The first of the DOMA cases will reach the US Supreme Court [official website] at the start of the new term on October 1. Last week the US House of Representatives [official website] petitioned the Supreme Court to uphold the constitutionality [JURIST report] of Section 3 of DOMA. Last month US Senators filed an amicus brief [JURIST report] in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] asking that the appeals court uphold DOMA as constitutional. Also in June the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that the DOMA is unconstitutional. In May the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that Section 3 is unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment [text], which was the first appeals decision on the law. These rulings all came after the Department of Justice [official website] announced [JURIST report] last year that it would no longer defend the law as constitutional.

Wednesday's approval of the reform to the country's pension fund was the first in 19 years. Chile had reformed [NYT report] its pension fund system under its president Michelle Bachelet [Britannica profile; JURIST news archive] in 2008 after a previous reform in 1981. The pension system faced difficulties including a large number of workers due to its high administrative costs. The reform had proposed, among others, a replacement of the minimum pension and the Pensiones Asistenciales by a tax-funded solidary pension system (SPS) which included all citizens older than 65 years who live in the country for at least 20 years but do not have a private pension. Mexico had also reformed [World Bank report] its pension system in 1997 remodeling it after the Chile's reform of 1981 based on a multipillar approach that includes redistribution, mandatory individual savings accounts and competitive pension fund management as well as voluntary savings.

Citizens in the US have been increasingly relying on referenda to pass desired legislation. Last month, citizens in Washington and Maryland [JURIST reports] received enough votes to challenge newly passed same-sex marriage [JURIST backgrounder] legislation. Each state's ballot will contain a section asking voters to accept or reject the new legislation. Similarly, a group supporting same-sex marriage in Maine achieved enough signatures [JURIST report] in February to have the question of same-sex marriage appear on its ballot. Earlier that month, New Jersey governor Chris Christie vetoed legislation [JURIST report] that would have legalized same-sex marriage in the state, and called for a state-wide referendum on the issue. In December, Puerto Rican Governor Luis Fortuno (R) signed legislation establishing a two-part referendum that will allow Puerto Ricans to voice their opinions regarding Puerto Rico's political status and connection to the US [JURIST report] in November 2012.

UK is not the only nation having problems with professional and cultural standards of bankers. On Wednesday the Supreme Court of Spain accepted the case against the nationalized bank Bankia [corporate website, in Spanish]. Spain's public prosecutor's anti-corruption unit began its investigation [JURIST report] against Bankia last month to determine whether there was sufficient ground to take penal action against the nationalized company. Over 500 minority investors, most of whom were attracted to invest by the bank's last July's drawing and who suffered financial losses because of the fall of the bank's stock prices, are seeking to start preparing next week for a class action against the bank for compensation. In April, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) [official website] filed a suit against the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) [corporate website] claiming that it was involved in an illegal futures trading scheme from 2007 to 2010. In December of last year, Bank of America (BOA) [corporate website] had agreed to pay [JURIST report] $315 million to settle claims brought by investors alleging they were misled related to mortgage-backed investments.

Internet Freedom remains a controversial issue around the world. Last month, the Chinese Ministry of Information and Technology revealed its proposed changes to Chinese Internet law [JURIST report] that seek to limit the ability of users to post anonymous comments on micro-blogs and forums. A Bangkok criminal court in May sentenced [JURIST report] Chiranuch Premchaiporn, webmaster of independent Internet news site Prachatai, to an eight-month suspended sentence for failing to delete defamatory comments against Thailand's royal family. Earlier that month, a Dutch court ordered [JURIST report] Internet service providers in the Netherlands to block the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay or else pay a fine of USD $12,750 per day.

1) there are inconsistencies in the final tally report 2) the result shows a difference of one percentage point or less between the first and second-placed candidate 3) all the votes in one ballot box are cast in favour of the same candidate

A similar tension between presidential candidates occurred in 2006 when the incumbent Mexican president Vicente Fox [Britannica profile] was blocked [JURIST report] from delivering the traditional state of the nation address before the country's Congress [official website, in Spanish] by protesting leftist lawmakers supporting presidential candidate Obrador. In August the country's Federal Electoral Tribunal (FET) [official website, in Spanish] rejected most challenges dismissing fraud allegations brought by Obrador who filed over 200 separate complaints challenging the preliminary vote count [JURIST reports]. During the same month supporters of Obrador had gathered outside of the FET to protest the court's decision not to hold a full recount [JURIST reports] of July's election.

