The Constitutional Court of Thailand on Friday dismissed opposition party petitions challenging the ability of the ruling Puea Thai party to amend the country’s constitution. The court ruled that the parliament could amend the constitution on a piecemeal basis by amending separate articles, but that a national referendum would be required to rewrite the entire [...]
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon vetoed a bill on Thursday that would have prohibited mandatory insurance coverage of birth control for anyone with ethical or religious objections. Nixon explained that while he supports laws that afford employers strong religious protections, SB 749 gives insurance companies the ability to override the religious and moral beliefs of employers [...]
The Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona filed a lawsuit on Thursday challenging an Arizona law that prohibits abortions after 20 weeks into a pregnancy unless there is a medical emergency. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of three Arizona obstetricians, argues that Arizona’s ban on abortions after 20 weeks [...]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said Friday that the war crimes trial of former Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladic will resume Monday after being postponed for health reasons. The presiding judge Alphons Orie said that medical checks had not yet been completed and that Mladic was required to be under [...]
The lower house of the Russian parliament on Friday voted to adopt a controversial bill that will regulate the activities of non-commercial organizations (NCOs) that engage in political activity and receive foreign funding. The new law will require the organizations to register as “foreign agents,” and to submit biannual reports to the government on their [...]
President of the European Commission (EC) Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday urged Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta to respect the full independence of the judiciary by restoring the powers of the Constitutional Court of Romania . Since the court last week approved the vote to suspend President Traian Basescu , the EC and the US [...]
Amnesty International (AI) on Thursday submitted a briefing to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women detailing the failure of the Mexican government to protect women from torture, killings, sexual violence and other ill-treatment. On July 17 the UN Committee is expected to examine its combined seventh and eighth periodic report of [...]
The Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday ruled that a tariff imposed on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that allow media downloads is a violation of the technological neutrality. The court held that in passing the Copyright Act the Parliament did not intend to treat online retailers of digital media differently than stores that sell physical [...]
An Indonesian court on Thursday sentenced a Shia cleric to two years in prison on blasphemy charges. Chief Judge Purnomo Amin Tjahjo of the Sampang district court announced the sentence of Tajul Muluk, whose teachings were deemed to have deviated from mainstream Islam resulting in “public anxiety” over Muluk’s pronouncements. According to court witnesses Muluk [...]
Soviet-produced unexploded submunitions and a bomb canister were discovered in Jabel Shahshabu, a mountainous area near Hama in Syria and posted to YouTube , Human Rights Watch said Thursday. HRW confirmed the site of discovery by an activist who knows the YouTube poster. Syria is not known to have used cluster munitions in the past [...]
