A judge for the US District Court for the District of Colorado on Monday ruled that a challenge to the Colorado Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) can proceed. The lawsuit argues that TABOR is unconstitutional because it limits state spending and bars lawmakers from raising taxes without a public referendum, violating the US Constitution guarantee [...]
The Supreme Court of India ruled Monday that the ship formerly known as the Exxon Valdez may be dismantled at the country’s biggest scrapyard. The two-judge panel headed by Altamas Kabir overruled a May decision by the Gujarat Pollution Control Board denying the ship, now known as the Oriental Nicety, entry to the scrapyard in [...]
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of the Interior announced Monday that a former Guantanamo Bay inmate who had completed the country’s militant rehabilitation program surrendered to Saudi authorities. Adnan al-Sayegh, who was placed in the Ministry’s rehabilitation program after returning from Guantanamo in 2006, escaped to Yemen and rejoined al Qaeda . He expressed remorse when he [...]
The UK High Court in London on Monday denied an application for bail by Muslim cleric Abu Qatada . Qatada had challenged a previous ruling that had denied him bail on grounds that the government’s risk of losing Qatada was too great to allow his release, especially given his likely pending deportation . Qatada has [...]
Complaints about violations committed by Mexico’s military forces have been on the rise, a report issued by the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego (TBI) said on Monday. The report alleges that Mexican military forces have been committing human rights violations with impunity. TBI noted that the complaints increased dramatically since current Mexican [...]
Malian soldiers loyal to the country’s coup leader, Captain Amadou Sanogo, have been committing human rights violations, including torture, extra-judicial killings, and enforced disappearances, Amnesty International (AI) said in a report on Tuesday. The report documented inhumane detention conditions of opposition forces, including soldiers who were detained during a failed counter-coup in April. The report [...]
Indian authorities and Maoist rebel groups have threatened and attacked civil society activists thereby interfering with the human rights work in the area of central and eastern India, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Monday. HRW found that most of the activists who have been victims of violence were residing in India’s Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh [...]
The European Commission on Tuesday stated that Visa Europe, a subsidiary of Visa, Inc. , has breached EU antitrust laws. Visa Europe imposes multilateral interchange fees (MIFs) that retailers must pay for accepting Visa’s payment cards from consumers. The Commission said that such fees have a restrictive effect on competition and business. The EU Competition [...]
The US Department of State (DOS) on Monday released its annual International Religious Freedom Report documenting threats to religious freedom throughout the world. The report documents current international threats to religious freedom—particularly laws that punish religious traditions and blasphemy laws that are often used to punish religious tolerance. The DOS also expressed concern about impunity [...]
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) , Cambodia’s UN-supported war crimes tribunal, announced Monday that it has appointed a US judge to investigate two new Khmer Rouge cases, strongly opposed by the government, after two other judges resigned in protest. Mark Harmon, a former prosecutor for the US government and also for [...]
