Before destroying another landscape, natural habitat, community, or human life, we need to seriously assess the claims made to promote and defend industrial wind energy development.

The United Nations human rights office has accused Sudanese security forces of indiscriminately killing more than 100 civilians in South Darfur over the first three months of this year. The charges appear in a U.N. report released Friday that covers the human rights situation in Darfur between January and March.

The UN General Assembly is set to elect new members to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council today. The vote comes amid strong opposition from civil-society groups to the candidacies of alleged rights violators such as Belarus and Egypt.

The Uzbek Foreign Ministry has called the European Union's sanctions against the country "counterproductive" for the interests of both parties, RFE/RL's Uzbek Service reports.

The Forty-first Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights opens Wednesday in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. The commission is charged by the African Union to protect and promote human and people's rights on the continent.

A top United Nations envoy says the world body will investigate human rights violations committed during recent fighting in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

European Union foreign ministers have convened in Brussels to discuss the future of the bloc's sanctions against Uzbekistan, imposed after a government crackdown on protesters two years ago. Today's debate comes after ambassadors failed to thrash out a deal last week.

The EU was urged by international media watchdog to maintain sanctions against Uzbekistan, which were set up after the bloody crackdown on a 2005 uprising.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Russia is responsible for the death of a Chechen man. The Strasbourg-based court said Russian responsibility for the death of Shamil Said-Khasanovich Akhmadov had been established "beyond all reasonable doubt," and ordered Russia to pay 62,285 euros in damages to his family.

International human rights groups have expressed relief following the release from jail of Uzbek journalist and rights activist Umida Niyazova.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, says countries in Central Asia continue to use the war on terrorism as an excuse to violate the human rights of their citizens. Arbour has just returned from a two-week visit to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan.

An independent United Nations human rights expert has voiced concern about press freedom in Azerbaijan while reporting that his recent meetings there offered hope that court decisions which have caused a prevailing sense of fear among journalists will be reviewed.