The Supreme Court of Thailand ruled 103-4 Wednesday to deny an appeal by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra contesting the seizure of his assets. Thaksin filed the appeal in March after the Constitutional Court ordered that 46.4 billion baht (USD $1.4 billion) of his fortune be seized the month prior. The court had found him [...]

The Supreme Court of Mexico ruled 9-2 Tuesday that same-sex marriages performed in Mexico City must be recognized nationwide. The court found that although Mexico’s 31 states are not required to allow same-sex marriages to be performed in their jurisdictions, they must confer marital rights to same-sex couples married in Mexico City. The two dissenting [...]

The American Bar Association (ABA) on Tuesday adopted a resolution calling on state and local governments to legalize same-sex marriage . The resolution was adopted at the ABA annual meeting held in San Francisco over the past week. The resolution was adopted overwhelmingly , with only one member voicing opposition to it. It calls for [...]

The US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on Tuesday selected US district judge Carl Barbier to hear more than 300 lawsuits filed against British Petroleum (BP) in connection with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The panel ordered more than 77 actions and 200 additional potentially related actions to be transferred [...]

Amnesty International (AI) on Tuesday called for the Taliban and other insurgent groups in Afghanistan to be tried for war crimes for targeting civilians. The statement was released following the 2010 Mid-Year Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) . The report found that in the [...]

The South Korean National Police Agency (SKNPA) raided the Google South Korean headquarters in Seoul on Tuesday morning in connection with accusations that the company has been illegally acquiring user data. Representatives from the SKNPA’s Cyber Terror Response Center said that officials suspect Google of collecting personal data from wireless networks using its fleet of [...]

The opposition Scottish Labour Party called Tuesday for the publication of all medical evidence related to the release of convicted Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi . The demand comes one year after al Megrahi was released from prison on compassionate grounds because doctors predicted he only had three months to [...]

The military trial of Canadian Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr began Tuesday with jury selection, despite international criticism of the proceedings. Khadr pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and terrorism Monday for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed one US soldier and injured another when he was 15. Potential jury members, all US military [...]

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Monday apologized to South Korea for Japan’s 20th-century colonization of the Korean peninsula. The statement was timed to coincide with the anniversaries of the 1910 annexation of the peninsula and the 1945 South Korean independence, which both occurred during August. In his statement, Kan emphasized the strength of the [...]

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday called on governments to work to improve the human rights conditions of the world’s indigenous peoples. The statement, made on the International Day of World’s Indigenous People , urged world governments to come into compliance with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples , which was adopted [...]