The top human rights body of the United Nations voted on Thursday to appoint an independent monitor to help protect gay and transgender people around the world from violence and discrimination. The U.N. Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, creates an “independent expert” charged with identifying the root causes of violence and discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, and then talking with governments about ways to protect them.

Visitors from around the world flock to the Met to view art history’s great masterpieces and attend fashionable galas, but to negotiate international relations is surely a first. New York’s premier museum recently became the unlikely venue for a high-security, invite-only meeting organized by Samantha Power [...] Mixing business with pleasure, the U.S. ambassador invited key international diplomats to tour the museum’s newest exhibition of Islamic art.

There are also thousands of organizations and people all around the world engaged in positive nonviolent and collective action. There are hundreds of indigenous environmental struggles around the world, from the US and Canada to Central and South America and Asia and Africa, resisting fossil fuel and other corporations from building pipelines, mining terminals and other controversial projects.

What do World Cup champion Abby Wambach, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Jewel, and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations Lakshmi Puri have in common? Each of them is a fighter in the struggle for gender equality and has overcome stacked odds to become a 21st-century champion for change. 

In a message marking the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, Irina Bokova, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), highlighted that celebrating cultural diversity is a way of recognizing that “the wealth of cultures is the constitutive power of humanity and an important asset for peace and development, the promotion of which is inseparable from the observance of human rights.”

China is the most welcoming country when it comes to refugees, according to a new survey of citizens’ attitudes published on Thursday, with Germany ranking second and Britain third. In its first ever report to record global acceptance of refugees, Amnesty International surveyed more than 27,000 people across 27 countries and found that 80 percent of respondents would welcome refugees into their city, neighborhoods or homes.