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GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations human rights chief on Thursday urged countries to step up trials in their national courts against suspected war criminals in Syria as the conflict marks its 10th anniversary.

Attempts to refer atrocities in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague for prosecution have failed, Michelle Bachelet said.

Only one person has been convicted in a foreign court for crimes against humanity or war crimes in a conflict that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, many of them civilians.

GENEVA (AP) — When the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic one year ago Thursday, it did so only after weeks of resisting the term and maintaining that the highly infectious virus could still be stopped.

A year later, the U.N. agency is still struggling to keep on top of the evolving science of COVID-19, to persuade countries to abandon their nationalistic tendencies and help get vaccines where they’re needed most.

GENEVA, March 7. /TASS/: Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has hailed Russia’s investment in science.

"I had a constructive call with Mihail Murashko, Russia's Health Minister, about the COVID19 response globally & in Russia, as well as about the Sputnik V vaccine & the WHO Emergency Use Listing process for vaccines. I appreciate Russia's investment in science," he wrote on his Twitter account on Sunday.

GENEVA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Friday that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused more "mass trauma" than World War II and warned of its lasting consequences.

"The world has experienced mass trauma because World War Two affected many, many lives," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a virtual press conference.

GENEVA (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization called Friday for patent rights to be waived until the end of the coronavirus pandemic so that vaccine supplies can be dramatically increased, saying these “unprecedented times” warrant the move.

At a press briefing, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said countries with their own vaccine capacity should “start waiving intellectual property rights ” as provided in special emergency provisions from the World Trade Organization.

GENEVA, Mar 05 (APP): Pakistan has called for keeping a close watch on India’s state-directed “tools of terror” in Jammu and Kashmir where women and girls are among the primary victims of it’s deadly counter-terrorism measures, saying their plight must be addressed.

GENEVA (Reuters) - At least a dozen people and possibly up to 23 have been killed in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province where Revolutionary Guards and security forces have used lethal force against fuel couriers from ethnic minorities and protesters, the United Nations said on Friday.

Iran is investigating an incident in which at least two Iranians were shot dead this week at the border with Pakistan, and Islamabad has handed over the body of one of the victims, the Iranian foreign ministry said a week ago.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations’ human rights chief asked Ethiopia on Thursday to allow monitors into Tigray to investigate reports of killings and sexual violence that may amount to war crimes in the northern region since late 2020.

“Victims and survivors of these violations must not be denied their rights to the truth and to justice,” Michelle Bachelet said in a statement, expressing her fear that violations could continue with impunity.

GENEVA, Mar 03 (APP): Decrying India’s massive disinformation campaign against Pakistan, a Pakistani diplomat on Tuesday drew UN Human Rights Council’s attention to New Delhi’s failure to respond to the widely reported Indian grave rights abuses in occupied Kashmir that evoked international condemnation.

GENEVA, March 2 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The number of reported coronavirus infections around the world is once again on the rise after six straight weeks of decline, the head of the World Health Organization said.

“This is disappointing, but not surprising,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva, noting that the upward trend was taking place everywhere apart from Africa and the Western Pacific region.

“Some of it appears to be due to relaxing of public health measures, continued circulation of variants and people letting down their guard,” he said.