The US State Department did not evaluate risks of civilian casualties and implement measures to reduce them when it approved $8.1 billion arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in May 2019, according to an Office of Inspector General (OIG) report released Tuesday. The unredacted version obtained by Politico raises doubts over Secretary of State [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Missouri on Wednesday denied an insurance company’s motions to dismiss two cases in which businesses contended that business interruption insurance should cover COVID-19 losses. Businesses in Missouri and Kansas claimed that COVID-19 caused a “direct physical loss” to their businesses. They filed suit [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York struck down a Trump administration policy that she said upended almost 50 years of protections for birds. In her decision published Tuesday, Judge Valerie Caproni began by referencing “To Kill A Mockingbird,” stating: “It is not only a sin to kill [...]
An Algerian court on Monday sentenced journalist Khaled Drareni to three years in prison for speaking out against the government. Drareni, who is well known in Algeria and has a twitter account of roughly 150,000 followers, reported on the Hirak protest movement, where Algerians are speaking out against the rule of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and [...]
Rodrigo Duterte’s presidential term in the archipelagic country of the Philippines has been deeply concerning human rights activists since 2016. Immediately after assuming the Presidency, Duterte confirmed that he had personally killed three men when he was the Mayor of Davao to show the police that killing troublemakers should not be difficult. Amid a deadly [...]
US President Donald Trump on Monday signaled opposition to the suggestion that an ongoing investigation at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office should be expanded to fraud at the Trump Organization. Last week, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance hinted at the expanded investigation through a court filing. Up until then, it was suspected that the inquiry [...]
The US Supreme Court issued an emergency order Tuesday staying a district court order granting preliminary injunctions in an Oregon redistricting ballot measure. The ballot measure could drastically alter how Oregon draws its legislative and congressional districts. The “People Not Politicians” ballot campaign sought to place an initiative on voters’ ballots that would place a [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Monday that the draft legislation introduced by parliamentarians in Somalia must not be enacted as it violates international human rights norms, including legitimizing child marriage. “This new draft legislation would represent a serious step backward for the rights of victims of sexual violence in Somalia, in [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on Tuesday dismissed an appeal against Michaels Stores Inc. and Craft Smith that alleged the companies infringed on a designer’s copyrights and trade dress rights with a “knockoff” version of a personal planner. EC Design has sold its personal organizer, the LifePlanner, since 2007. In 2015, Craft [...]
Mexico’s Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero announced Tuesday that prosecutors were opening a corruption investigation against former president Enrique Peña Nieto, who was in office from 2012 to 2018. This announcement follows accusations made against Peña Nieto by the former head of the oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex). Emilio Lozoya, the former head of Pemex, [...]
