The United Kingdom (UK) government announced on Wednesday a new Bill of Rights is to be introduced to strengthen freedom of speech, restrict some human rights lawsuits, and to facilitate the deportation of criminals. The Bill will introduce a “permission stage” in court to prevent “trivial human rights claims,” from overwhelming the judiciary and it [...]
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta Tuesday declined to sign the controversial Information Communication Technology (ICT) practitioners bill into law. The bill seeks to have all ICT practitioners registered and licensed by a professional ICT body. Kenyatta made this decision at a ceremony where he signed 10 other parliamentary bills into law. Kenyatta said that Clauses 24 and [...]
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had his first court appearance Monday to answer for corruption allegations. Shehbaz Sharif became Prime Minister in April after a vote of no confidence ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan. The current investigation stems from allegations that Sharif abused his power when he was Punjab’s chief minister. From 2013 to 2018, [...]
Sri Lanka’s Cabinet Monday passed a constitutional amendment in order to curb the president’s power and delegate more power to the country’s parliament. The 21st amendment repeals the 20th Amendment, which reallocated some of parliament’s powers to the president and allowed the president to dissolve parliament. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has pushed for the passage [...]
The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health Sunday, called for a holistic approach to violence with a special focus on preventing violence against women, non-binary people, and children. Tlaleng Mofokeng’s report highlights the intersection between violence and its impact on the right to health. The report highlights the dramatic changes to the health situation [...]
The Government of Canada Monday published its final regulations that aim to prohibit the sale of single-use plastics by December 2023. Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault and Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos aim to regulate and prohibit single-use plastics, including checkout bags, cutlery, and straws with some exceptions. The manufacture and importation [...]
Russia’s Moscow City Court Monday upheld a lower court ruling that Meta was guilty of “extremist activity” and kept the Kremlin’s ban on the social media company in place. State news agency TASS reported that the court called the ban “lawful and justified” after Russia’s media regulator, Roskomnadzor, and Federal Security Service (FSB) intervened in [...]
Japan’s Osaka District Court ruled Monday that the country’s ban on same-sex marriages is not unconstitutional. The court rejected claims brought by three same-sex couples who sought marriage licenses. Because the court found the ban to be constitutional, it also dismissed the plaintiffs’ demands for 1 million yen in damages per couple who argued that [...]
Protests in Ecuador continued Sunday as hundreds of indigenous people went to the capital Quito to demand economic reforms. The protesters want President Guillermo Lasso to lower price gas prices, stop additional oil and mining development, and extend deadlines for small farmers to pay off debts, among other things. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of [...]
Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin Sunday told the BBC that the UK’s revised Northern Ireland post-Brexit trade protocol would “effectively be very damaging to the NI economy.” As Martin noted, “it represents a form of economic vandalism on Northern Ireland.” The UK government’s Reformed Northern Ireland Protocol is intended to ease the flow of goods between [...]
