A UN briefing on Friday called for an end to the violence in West Africa’s Sahel region, where more than two million people have been displaced within the borders of their own countries. Boris Cheshirkov, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said that the number of internally displaced [...]

The National Congress of Honduras Thursday voted in favor of constitutional reforms that make it difficult to reverse provisions preventing the legalization of abortion and same-sex marriage. Of the 128 members of Congress, 88 voted in favor of the reforms, 28 opposed and seven abstained. They will have to be ratified in a second session. If ratified, [...]

The European Parliament Thursday passed a resolution criticizing Vietnam for prosecuting political dissent ahead of one of the country’s major political gatherings. Approved by a vote of 592-32, the EU resolution condemns Vietnam’s recent “crackdown on dissent and increasing violations of human rights,” and demands the release of political prisoners who exercised their right to [...]

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa Friday signed a proclamation providing for the Political Party Funding Act, 2018 to come into effect on April 1. The Act regulates public and private funding of political parties in the country. The Act, which repeals the Public Funding of Represented Political Parties Act, 1997, was approved by the parliament in [...]

A Geneva court Friday found Israeli businessman Beny Steinmetz guilty of corruption and forgery following a two-week trial. A former citizen of Switzerland, Steinmetz and two of his associates faced the two charges for paying $10 million as bribes to receive permits for mining iron ore in Guinea and for forging documents to mask the bribery. [...]

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina Friday convicted former Bosnian army commander Sakib Mahmuljin of several war crimes and sentenced him to prison for 10 years. Mahmuljin served as a commander of the 3rd Corps of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) during the international armed conflict between the ARBiH and the Army [...]

Amazon filed suit in the EU’s General Court on Tuesday to combine investigations of the tech giant by the EU Commission and the Italian Competition Authority (ICA). The ICA, which launched its case in April 2019, and the Commission both allege that Amazon favors its own retail brands and brands that use Amazon fulfillment services with [...]

The Constitutional Court of Moldova on Thursday struck down a law passed in December that sought to provide the Russian language with legal protections alongside the Moldovan state language. The Constitutional Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional, as the constitution of Moldova does not allow for any other languages aside from Moldovan to be [...]

The Tokyo District Court upheld Japan’s ban on dual citizenship on Thursday. The court rejected the case of Japanese expatriates living in Europe who had challenged the constitutionality of the ban in the first judicial decision concerning the issue. The court sided with the Japanese government’s concern for national interests. Judge Hideaki Mori said that [...]

The first nuclear disarmament treaty in more than two decades came into force on Friday, following the 50th ratification of the treaty on 24 October, which triggered the 90-day period required before the treaty entered into force. The UN completed negotiations on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at its New York headquarters [...]