Rhode Island parents, on behalf of students, filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island late Wednesday alleging the state of Rhode Island has not upheld its constitutional responsibility to prepare students to be informed citizens. The complaint looks for an answer to the question raised in the 1973 US [...]
An Argentinian judge on Wednesday initiated the investigation process into Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman while he is in Argentina for the G-20 Summit. Federal Judge Ariel Lijo agreed to the Human Rights Watch’s request to determine whether Yemeni and Saudi legal authorities were investigating the prince for crimes against humanity, including his [...]
Three Philippines police officers were convicted of murdering an innocent teenager, Kian Delos Santos, during a patrol in the Philippines’s ongoing war on drugs, and were sentenced to 40 years in prison each. They will not be eligible for parole. These are the first such convictions since sitting President Rodrigo Duterte, who vowed that he [...]
Australian Federal Police are investigating several SAS (Australian Special Forces) soldiers for allegedly committing war crimes in Afghanistan during Australia’s 12-year military involvement in the conflict. SAS insiders told the Sydney Morning Herald that “horrendous things” had occurred in Afghanistan. “Some just disgraceful things happened,” said the insider. “It was pretty much kept under wraps.” [...]
The US Senate voted 63-to-37 Wednesday on a procedural step to approve Senate Joint Resolution 16 to suspend US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Senate Joint Resolution 16 says that Congress, pursuant to both the 1973 War Powers Resolution and section 1013 of the Department of State Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1984 and 1985, [...]
South Korea’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling ordering Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan to compensate South Koreans who were forced into labor at their factories during World War II. The lower court ruling ordered Mitsubishi to pay five South Korean Women between 100 million and 150 million won each, or about [...]
Brazil’s Senate Social Affairs Committee approved a draft bill on Wednesday to legalize marijuana cultivation for personal medical use. Though selling and trafficking marijuana carry criminal penalties in Brazil, cultivating cannabis has been decriminalized since 2006. The new bill would lift the penalties currently imposed for marijuana cultivation and allow Brazilians to grow cannabis for personal, therapeutic [...]
Sri Lanka Defense Chief of Ravindra Wijeguneratne has appeared in Colombo Magistrate Court after his arrest on Wednesday for aiding in the kidnapping of 11 teenagers during the final stages of Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war in early 2009. When the targeted group, the Tamil Tigers, could not pay the ransom, he is alleged to [...]
A group of UN human rights experts on Thursday criticized the actions of the Iranian government in jailing human rights defenders and lawyers. “We urge the Government to immediately release all those who have been imprisoned for promoting and protecting the rights of women.” The experts called for the government of Iran to guarantee the [...]
UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Leilani Farha urged world leaders Thursday to address the global housing crisis at the next annual G20 summit. Farha’s statement indicated that the new global order has treated housing as a commodity and that “the G20 leaders must ensure that financial actors and their governments are prevented from selling-off [...]
