Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: United Nations (video statements)

OHCHR: The case of Christa Pike lays bare multiple reasons why the death penalty should be abolished. The prolonged suffering – physical and mental – arising from multiple failed execution attempts is abhorrent, and cruel. And there are key fair trial questions still unresolved.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk calls on the state authorities not to pursue any further attempt to execute Pike.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UzIQeQ8FSUg

Source: United Nations (video statements)

The UN Secretary-General warned that the safeguards built over decades to contain nuclear dangers are “breaking down,” just as the risk of nuclear use is rising.

Speaking at a high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly marking the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons today (29 Sep) in New York, António Guterres said, “The rattling of nuclear sabers is growing louder. Advances in technology are increasing the odds of mistake and miscalculation.”

Guterres pointed to the expiry of the New START Treaty earlier this year. “For the first time in more than half a century, there are no binding limits on strategic nuclear arsenals,” he noted.

“The United States and the Russian Federation must negotiate a successor framework to New START,” the Secretary-General said.

Guterres called on states, “Let us replace threats with dialogue. Let us replace the arms race with arms control. Let us replace paralysis with concrete action.”

“International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons is devoted to furthering the objective of mobilizing international efforts towards achieving the common goal of a nuclear weapon free world,” General Assembly President Khalilur Rahman also told the meeting.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Qh5i4rn3MmU

Source: United Nations (video statements)

To mark the November Pogrom of 1938 (euphemistically called “Kristallnacht”), a discussion, Understanding Past Realities of the Holocaust: Photography versus Art will take place on 4 November 2026. Historians Dr Christoph Kreutzmüller and Dr Rachel Perry examine how photography and art depicted the Nazi state-orchestrated campaign of terror perpetrated against Jewish men, women and children across Germany and its occupied territories over 9–10 November 1938 (the November Pogrom). The historians ask what photography and art reveal about the lived realities of those depicted, the social interactions surrounding the violence and the broader society in which it unfolded. The discussion is organised by the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme together with the Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art and 1014 – Space for Ideas, with the support of the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rDSzyhW6vw