On Saturday, the US Senate held the final confirmation vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. The vote was 51-48 and was along party lines. According to a tweet from President Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh is set to be sworn in late Saturday evening. The confirmation vote comes after the US Senate [...]
A judge on Peru’s highest court overturned a pardon of Peru’s former president, Alberto Fujimori on Wednesday. Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2009 for approving a civilian massacre during his presidency. Former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned Fujimori in 2017 due to Fujimori’s heart condition. However, human rights experts denounced the pardon, claiming that it was politically motivated and that Fujimori [...]
UN human rights experts on Friday decried the decision by Indian authorities to bring terrorism charges against 10 human rights defenders. The human rights activists work with India’s impoverished and disadvantaged communities including members of India’s lowest caste, the Dalits. They were arrested due to a public meeting that was organized a day before the [...]
Tokyo passed a law on Friday that prohibits “the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, citizens, and enterprises” from “unduly discriminat on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.” The law was passed in light of Tokyo hosting the 2020 Olympic Games. After Russia passed anti-LGBT legislation before hosting the Olympics in 2014, the International Olympic Committee added a [...]
The US Senate voted on Friday morning to end discussion and advance Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination in a key procedural vote. Next, a final confirmation vote will happen, possibly as soon as Saturday. The 51-49 Senate vote had one defection from each party — Democratic Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia voted to [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California issued a temporary injunction on Wednesday that bars the Trump administration from discontinuing a program that gave Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to immigrants from certain countries. These protections were signed into law by former president George Bush in 1990. They allowed immigrants from [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday that it has indicted seven officers of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) with hacking. The charges stem from a coordinated effort by the DOJ, the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The seven defendants were charged with computer hacking, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. The actors [...]
After being detained for one year, the court released 17 lawyers held in custody in Turkey, but it was short-lived. Their release was pending on the final outcome of the trial, but within 24 hours of that decision, judges already started to reverse course due to the prosecutor’s objection. Since the*n, six lawyers were re-arrested, [...]
Rosmah Mansor, wife of ousted Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, pleaded not guilty Thursday to 17 counts of money laundering. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, a government agency tasked with preventing fraud, announced Mansor’s arrest on Wednesday. Mansor, 66, was brought to the Sessions Court of Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia’s capital) Thursday morning where she pleaded not [...]
The Court of Appeal of Quebec decided on Wednesday that religious dress is to be allowed in the courtroom. The appeal arises out of a case where a judge refused to hear an Islamic woman in court “because she refused to remove her head scarf (hijab) in the courtroom and was therefore contravening the dress [...]
