnancy complications attributed to heavy metal and chemical exposure,” says the report.   Lack of economic opportunities, displacement and forced conscription have also triggered an influx of women into the mining sector. “This aggravated risks of sexual violence and harassment by supervisors, guards, and militia members who operated with absolute impunity,” it says.   The report also highlights the absence of occupational health and safety standards. “Without knowledge and equipment, interlocutors stated that workers developed symptoms like acute respiratory distress, severe headaches, chemical burns, and gastrointestinal illnesses,” it says. “Prolonged exposure caused the accumulation of toxic agents, leading to chronic pulmonary, kidney, and liver diseases.”   Toxic wastewater from leaching pools discharged directly into downstream agricultural land also made the soil barren or significantly affected yield and quality, reducing farmers’ incomes, it adds.   “This report depicts a picture of suffering, misery, and cruelty on multiple levels and across the country that is heartbreaking,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/08/human-rights-situation-myanmar-plummets-new-low-amid-unrelenting-violations http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/08/nine-years-rohingya-continue-face-atrocity-crimes-mass-displacement-and   13 Aug. 2026   Afghanistan: UN experts warn against normalisation of Taliban rule.   As Taliban rule in Afghanistan continues, UN experts warned that normalisation of the de facto authorities continues, despite increasing restrictions imposed on the population, including women and girls, over the past year. They urged States to accelerate steps towards accountability.   “Five years may be a short period in the life of a country, but it is a long one in a child’s life,” the experts said. “A generation of girls has now been denied secondary education. A girl who was in grade six when the ban began is reaching adulthood without another day in school.”   An Afghan girl cited by the experts said, “It has been five years since I was deprived of my education. It is deeply depressing to feel that you cannot move forward but are stuck where you were five years ago.”   Over the past year, the Taliban have further entrenched their institutionalised gender-based repression. The experts reiterated that the Taliban's intentional and targeted gender-based deprivation of fundamental rights amounts to the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds.   As this repression forms part of an institutionalised system of gender-based discrimination, oppression and domination, the experts said it can also be characterised as gender apartheid. They urged States to actively support the codification of gender apartheid as a distinct crime against humanity.   The Taliban have continued to impose repressive measures on the population, including the decree on criminal rules of courts that allows violence against women unless it “breaks bones” or “leaves obvious bruises,” and the decree on separation of spouses that implicitly allows child marriage and makes it very difficult for women and girls to escape abusive and forced marriages. These decrees also discriminate against religious minorities.   Enforcement measures, some involving cruel and inhuman punishment, have also intensified, the experts said. In 2025 alone, more people were publicly flogged than in all the previous years of Taliban rule combined.   “Women have been turned away from hospitals on account of their attire or for lacking a male guardian, denying them their right to access health care. In June 2026, at least 30 women and girls were jailed in Herat for allegedly violating the Taliban’s dress code. When residents protested, security forces opened fire, killing at least two people, including a boy."   They called for strengthened support for the International Criminal Court, warning that “the newly mandated Independent Investigative Mechanism for Afghanistan must not remain only an achievement on paper; it must also be properly and swiftly resourced.”   The experts also decried the deepening humanitarian crisis, which remains one of the world’s most severe and neglected, driven by the loss of humanitarian funding, a faltering economy, drought and mass returns from neighbouring countries.   More than 17 million Afghans — over a third of the population — faced acute food insecurity during the past winter, with nearly 4 million children acutely malnourished. The experts urged States to restore humanitarian funding and ensure that women — disproportionately harmed and largely barred from public life — can both deliver and receive assistance.   "Afghanistan is not a safe country: mass returns and forced deportations in violation of the obligation of non-refoulement must stop, particularly for those who face heightened protection risks, including religious or ethnic minorities and LGBT persons,” the experts said.   Cross-border hostilities with Pakistan have claimed the lives of about 500 civilians since October 2025, including 269 patients killed in airstrikes on a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul in March 2026. The experts called on Pakistan and the Taliban to exercise restraint, protect civilians and investigate potential war crimes and gross human rights violations.   "There should be no moves to normalise the Taliban de facto authorities, including by accepting diplomats or holding meetings in capitals, without demonstrated, measurable progress against human rights benchmarks, particularly for women and girls," the experts said. "For five years, Afghans’ human rights have been systematically violated, yet many continue to strive bravely and against the odds to restore them. The international community must not let them down again."   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/08/afghanistan-un-experts-warn-against-normalisation-taliban-rule http://www.justsecurity.org/154673/international-law-gender-apartheid/ http://www.genderapartheiddeclaration.org/international-declaration-on-gender-apartheid-and-its-destructive-consequences/ Visit the related web page
	AI companies called on to fund Government security measures as their products threaten millions by BBC World News, agencies   28 Aug. 2026   A group of 100 firms, including Google, Microsoft, Anthropic and OpenAI, have signed an open letter calling on countries and organisations around the world to beef up their cyber defences before Artificial Intelligence (AI) grows powerful enough to override them.   The letter warns cyber-attacks which use AI will become both more widespread and more sophisticated in a matter of months as the technology rapidly improves.   "In the coming months, AI-enabled cyber attacks will become far more widespread and sophisticated as models around the world become increasingly capable. The companies and public services our communities depend on—from hospitals to water treatment plants to the infrastructure that powers the internet—are at risk".   The group says current "status quo" security measures "won't be enough" and criticises the "historic under-resourcing" of security around critical infrastructure.   "We have a limited window to improve cyber defences," the letter states.   Other firms to have signed the letter include banks, payment processors MasterCard and Visa, and other major tech firms including Adobe, Oracle and IBM.   They call on governments to provide "capable, defensive AI" and testing to hospitals and water utilities, and on technology companies to aid such efforts.   Collectively, tech and government "should bring the full weight of their technology, resources, and expertise to this effort", according to the letter.   The letter comes after a string of significant hacking and cybersecurity breaches have been made public.   This week, the US Department of Justice said hackers breached technology maintained by the US Senate, Nasa, the Federal Reserve, and the DoJ itself.   This summer has seen OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta all reveal their AI tools doing things they should not, with some AI agents going so far as to organize their efforts and impersonate real people in order to get past security hurdles.   A group of hundreds of OpenAI AI agents being tested in July were able to set up secret message boards to communicate with each other and work together, resulting in a successful attack on Hugging Face, a popular repository and platform for AI developers.   The incident has been described as the world's first AI-enabled cyber-attack.   Hugging Face has also signed the Thursday letter. It used a Chinese AI tool from the firm Z.AI in its investigation into how OpenAI's agents hacked into its operations.   At least seven US water and wastewater companies have also reported cyber attacks, leading the FBI to issue a public service announcement urging all utilities to better secure their operations.   While the letter puts forward more advanced AI tools, which many of the signatories have developed and sell, as part of a solution to what is described as a growing threat, such tools are not always easily available.   Mythos, developed by Anthropic, was said by the firm to be able to find weaknesses in systems in seconds which have long evaded human hackers. It found one in a legacy platform which had remained undiscovered for 27 years.   Anthropic has restricted access to Mythos on the grounds that it is too powerful to fall into the wrong hands.   However, the letter calls on frontier AI companies, or those tech companies building their own AI models and tools, to "provide responsible model access, significant funding, training, and hands-on support, especially for under-resourced critical-infrastructure defenders." The letter does not detail when or how this vision of broader model access will be enacted.   Andrew Yoon, head of research at CivAI, a non-profit focused on public understanding of AI technology, said that "an unprecedented wave of AI hacking activity" is on the way. He put the responsibility for it on many signatories of the letter.   "They are right in this letter to commit 'significant funding' to defensive measures. They should be held to that commitment", Yoon said. "Notably, the letter does not call for any action to slow the advance of AI hacking abilities."   