Best of Dispatches: Top News Posts This Week

The five things the White House should be saying about Israel - but isn't; a popular politician in Russia is gunned down in sight of President Putin's office; and Facebook takes a significant step in respecting diversity - these were among the most popular posts to Dispatches, our daily forum for breaking human rights news and commentary. You can find all our Dispatches here.

Dispatches: What the White House Isn't Saying About Israel

Bill Van Esveld
Amid the controversy around Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress, the Obama administration’s National Security Council (NSC) recently published “five key facts you need to know about the US-Israel relationship under President Obama.” Here are some relevant facts it neglected to mention...

Dispatches: Opposition Leader Gunned Down Steps From Kremlin

Tanya Cooper
Russia has become the kind of place where a top opposition leader can be murdered just steps away from the president’s office...

Dispatches: Male? Female? Other? Facebook Leaves It to You

Kyle Knight
When Facebook changed its gender options last week to an open-ended question, it sent an important message of diversity and respect for freedom of expression...

Dispatches: Philippines 'Death Squad' Under Fire

Phelim Kine
The Philippine government has struck a long-overdue blow against the country’s epidemic of unsolved extrajudicial killings by filing murder charges against the tough-talking former mayor of Mindanao’s Tagum City...

Dispatches: A Painful Truth - No Relief for 5.5 Billion People

Diederik Lohman
A new United Nations report estimates that about 5.5 billion people – a staggering 75 percent of the world’s population – have limited or no access to proper pain relief treatment...