Florida submitted a request to the US District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday seeking declaratory judgments regarding recently-enacted changes to the state’s Election Code , four sections of which require Section 5 “preclearance” under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) . Relying heavily on patterns of past discrimination to determine which state, [...]
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Interior Affairs and the National Directorate of Security (NDS) on Tuesday denied prisoner torture allegations made earlier this week in a UN report. A spokesperson for the Ministry said at a press conference that there was no basis for the report’s findings and that publicizing such information could hurt the people’s trust [...]
Rights groups urged the UN Tuesday to assure that Cambodia will not interfere in a tribunal established by the UN charged with investigating the communist Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s. The pressure for UN action results from the resignation of Siegfried Blunk , one of the judges for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts [...]
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on Tuesday enacted an antitrust law, provisions of which further his conflict with the country’s news media. The new law specifically bars news media owners and bankers from holding financial stakes in other industries and generally bars companies from establishing a monopoly in any industry. The law provides until July 2012 [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in three cases on Tuesday. In Pacific Operators Offshore LLP v. Valladolid , the court considered when an outer continental shelf worker, injured on land, is eligible for compensation under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) . The OCSLA governs those who work on oil drilling platforms [...]
Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison on Tuesday on charges of abuse of power and corruption. Judge Rodion Kireyev also barred Tymoshenko from serving public office for three years and ruled in favor of a 1.5 billion hryvnias judgment against her. Despite the conviction, international support for Tymoshenko [...]
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday granted certiorari in two cases. In Blueford v. Arkansas , the court will decide whether the Double Jeopardy clause prevents the re-prosecution of a greater offense after the jury announces voting for a not guilty verdict, if a jury deadlocks on a lesser-included offense. Alex Blueford contends that jeopardy [...]
Syria has rejected calls from several nations for it to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to a report adopted Tuesday by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) . The report also includes a number of recommendations to the country aimed at improving its human rights record which has been widely criticized since the [...]
An Egyptian court on Monday overturned a ban that prohibited presidential hopeful Ayman Nour from forming a political party and also prohibited the formation of the Islamic-based political party Al-Gama’a al-Islamiya . The decision will allow political parties previously banned because of their religious foundations to participate in the upcoming November parliamentary elections. The court [...]
Accused war criminal Ratko Mladic has been hospitalized suffering from pneumonia, his lawyers said Tuesday. Mladic is awaiting trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on charges of genocide and war crimes allegedly committed during the Bosnian civil war . The ICTY confirmed that Mladic is receiving medical treatment , but [...]