The letter includes a plea to governments, organisations, cyber-security professionals and other AI firms to work together to prioritise defence and test their systems against the abilities of the most powerful AI models.   Geoffrey Hinton, a Nobel Laureate who formerly work on AI at Google, told BBC World Business Report that society could be "in real trouble" should the technology get to a point where it is "smarter" than humans.   Hinton in recent years has been outspoken on what he views as the extreme risks posed by developments in AI technology.   "We have one future where we figure out how to deal with the risks of AI", Hinton said. "And we have another future where we don't figure out how to deal with that sensibly. And it's a very bleak future."   http://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyz11475l1o http://openai.com/collective-cyberdefense http://www.citizen.org/news/big-tech-sends-hypocritical-ai-warning-letter-while-fighting-to-weaken-or-block-critical-safeguards/   # Governments worldwide are being asked to pay for the security risks posed by AI agents created by AI companies. Governments mean tax payer funds that could be directed to hospitals, schools, cost of living relief and the like.   The companies that created the very risks described have a responsibility to fund the protection required from security risks of their products. This is relevant for every Government in every country in the world as it is a worldwide threat.   Hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in the AI Industry by banks, superannuation and pension funds and the like. Much of the monies from depositors and the pension funds of people worldwide at the direction of bankers, fund managers and Wall St. investors.   Not only are hundreds of millions of jobs threatened by these investments, AI data centre water and electricity demands will rise costs across all communities.   Many Governments' are rushing to adopt AI, and automation across Government service delivery in concert and at the direction of major AI and Information technology companies and the corporate sector.   Leading many to question whether the public interests of people will be realised through such developments or if the profit returns of corporate investors in fact defines the outcome.   All this as AI threatens the security of countries and their people in "the coming months" as cited by the leading AI investors and adopters.   Aug. 2026   Negotiating the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation at United Nations.   The United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation ("Framework Convention") is a proposed international agreement that aims to create a fairer and more effective approach to global tax governance. The process emerged from calls to modernize global tax governance, reallocate taxing rights over multinational enterprises and digital services, and strengthen domestic resource mobilization for sustainable development: http://financing.desa.un.org/unfcitc   Taxing multinationals where real economic activity, employment, and sales actually occur would allow countries worldwide to collect billions in corporate tax every year without raising tax rates. The transformative impact of this tax boost would be felt most acutely in the Global South where public funding of essential services and measures to address the climate crisis are most urgently needed..   http://www.hrw.org/news/2026/08/19/taxing-tech-in-age-of-ai-could-fund-human-rights http://www.cesr.org/un-tax-convention-must-put-human-rights-into-action/ http://globaltaxjustice.org/news/midway-in-un-tax-negotiations-global-south-sees-reason-for-optimism-urges-high-ambition-must-prevail http://taxjustice.net/reports/a-500-billion-dollar-decision-for-the-world-the-revenue-impacts-of-global-unitary-taxation/ http://opiniojuris.org/2026/01/13/a-fairer-tax-system-is-a-global-human-rights-imperative/ http://www.neep-poverty.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/5.6-A-United-Nations-Framework-Convention-on-International-Tax-Cooperation_final-1.pdf http://giescr.org/en/our-work/on-the-ground/5th-session-of-the-un-tax-convention-negotiations http://taxjustice.net/press/rich-countries-push-to-preserve-the-status-quo-in-un-tax-convention-despite-standing-to-gain-billions/ http://taxjustice.net/topics/un-tax-convention/   http://www.cesr.org/updates-from-the-fifth-session-of-negotiations-on-the-un-tax-convention/ http://giescr.org/en/resources/publications/the-tax-convention-is-only-the-beginning-what-public-service-movements-taught-us-about-the-long-road-to-tax-justice-at-the-un http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc6144-international-assistance-and-cooperation-report-independent http://www.icrict.com/international-tax-reform/un-ecosoc-a-blueprint-for-financial-integrity/ http://www.icrict.com/reports/icrict-statement-on-the-un-negotiations-for-a-framework-convention-on-international-taxcooperation-and-its-two-early-protocols/ http://www.icrict.com/non-classe/ffd4-recap-shifting-the-balance-on-global-tax-justice/ http://globaltaxjustice.org/news
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