This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

Ukraine: Concerns growing for TB and HIV patient care

In Ukraine, nearly 80 days into the Russian invasion, UN humanitarians and partners have warned that TB and HIV patients are at particular risk from having their lifesaving treatment regimes interrupted.

According to UNAIDS, an estimated 260,000 people live with HIV in Ukraine – the second highest proportion in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, after Russia.

Of that number, more than 150,000 are on antiretroviral therapy, medication that people with HIV need to take every day, to stay alive and well.

Although there are sufficient stocks of medicine in the country, the fact that some eight million people are now displaced inside Ukraine has prompted concerns that those in need of HIV and TB drugs, may not be able to get them.

Here’s Andriy Klepikov from the NGO Global Fund speaking in Geneva:

“Logistically it is very complicated…some of the roads are destroyed and people are mobile, and some of them hiding in quite remote locations from the war; so that is why we are helping them to deliver medicines and to maintain contacts by phone, by social media, because it’s also important part, not only provide news, but also motivate, keep motivation of people to take medicines.”

Echoing that message, UNITAID spokesperson Herve Verhoosel told UN News that the agency’s TB projects in Ukraine had been affected by the war, but that every effort must be made to ensure that all patients with TB or HIV received their medicines on time.

Top rights expert to report on Maldives’ efforts to reintegrate foreign fighters

A top UN-appointed independent rights expert on terrorism is to make an official visit to the Maldives, where efforts are underway to reintegrate nationals who’ve fought in conflicts abroad.

Fionnuala Ni Aolain, who’s spending nine days in the Maldives from 15 to 24 May, will visit detention centres, where she’ll interview people suspected or convicted of terrorism-related activities and extremist crimes.

One of the aims of Ms. Ni Aolain’s visit is to identify “good practices in the return, rehabilitation and reintegration of foreign fighters - and women and children with alleged links to designated terrorist groups” in places like Syria, her office said in a statement on Friday.

The issue has been a longstanding concern of UN-appointed independent rights experts, who have joined repeated appeals to dozens of countries to take back all of their nationals still held in detention in Syria’s infamous Al Hol camp complex.

Located in northeast Syria, Al Hol is home to some 65,000 people and an estimated 10,000 foreign nationals who have endured terrible conditions. They include the former wives, children and relatives of ISIL fighters.

Ms. Ni Aolain, who is the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, also plans to meet Government representatives in the Maldives, along with law enforcement officials and policy specialists.

She will present a comprehensive report with her findings and recommendations to the UN Human Rights Council in March next year.

Special Rapporteurs and independent experts, like Ms. Ni Aolain, receive their mandates from the UN Human Rights Council, in Geneva.

They operate in their individual capacity and are neither UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

All countries united in push for greater space security at UN-led talks

A new UN-led push to prevent an arms race in outer space has received wide-ranging support and participation from Member States and civil society, at talks in Geneva.

The first Open-ended Working Group on Reducing Space Threats that’s been meeting all week in the Swiss city, is the result of a UN General Assembly resolution last December, seeking to promote “norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviours” among countries present in the cosmos - or which are planning to be present in orbit.

An international treaty for outer space already exists that forms the basis of international space law.

But it is 55 years old and needs updating urgently, to take account of new space-based threats to global security – and the fact that all nations rely on space today for navigation, communication, broadband and finance – explained Hellmut Lagos, chair of the working group talks:

“That treaty is actually the cornerstone of the international space regime, that is still true, but at the same time we need to see what other norms, principles and rules can be negotiated to fill the legal gaps that are there, considering how the space environment has evolved in the last couple of decades, dramatically.”

Hellmut Lagos ending that item.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.