Malian security forces have killed civilians in the town of Niono in central Mali, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Saturday. HRW said that Mali’s army has been targeting ethnic groups associated with rebels in the north, particularly Tuaregs and Arabs. HRW called on Mali’s government, as well as France and West African nations to [...]

More than 140 nations gathered in Geneva for a UN forum agreed on Saturday to a legally binding treaty addressing the use of mercury, a metal that is infamous for its detrimental effects on health and the environment. The treaty, named the Minamata Convention on Mercury for a city in Japan that has incurred serious [...]

Federal prosecutors on Friday filed charges against Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan for alleged real estate fraud involving a short sale of her home in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, and sale of a house in Florida. Hathaway was already set to resign on [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri on Friday ended their challenge to a 2011 Kansas law that restricts private health insurance companies from offering coverage for abortions in their general plans. The withdrawal follows a ruling by the US District Court for the District of Kansas that the [...]

Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been charged with murder for her role in the contract-style killing of Yevhen Shcherban and two others in 1996, Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka said Friday. Pshonka alleges that Tymoshenko and former prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko ordered the murder of Shcherban, who was shot to death in an airport [...]

The US Supreme Court on Friday granted what may be the final four cases it will hear this term. After being considered in conference eight times, the court granted Bond v. United States and will determine whether Carol Anne Bond can be tried under the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act , a federal law that [...]

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay stated on Friday that the continued violence in Syria is harming civilian human rights and humanitarian attempts at aiding those in need. Amos expressed particular concern for the vicious nature of the violence, the [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Friday upheld Wisconsin’s controversial Budget Repair Bill which significantly limits the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions. Act 10 was signed into law by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in March 2011. Wisconsin’s largest teachers’ union, public sector union and five other unions challenged the [...]

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a November 2012 report on Friday, stating the crisis in Mali has led to human rights violations including rape, summary executions, and extra-judicial killings. According to the report, violations also include stoning, amputation, the recruitment of child soldiers, and forced marriage and gang [...]

Judges for the Second Court of Appeals of Milan on Friday rejected a request by the lawyers of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berulsconi to suspend his appellate proceedings until after Italy’s general elections in late February. Berlusconi was found guilty and sentenced in October on charges of tax fraud for irregularities regarding the purchase [...]