[The Special Rapporteur] however notes that the prevention framework both at national and international levels remains weak and that consequently human rights violations persist with regard to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. He points out that the importance and value of preventive measures cannot be overemphasized. Indeed there is a significant need to further reinforce and implement preventive measures for more progress in the elimination of all the manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.

Racism and discrimination have been a constant issue worldwide. Discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people has been of specific recent focus of the international community. Last week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] praised [official statement, text] the work of human rights activists for the right of LGBT people while calling for an end [JURIST report] to discrimination based on sexual orientation. He announced that he and his office will push the leaders of the international community to address the issue, noting that they have a legal obligation to do so. Last month the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) released a report [JURIST report] concluding that in the US, incidents of hate-based murders against LGBT individuals increased in 2011. Also in June Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] urged [JURIST report] the Bulgarian Justice Minister Diana Kovacheva to denounce calls to violence by anti-gay groups in anticipation of a LGBT pride parade in Sofia, Bulgaria. During that same month Ugandan Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo stated that the government was not discriminating based on sexual orientation, a statement that came days after the government had announced that it would ban at least 38 non-governmental organizations that are accused of recruiting children to homosexuality [JURIST reports]. Earlier that month a prominent Russian gay rights activist filed a complaint [JURIST report] with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) challenging a St. Petersburg city ordinance that prohibits the spreading "homosexual propaganda" to minors. The ECHR ruled that a Moldova law banning gay groups from protesting in front of the country's parliament violated citizens' rights [JURIST report] to peacefully assemble and to be free from discrimination.

The government shouldn't be able to get this sensitive and constitutionally protected information without a warrant and without first satisfying First Amendment scrutiny. Because the D.A. didn't do that here, it shouldn't be permitted to obtain this information about Mr. Harris's Twitter activities ...Twitter should continue to be applauded for stepping in and challenging this particular subpoena. The unfortunate reality, however, is that Twitter and other Internet companies cannot challenge every one of these requests for information about one of their millions of users. That is why it is so important that individuals be allowed to go to court to protect their own rights, and that is why this court's decision is so wrong.

Internet privacy issues in the US have become increasingly controversial in recent years. A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia in February dismissed a suit [JURIST report] from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a consumer privacy group, asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to block Google's proposed privacy policy changes. EPIC brought suit against the FTC earlier that month [JURIST report]. The new policy allows user information to be shared among different Google products, including YouTube, Gmail, and Google Maps. Last year, US Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced a bill [JURIST report] amending the 25-year-old Electronic Communications and Privacy Act (EPCA), which he authored, to require the government to obtain a warrant before searching private e-mails and other data stored on an Internet cloud. Earlier that month, US Representatives Edward Markey (D-MA) and Joe Barton (R-TX) released a draft bill that would restrict companies [JURIST report] from tracking the Internet activity of minors without parental consent.

In June more than 1,300 people filed a criminal complaint [JURIST report] against TEPCO for the March 2011 crisis and for the plaintiffs' resulting radiation. The complaint named as defendants Tsunehisa Katsumata, the chairman of TEPCO, Masataka Shimizu, the former president of the company, and Haruki Madarame [Washington Times profiles], the chief of the Nuclear Safety Commission, along with 30 other executives. In March, the executives of the company faced another complaint filed [JURIST report] by a group of shareholders in the amount of USD $67 billion for similar claims. They claimed that the company failed to prevent the March 2011 disaster by ignoring warning signs and failing to take appropriate measure to mitigate damages in the event of an earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The March 2011meltdown is considered one of the biggest man-made environmental disasters of all time and the largest nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986. Japan has been criticized for its handling of the crisis, and international reception to nuclear energy has fallen sharply since the incident. In a Forum op-ed, Fukushima Illustrates Need for Nuclear Policy [JURIST op-ed], Tamar Cerafici of the Cerafici Law Firm discussed how the Fukushima disaster should guide US policy. Last August Japanese lawmakers voted to create a fund to compensate victims [JURIST report].

