Violence and rights abuses continue in Myanmar’s northern state of Kachin, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Tuesday. HRW claims that a significant number of civilians are subject to abuses due to the conflict between Myanmar’s armed forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) . The report showed through interviews that Myanmar’s army attacked Kachin villages, [...]

The Commission Nationales de l’Informatque (CNIL) , France’s data protection regulator, has given Google Inc. three weeks to answer questions about its new privacy policy as part of a Europe-wide investigation on behalf of all European data protection regulators. Specifically, in a letter dated March 16, the CNIL asked Google CEO Larry Page to answer [...]

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. that patents obtained under 35 § 101 that correlate the body’s biological reaction to different dosages of a certain type of drug are invalid because they incorporate laws of nature. Respondent Prometheus Labs patented the tests doctors use for [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) published an open letter on Tuesday to leaders of a movement opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad , alleging that members of the opposition movement have tortured, kidnapped and executed supporters of the Assad government. In the letter, HRW urged members of the opposition not to commit the same human rights violations [...]

The Pakistani parliamentary national security committee on Tuesday urged the US to stop the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) drone attacks . The relationship between the two countries has suffered since a NATO airstrike in November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at the Salala check point in Mohmand. The report by the committee further demanded that [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Monday filed a petition against the US with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHCR) on behalf of three Afghans and three Iraqis who were allegedly tortured while being detained by the American military in Afghanistan and Iraq. The petition , which is an equivalent of an international [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 8-1 Tuesday in Roberts v. Sea-Land Services that under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA) , an employee is “newly awarded compensation” for the purposes of the act when he first becomes disabled and entitled to the disability benefits, regardless of when the compensation order was issued. The [...]

The Idaho State Senate approved a bill on Monday requiring a woman who is seeking an abortion to first receive an ultrasound. The ultrasound bill’s purported goal is to ensure that a woman’s “consent to an abortion is truly informed consent.” The bill requires an abortion provider to describe the physical characteristics of the fetus [...]

Military forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) committed human rights violations during last year’s presidential elections, according to a report published Tuesday by the UN Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO), consisting of the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 7-2 Tuesday in Martinez v. Ryan on a defendant’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Luis Mariano Martinez was convicted on two sexual assault counts related to the alleged rape of his stepdaughter and is serving consecutive sentences of 35 to life. During the pendency of his direct appeal, his counsel [...]