The government of Iceland is letting its general population help shape its new constitution through a number of new media formats, including the Constitutional Council website , where new parts of the working draft are put on the site and rewritten to include public consensus. There are also Twitter and Facebook pages for comments, as [...]
An official for the International Commission of Inquiry on Friday called for an investigation into current Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara and his forces’ continuing attacks against supporters of former president Laurent Gbagbo . Officials told the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) of their May visit to the Ivory Coast, during which they found both [...]
The Pakistan Supreme Court on Friday demanded an explanation of an incident in which Pakistani security forces shot and killed an unarmed man. Several paramilitary soldiers opened fire on an unarmed, 22-year-old man in Benazir Park, then stood by as he died. The incident was caught on tape and disseminated by television and Internet media [...]
A federal jury on Thursday convicted Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Chicago resident with Canadian citizenship, on two counts of planning to attack a Copenhagen newspaper, but found him not guilty on charges of helping to plan the 2008 Mumbai terror attack . Rana was found guilty of providing material support to a plot against the [...]
The Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Irina Bokova condemned Syria for its human rights violations and repression of journalism and free speech. Bokova called for the government to restore citizens’ access to cell phones and the Internet and to stop “acts of aggression” against journalists. Reports coming from Syria are [...]
The Alabama Senate and House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The bill contains no exceptions for cases of rape or incest, but would permit an abortion if necessary to prevent the death of or serious risk of injury to the woman. The bill also [...]
The European Commission (EC) officially recommended Croatia for accession to the European Union (EU) and announced on Friday that Croatia will become the 28th member of the EU on July 1, 2013. EC President Jose Barroso stated that Croatia has made significant enough improvements in their final four “chapters,” Competition, Judiciary and Fundamental Rights, Financial [...]
The European Parliament (EP) on Thursday urged the US not to seek the death penalty for high-value Guantanamo Bay detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri , accused planning the USS Cole bombing in 2000. The US Department of Defense (DOD) announced in April that al-Nashiri would be tried in a military court and would be subject to [...]
Croatian authorities on Thursday charged former military commander and senior interior minister Tomislav Mercep for war crimes committed against Serbians during the 1990s conflict in the Balkans. The Municipal Court in Zagreb charged that he was aware of atrocities against civilians , but prevented other officials from mitigating damages against them. The indictment goes on [...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the US Department of State (DOS) for failing to disclose information about the government’s “War on Terror” efforts, even though Wikileaks has already released the desired documents. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for 23 embassy cables, to which [...]
