The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced Wednesday that JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. has agreed to pay a $135 million settlement for charges related to improper handling of “pre-released” American Depository Receipts (ADR). The SEC found that JPMorgan had improperly provided ADRs in pre-release transactions, despite neither the broker nor customers having the requisite [...]

The Rwandan government released a statement Monday that French Magistrates Jean-Marc Herbaut and Nathalie Poux closed an ongoing investigation last Friday, into the 1994 downing of former Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana’s plane. Habyarimana, a member of the Hutu ethnic majority, died in April 1994 when his plane was shot down near the Rwandan capital. The assassination [...]

The Iraqi Cabinet announced that it has amended the national holiday laws to add Christmas Day as a national holiday in Iraq. Iraq had been home to over some 1.4 million Christians before the Iraq civil war. That number has dropped to approximately 400,000 due to the increased religious persecution during the height of the [...]

Protests have been ramping up across Sudan in response to the nation’s acute economic crisis. Inflation reached 70% in November and many have been forced to spend significant portions of their income on bread, leading some to refer to the demonstrations as the “bread protests.” Protesters have reportedly called for President Omar al-Bashir, who has been [...]

The closed trial of detained human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang began Wednesday in Tianjin amid protests. Wang and approximately 300 other lawyers and legal activists were arrested during the 709 Crackdown on July 9, 2015. Though most of the detainees were eventually released, Wang has not been seen in three years, despite international pressure to [...]

The Pakistan Supreme Court’s creation of a fund for the construction of two dams in the country is an unprecedented overreach of judicial power that threatens to undermine the development of good governance in the executive branch of government. Additionally, the unrestrained exercise of judicial power is likely to not only result in the judicialization [...]

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been sentenced to seven years in prison after he was found guilty on Monday of owning assets “disproportionate to his known sources of income.” An anti-corruption court in the country’s capital Islamabad imposed a fine of USD $25 million on Sharif. It also disqualified him from holding public [...]

US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Sunday issued a stay of the contempt order and accrual of fines for a foreign company speculated to be a part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The stay sets a deadline of December 31 at noon for the Court to further respond and decide if they want to take the [...]

Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted summary judgment to the parents of Otto Warmbier against North Korea on Monday. Warmbier, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student died days after being released from North Korean custody, following a 17-month detention. The court found North Korea liable for [...]

UN Special Rapporteur of the human rights of migrants Felipe González Morales on Monday called for an independent investigation into the death of Jakelin Ameí Caal, a Guatemalan migrant child who died while in US Customs and Border Protection. Jakelin was in custody, along with her family and other migrants, after crossing the Mexico border. The factual [...]