Last month, Spain's public prosecutor's anti-corruption unit had began its investigation [JURIST report] against the bank to determine whether there was sufficient ground to take penal action against it. Protesters from the "indignados" [advocacy website] movement announced that it will take civil and criminal legal action against the bank and its former chairman on June 14 and that they have already raised 15,000 euros. The same day, the European Commission [official website] announced [JURIST report] a proposal that would address the problems of bailing out large banks with public funds during financial crises in the future. The 171-page proposal is a response to the financial crisis of 2008 in which the European public authorities, including Spain, had to bail out large financial institutions, leading the European Commission to approve 4.5 trillion euros (equivalent to 37 percent of EU GDP) to go to those failing companies. Several EU member states face financial instability which may have detrimental effects on other member states. Earlier this month, Ireland voters approved [JURIST report] the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance [text, PDF] aimed at improving fiscal discipline and promoting greater financial information disclosure between EU member states because of its current financial situation. Similarly, Spain's major political parties reached an agreement [JURIST report] in last August to modify the country's constitution that was to regulate the limits of the national deficit in order to avoid risks of debt crisis and a bailout.

In February, the European Commission announced [JURIST report] that it would seek guidance from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) before ratifying the ACTA to ease protesters' concerns with the ACTA's possible censorship of free expression. Hearings on a similar bill in the US were postponed [JURIST report] in January by Representative Darrell Issa [official website] of California. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) [text, PDF] would have effectively blocked foreign websites that are suspected to infringe copyrights and give the US Department of Justice (DOJ) increased authority in counterfeiting copyright infringement. In November, the ECJ ruled [JURIST report] that Internet service providers (ISPs) cannot be required by law to monitor their customers' activities as an attempt to combat illegal sharing of copyrighted material.

A similar situation took place in May, when an Afghan detainee who was handed over to authorities in Afghanistan by UK forces won permission [JURIST report] to challenge the legality of his transfer. He argued that he had been tortured by Afghanistan officials until he confessed that he was a member of the Taliban. The Open Society Institute of New York and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission [advocacy websites] alleged in March that US detainees were sent to a National Directorate of Security (NDS) facility in Kandahar, which was condemned [JURIST reports] by the UN in October for "systematically tortur[ing]" prisoners during interrogations. Afghan officials denied the torture allegations [JURIST report], claiming that there was no basis for the UN's findings.

Syria has been plagued with violence over the past year and a half, and human rights groups have blamed both the government and anti-government groups for the resulting deaths. Last week a UN commission stated that Syrian forces "may have been responsible" for the killing of more than 100 civilians [JURIST report] in Al-Houla last month. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, however, said earlier this month that the government had nothing to do with it [JURIST report] and that "not even monsters" would carry out those attacks. In April the UN Security Council approved a resolution [JURIST report] to send 300 unarmed soldiers and other humanitarian aid to supervise the implementation of a peace plan. This came after Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report [JURIST report] stating that Syrian security forces had killed more than 100 civilians and opposition fighters in recent attacks. In March, HRW also reported on and linked to videos of Syrian forces rounding up civilians [JURIST report], including women and children, and forcing them to walk in front of soldiers and tanks during troop movements and attacks so that opposition fighters would not shoot at them.

Pro-western Ukrainians are wary of increased Russian influence in the country. In April 2010 Ukrainian prosecutors considered filing criminal charges after a parliament session in which lawmakers hurled eggs and smoke bombs and engaged in physical violence in an attempt to prevent a vote [JURIST report] on a Russian treaty. The chaos erupted as lawmakers voted to approved a treaty that extended Russia's lease on a naval base in the Ukrainian Sevastopol port on the Black Sea until 2042 in exchange for discounted Russian gas. The agreement was strongly opposed by pro-Western lawmakers who see Russian influence as reminiscent of Soviet occupation. The treaty came soon after the election of Yanukovych as President [JURIST report], who took office in February of that year. Yanukovych replaced Viktor Yushchenko [JURIST news archive], who had sought to cut ties with Russia and strengthen relationships with Western Europe. Yushchenko opposed the extension of Russia's Black Sea lease.