As we broadcast this week from the U.N. climate talks in Baku, human rights groups have warned of Azerbaijan’s escalating crackdown on civil society groups, government critics and the press. Since the announcement last year of Azerbaijan as the host of COP29, dozens of activists and journalists have been arrested, arbitrarily detained or prosecuted on “bogus charges,” says Giorgi Gogia, associate director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch.

We are broadcasting live from the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, which has entered its second and final week, and already there is frustration over a lack of progress on the key issue of financing the energy transition and climate adaptation in Global South countries.

We are broadcasting live from COP29, the United Nations climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, where countries are shaping the world’s response to the climate crisis. Despite pledges at last year’s summit in Dubai to cut global emissions, the burning of coal, oil and gas has continued to rise as the world keeps breaking temperature records.

In the acclaimed new book Gaza Faces History, historian Enzo Traverso challenges Western attitudes toward Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza by reckoning with the larger historical context of the Holocaust and the Nakba. Traverso details how memorializing the Holocaust became a sort of “civil religion” that honored human rights and the values of Western liberal democracies after the Second World War.

Concerns are mounting over Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, Fox News host and military veteran Pete Hegseth. Hegseth is a vocal opponent of the military’s multiculturalism and decision to allow women to serve in combat, promises to purge the military of generals disloyal to Trump and sports tattoos connected with neo-Nazi and white nationalist movements.

Public health officials are decrying President-elect Donald Trump for selecting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. If confirmed, Kennedy would head a sprawling agency that oversees drug, vaccine and food safety, as well as medical research. Kennedy is one of the nation’s most prominent vaccine skeptics and has spread numerous public health conspiracy theories. Kennedy has claimed HIV may not cause AIDS.

A federal jury in Virginia has ordered the U.S. military contractor CACI Premier Technology to pay a total of $42 million to three Iraqi men who were tortured at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. The landmark verdict comes after 16 years of litigation and marks the first time a civilian contractor has been found legally responsible for the gruesome abuses at Abu Ghraib.