The Brazilian Supreme Court on Thursday ruled 8-2 to overturn the ban against abortion of brain-damaged (anencephalic fetuses). Currently, Brazil criminalizes abortion with the narrow exceptions of cases in which pregnancy threatens the mother’s life and in cases of rape. The court, in deciding to allow abortion in such cases, considered the issue of the [...]
The Pechersky District Court in Kyiv on Thursday sentenced former acting defense minister Valeriy Ivaschenko to five years in prison and banned him from holding public office for three years after convicting him on abuse of power charges. Ivashenko served as acting defense minister under Yulia Tymoshenko in 2009-10. The verdict was announced upon the [...]
Statistics Canada reported Thursday that both the number and rate of police-reported hate crimes declined in 2010 by 18 percent from the previous year . While the report made clear that “police-reported data likely undercount the true extent of hate crime in Canada, as not all incidents come to the attention of police,” the new [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of the Interior (DOI) announced a $1.023 billion settlement with 41 American Indian Tribes Wednesday. The announcement comes following a 22-month negotiation period after the tribes alleged in a class action that the DOI and the Department of the Treasury mismanaged money held in a tribe [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Wednesday issued an opinion holding that a former Goldman Sachs programmer did not violate a federal law prohibiting theft of trade secrets when he copied portions of the company’s confidential source code. Sergey Aleynikov’s conviction for violating two federal laws was overturned by the appeals [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Thursday called for urgent national and international action to bring an end to the political instability and continuing human rights violations in Mali. According to Pillay, human rights violations have been reported in the capital of Bamako since the military takeover on March 22. The violations [...]
The Supreme Court of India on Thursday upheld as constitutional a right to education law that requires most schools to reserve one-quarter of its class seats for poor, underprivileged children. The ruling comes after a number of private schools and organizations, including the Society of Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan and the Independent Schools Federation [...]
International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Thursday asked the court to report Libya to the UN Security Council for failing to turn over the son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Ocampo’s request comes after Libyan officials on Tuesday appealed the ICC’s decision to seek a handover of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi . [...]
Prosecutors in Turkey ordered the arrest of dozens of former military leaders on Thursday for their alleged role in the ouster of former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan . Prosecutors allege that the military leaders, including four retired generals, pressured Erbakan to resign in 1997. They further allege that the officers pressured the Islamist Erbakan to [...]
The Connecticut House of Representatives voted late Wednesday to repeal the death penalty by a vote of 86-63. The Connecticut Senate passed the bill last week . After the bill’s final passage, Governor Dannel Malloy (D) officially announced he will sign the bill immediately: I’m pleased the House passed the bill, and when it gets [...]
