The EU said Friday it will seek a strong commitment from the United States to respect the rights of European citizens, following revelations that Washington is running a worldwide Internet surveillance programme. Viviane Reding, the EU's Justice Commissioner, "will raise the issue with force and determination" at a meeting in Dublin on Friday with US officials, the bloc's Health Commissioner Tonio Borg said.

Israel has vowed to re-engage with the UN Human Rights Council, six months after it became the first country to boycott a review of its rights record, an official said Friday. "The president (of the Human Rights Council) received a letter from Israel this week to express the desire to re-engage discussion to come back to the Human Rights Council," the UN body's spokesman Rolando Gomez told reporters. Israel's review was now likely to be scheduled for October 29, he added.

Several UN experts on Wednesday criticised Iran's decision to bar women from running in upcoming elections, saying the move violated international law. "This mass disqualification including that of women wishing to stand in the presidential elections is discriminatory and violates the fundamental right to political participation," UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran Ahmed Shaheed said in a statement.

SEOUL, May 19 (Yonhap) -- An independent U.N. body's investigation into North Korea's human rights abuses will provide the first look into problems in a country during peacetime, rather than during conflict, a senior South Korean diplomat said Sunday. Choi Seok-young, South Korean ambassador to Geneva, said the Commission of Inquiry (COI) by the U.N. Human Rights Council will investigate "grave, organized and systematic human rights violations" and will hold the leadership in the violating country accountable for such abuses.