- Academy to host first overseas ceremony to honor young filmmakers
- No doctor necessary: US okays nasal spray flu vaccine for self-use
- Gurbaz, birthday boy Rashid lead Afghanistan to 177-run rout of South Africa
- Former delivery man Baldwin leads star names at PGA Championship
- Trump shooting: Secret Service admits complacency
- Can an ambitious Milei make Argentina an AI giant?
- Haiti, its suffering growing, in 'race against time': UN expert
- Ibrahim Aqil, the Hezbollah elite unit commander wanted by the US
- Chinese forward Cui signs NBA contract with Brooklyn Nets
- US Fed dissenter calls for 'measured' pace of rate cuts
- Guardiola tells players to lead change over workload as Kompany demands cap on games
- Norway limits wild salmon fishing as stocks hit new lows
- Top Hezbollah commander killed in Israeli strike on Beirut
- Rotterdam fatal knife attacker suspected of 'terrorist motive'
- First early votes cast in knife-edge US presidential election
- Top-ranked Swiatek out of Beijing due to 'personal matters'
- Hard-right Reform UK looks to the future after vote success
- Embiid agrees to NBA contract extension with 76ers
- Joshua aims to complete road to redemption in Dubois bout
- World champion Bagnaia sets pace with lap record at Misano
- Biden says 'working' to get people back to homes on Israel-Lebanon border
- Pope criticises Argentina's crackdown on protesters
- Court limits screenings of videos in France mass rape case
- Gurbaz century takes Afghanistan to 311-4 in 2nd ODI
- Central banks face 'difficult balancing act': IMF chief
- McLaren's Norris sets Singapore pace as struggling Verstappen 15th
- Guardiola tells players to lead change over workload fears
- Paris Olympics sports equipment moves to new homes
- 'Happy' Kinghorn relishing life at Toulouse
- Norris sets Singapore pace as Verstappen only 15th
- 8 dead in Israeli strike, source says Hezbollah commander killed
- Germany to bid to host women's Euro 2029
- Portugal brings deadly forest fires under control
- Postecoglou defends Solanke after slow start to Spurs career
- US nuclear plant Three Mile Island to reopen to power Microsoft
- Arteta urges Arsenal to take next step in Man City showdown
- Stock markets fall after Fed-fuelled rally
- Top Hezbollah commander 'killed' in Israel strike
- Poland charges Russian over attack on Navalny ally: prosecutors
- Man City have rest 'advantage' in Arsenal showdown: Guardiola
- Maresca has 'no doubt' in Jackson as Chelsea's number nine
- EU chief announces 35 bn euro loan plan for Ukraine before winter
- From TikTok to Hollywood, the irresistible rise of Italy's Khaby Lame
- Verstappen punished for swearing in Singapore press conference
- Sri Lanka lead by 202 in first New Zealand Test
- Brook 'not too fussed' by England's batting in heavy Australia loss
- India's Ashwin 'happy' to embrace pressure
- A modern 'Trojan Horse': two days of mayhem in Lebanon
- Third of Burundi mpox cases in children under five: UN
- Man Utd appoint Foster + Partners to develop Old Trafford 'masterplan'
Human Rights Watch chief to step down after three decades
The executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, said Tuesday he will step down after three decades which have seen the New York-based NGO become a thorn in the side of authoritarian regimes and rights abusers across the world.
Roth, who has led the organisation since 1993, will step down at the end of August, HRW said in a statement.
"Nothing can last forever," he said in a video message. "It is time to pass the baton."
He expressed "great confidence" that the HRW team would continue to effectively defend human rights. "While I am leaving Human Rights Watch, I am not leaving our cause."
Under his leadership, HRW has grown from a small-scale campaign group into a global rights organisation that now employs over 500 staff across the globe.
In 1997, it shared a Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to ban antipersonnel landmines and played a critical role in establishing the International Criminal Court.
Evidence gathered by its staff during conflicts around the world helped ensure the convictions at international tribunals of figures including former Liberian leader Charles Taylor over the war in Sierra Leone and wartime Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.
"Today, amid the horrific abuse taking place in Ukraine, an infrastructure is in place to hold perpetrators accountable," the HRW statement said.
His role brought controversy and HRW's statement acknowledged that "Roth inevitably earned many enemies."
In April 2021, HRW became the first major international rights group to accuse Israel of using policies of apartheid -- the segregation of blacks and whites in white-ruled South Africa -- against Palestinians.
Israel vehemently denied the allegation and denounced HRW's report. But in February this year a similar allegation was made by HRW's London-based counterparts at Amnesty International.
"Despite being Jewish -- and having a father who fled Nazi Germany as a 12-year-old boy -- he has been attacked for the organisation's criticism of Israeli government abuses," HRW said.
In recent years, Roth had also become a bitter enemy of the Chinese authorities after repeatedly singling out Beijing over its rights violations.
China imposed sanctions against Roth personally and expelled him from Hong Kong when he travelled there to release HRW's annual World Report in January 2020, "which spotlighted Beijing's threat to the global human rights system", the organisation said.
A search for a successor is now underway, it added.
F.Pavlenko--BTB