Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese Wednesday announced a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament will be held before December 2023. Speaking at the Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland, the prime minister confirmed that Australia will vote next year on amending the Constitution to include an indigenous representative body. Albanese explained that the Voice to [...]

The US Department of Transportation (DOT) Tuesday promised to look into massive flight cancellations and delays by Southwest Airlines, the world’s largest low-cost carrier, amidst an unprecedented winter storm. According to FlightAware, a flight tracking website, 2,694 flights or 64 percent of Southwest’s scheduled flights were canceled on Tuesday. Another 25 percent of Southwest’s schedule [...]

An Arizona district court Tuesday ordered former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake to pay Arizona’s governor-elect Katie Hobbs court fees relating to a lawsuit that challenged the outcome of the November election. The court confirmed Hobbs’s election is official and ordered Lake to pay $33,040.50 in expert witness fees. The case arose on December 9 when [...]

In a 5-4 vote the US Supreme Court Tuesday allowed Title 42, a Trump-era deportation policy, to remain in effect. With the decision, the court put on hold a lower federal judge’s decision that would have ended the Title 42 policy last week. The court stated that this ruling does not preclude the federal government [...]

Iran Human Rights Tuesday reported that Iranian security forces have killed at least 476 people protesting the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini, including 64 children and 34 women. This is an increase from the group’s previous report. In addition to the civilian casualties, at least 100 people arrested in relation to protests face execution. The [...]

President Yoon Suk Yeol Tuesday pardoned former president Lee Myung-bak, who had received a 17-year sentence, along with another 1,373 South Koreans convicted of corruption and related offenses. Yoon said the amnesties aim to “serve to unite our national strength.” Yonhap News Agency reported the wide-ranging special pardons to include a long list of high-profile [...]

The Government of India Tuesday announced that it signed a peace agreement with the Zeliangrong United Front (ZUF), an insurgent group in the northeastern state of Manipur. Senior officials of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the Manipur government and representatives of ZUF signed the “Cessation of Operation” agreement in the presence of the [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Tuesday reversed insider trading convictions against four defendants over leaks from a US healthcare agency. In the 2-1 decision, the court dismissed various fraud and theft charges against former hedge-fund partners Theodore Huber and Robert Olan, political intelligence consultant David Blaszczak and former US Centers for [...]

Colombia’s government program known as the Victim Reparation Fund (VPF), Tuesday announced that $5.7 million will be distributed to victims of paramilitary groups. The compensation is for 8,287 victims of the paramilitary groups of Central Bolivar, Mineros and Libertadores del Sur. The victims include individuals who have been forcibly displaced and victims of sexual violence. [...]

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Tuesday urged countries in Andaman Sea region to step up for helping rescue Rohingya Muslims stranded at sea. In contrast, the UNHCR welcomed Indonesian fishermen’s–in concert with local authorities’–actions which saved 58 people Sunday and 174 people Monday. UNHCR Representative to Indonesia, Ann Maymann, thanked the local communities [...]