Myanmar's draft constitution has been overwhelmingly approved in a national referendum after two rounds of voting with 92 percent of votes cast favoring the proposed charter and 98 percent of the country's 27 million eligible voters turning out, state television reported Monday. Voting concluded Saturday in the 47 townships hit hardest earlier this month by [...]
Aleksandra (Sasha) Williams, Pitt Law '10, files from Kiev: Until yesterday any American voter disgruntled by the current presidential election process could find comfort in realizing that at least there are several candidates to pick from. For example, compared to Russian presidential elections, where the only plausible candidate was heavily endorsed by former President Vladimir [...]
Egyptian parliamentarians voted 305-103 Monday to extend the country's emergency laws for two more years at the behest of the government. The laws, which were first implemented after the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, permit the government and security services to arrest and detain anyone deemed a threat to state security, with detentions [...]
Security officials in Nepal banned protests and rallies near the royal palace and the residence of King Gyanendra on Monday, in anticipation of Wednesday's expected abolition of the Nepalese monarchy. Nepal's interim parliament voted in December 2007 to abolish the monarchy of as a part of a plan to bring members of the Communist Party [...]
Mengistu Haile Mariam , the former Marxist president of Ethiopia , was sentenced to death Monday after the Ethiopian Supreme Court allowed Ethiopian prosecutors' appeal of his January 2007 life sentence on charges of genocide, homicide, illegal imprisonment, and illegal property seizure. Mengistu and 11 associates convicted in absentia in 2006 after a twelve-year trial. [...]
Luis Moreno-Ocampo chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) , told Reuters Sunday that the ICC was investigating possible new war crimes committed by the Ugandan rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in recent attacks on Uganda villages. The attacks follow the apparent collapse of a peace deal with the rebels last month. [...]
Arrest warrant for former Democratic Republic of Congo rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba in connection with war crimes and acts of genocide allegedly committed in the Central African Republic, International Criminal Court, unsealed May 23, 2008. Read the full text of the sealed arrest warrant and the decision to unseal the arrest warrant . Reported in [...]
National Iranian Oil Co. Director of International Affairs Hojatollah Ghanimi Fard derided US bill HR 6074 on Saturday, calling it "inexpert" and "a projection of US economic problems" in an interview with Shana , the news service of the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum . The proposed legislation passed the US House of Representatives by a [...]
Jean-Pierre Bemba , a former rebel leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo , was arrested Saturday by Belgian authorities at his home outside of Brussels, after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a sealed warrant for his arrest on Friday. The ICC indicted Bemba for war crimes and crimes against humanity, which were allegedly [...]
Myanmar's military junta continued its controversial referendum on a draft constitution Saturday in areas hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis earlier this month that left some 130,000 people dead or missing according to the latest estimates. Voting took place in 47 townships, 40 in the vicinity of the former capital Yangon. The referendum was held in [...]
