About 71 percent of human trafficking victims are female and one-third are children, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report released Wednesday. Though many are victims of sexual exploitation and forced labor, many are reportedly used as beggars, for sham marriages, benefit fraud and pornography. The report emphasizes the connection [...]
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled Wednesday that “eneral and indiscriminate retention” of e-mails and other electronic communications by governments is illegal, in a decision that many believe could create an opportunity for challenges to the UK’s Investigatory Powers Bill . The EU’s highest court did, however, carve out an exception for targeted interception [...]
The use of capital punishment in the US is at a 20-year low, according to a eport by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) Wednesday. Specifically, the report found that while 31 states currently allow the death penalty, only five such states held executions in 2016. Of these 31 states, nearly 80 percent of all [...]
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced a ban on offshore drilling in almost 120 million acres of federally owned Arctic and Atlantic waters. As a preemptive opposition to President-elect Donald Trump, the goal of the declaration is to “protect the planet we share” and to protect the various environmental aspects in these regions, such [...]
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette on Tuesday announced criminal charges against four former state officials in connection with the Flint water crisis. Two former emergency managers, Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose, were charged with four felonies —false pretenses, conspiracy to commit false pretenses, misconduct in office, and willful neglect of duty—and face maximum sentences of [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Tuesday rejected a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for information about the US government’s use of drones for “targeted killings.” A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled last year [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called Tuesday for a murder investigation of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte after Duterte admitted to killing people while he served as mayor of Davao. Duterte said last week that he had personally patrolled the streets of Davao on his motorcycle and had killed about three [...]
The Myanmar military’s “campaign of violence” against Rohingya people constitutes crimes against humanity , according to an Amnesty International (AI) report on Monday. According to AI, the Myanmar military is responsible for unlawful killings, multiple rapes, and burning down houses as well as entire villages. In October the Myanmar security forces reportedly launched a large-scale [...]
Police killings in India continue to go unpunished, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report Monday. Citing India’s National Crime Records Bureau , the report states that 591 people died in police custody in the five years between 2010 and 2015. The vast majority of such deaths are recorded as suicide, illness or natural [...]
Christine Lagarde, current head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) , was found negligent by a special French court Monday in her handling of a long-running fraud case involving a USD $400 million payment to French businessman and Nicolas Sarkozy supporter Bernard Tapie during her time as France’s finance minister. Lagarde will not be fined [...]
