The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said Tuesday that they will announce measures to suspend resettlement travel in the coming days that will remain in place for as long as necessary. These measures come as many nations are closing their borders and have already placed holds on resettlement [...]
The Afghan government delayed the release of Taliban prisoners on Saturday after disagreements occurred over the number of detainees to be released and uncertainty about whether the prisoners would return to fighting. The Taliban agreed to talks with the Afghan government after signing an accord with the US. The accord ended 18 years of US [...]
The Autorité de la concurrence, France’s antitrust regulator, issued a USD $1.2 billion fine for Apple on Monday, citing the company’s anticompetitive practices in dealing with two of its wholesalers. The wholesalers, Tech Data and Ingram Micro, were also issued fines in the tens of millions. In a press release published Monday, the agency stated [...]
The Russian Constitutional Court released a 52-page decision Monday approving amendments to the constitution, including an amendment that would allow Vladimir Putin to serve up to two additional terms as president. The current constitution imposes a two-term limit to the presidency, and Putin has put forward a series of amendments, one of which would reset [...]
Iran has temporarily released about 85,000 prisoners from jail as part of their response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said about half of those released were political prisoners. Today’s mass release follows the release of some 70,000 prisoners on March 9, none of whom were political prisoners. In response to the earlier [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion on Monday to drop all charges against two Russian shell corporations accused of interfering with the 2016 presidential election. The motion states, “the government has concluded that further proceedings promote[] neither the interests of justice nor the nation’s security.” The DOJexplained that, “sometimes in a criminal [...]
Nazaha, Saudi Arabia’s anti-corruption body, on Sunday arrested 298 government employees on charges of bribery, embezzlement and exploiting their positions. Government authorities claim that they are going after graft committed by ordinary employees. However, some of those arrested could have posed a political threat to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). This has raised concerns [...]
A group of UN experts condemned Thammakaset, a Thai poultry producer, for alleged targeting of human rights defenders Thursday. In 2019, Thammakaset allegedly used Thai defamation laws to sue and have prosecuted ten individuals who criticized Thammakaset’s labor practices for human rights abuses. The UN experts called upon Thailand to reform defamation laws based on [...]
Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested Mir Shakilur Rehman, the editor-in-chief of the Jang Media Group, on Thursday. The Jang Media Group is one of the largest independent media companies in Pakistan. It owns Urdu-language Geo News, the largest news channel in Pakistan, along with several major newspapers. NAB arrested Rehman for an alleged illegal [...]
UN Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee urged the Myanmar Government Tuesday to embrace human rights and democracy during her last Human Rights Council report in Geneva. In her report Lee called on Myanmar to amend its constitution, change citizenship and land laws, and overturn laws that violate fundamental human rights. “… t is not too late [...]