The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) announced Wednesday that Afghanistan has made “some progress” toward preventing the torture and ill-treatment of detainees held in government custody. The UN officials acknowledged the effort and commitment the Afghan government has shown towards eliminating the use of torture in detainment facilities, yet the report shows that one-third [...]
US President Barack Obama issued his third presidential veto Tuesday, rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline Approval Act for circumventing national interest determinations. Objections to the heavily-Republican supported bill raised environmental concerns, and Obama had previously voiced his intention to veto the bill if it reached his desk. The Senate approved the bill in January, and [...]
The implementation of California’s plastic bag ban , which was set to go into effect in July, has been halted by a successful referendum petition. The trade group American Progressive Bag Alliance (ACPA) collected more than 800,000 signatures on their petition . A random sampling of these signatures by election officials is projected to satisfy [...]
Spain’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday ruled that a November 9 Catalonia independence vote was unconstitutional . According to the court, both the decree from the Catalan regional government that allowed for the vote and two articles of a regional law passed in September on “non referenda popular consultations” are unconstitutional . A majority of the [...]
The US Supreme Court on Wednesday handed down its ruling in Yates v. US , rejecting the prosecution of a fisherman for throwing undersized fish overboard. The petitioner, a fisherman, had been charged with destruction of evidence for instructing his crew to throw back 72 red grouper fish after a federal government employee determined that [...]
The Jamaican House of Parliament passed an act Tuesday decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana. Under the new law, possession of less than two ounces of marijuana is considered a petty offense punishable by a ticket. Beyond consumption, the legislation allows individuals to cultivate up to five plants on any premises. Minister of National Security Peter [...]
Chinese writer Huang Zerong, known also by his pen name Tie Liu, on Wednesday received a suspended 2.5 year prison sentence for charges of running an illegal business. Zerong was sentenced for allegedly publishing articles critical of Communist Party propaganda chief Liu Yunshan . The 81-year-old has been detained since September and has denied the [...]
A Bangladesh court on Wednesday issued an arrest warrant for the leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and former prime minister Khaleda Zia . The arrest warrant comes in response to Zia’s failure to appear in court in the two corruption cases presently against her. The charges brought against Zia accuse her of embezzling [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in two cases. In Henderson v. United States , the court must decide the property interest in a collection of firearms relinquished to law enforcement by a former border patrol agent after the commission of a felony offense. The case turns on a conflict between a [...]
Amnesty International (AI) claimed Monday that the Egyptian military failed to take adequate precautionary measures to avoid civilian casualties in an attack on the Libyan city of Derna last week. The airstrikes occurred in the early morning hours of February 16, and AI argues that indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations, such as this attack by [...]
