Search Results for: 2017-02-06

Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security on Monday arrested Pham Thai Ha, assistant to the country’s National Assembly chairman. Pham was arrested and detained in Hanoi, Vietnam on charges of “abusing positions and powers to influence others for personal gain,’ according to provisions of Clause 4, Article 358 of the 2015 Penal Code (amended in 2017),” [...]

Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, passed the Self-Determination Act on Friday, allowing transgender and non-binary citizens to modify the gender marker on their legal documents through self-identification. The Transsexuals Act is the German law that is currently in place to govern the legal requirements for modifying gender identity on legal documentation. Section 8 of the act [...]

US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has indefinitely extended a stay blocking the enforcement of a Texas law that criminalizes illegal entry into the state from other countries. Monday’s extension came just as a previous extension issued last week was set to expire. In late February, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction preventing the [...]

Under President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s leadership, the Sri Lankan civil war reached a brutal conclusion on May 18, 2009, ending a 25-year-long conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist rebel group. Rooted in longstanding grievances, including discriminatory policies against Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, the conflict saw the [...]

The UN transferred control of its first base of operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday to the Congolese government. The move is a part of the UN’s plan to end its current humanitarian operations within the DRC by the end of the year. The UN made the decision to withdraw operations from [...]

Publisher and activist Julian Assange appealed to London’s High Court this week in a last-ditch effort to avoid extradition to the US to face espionage charges. Following the hearing which spanned Tuesday and Wednesday, judges will consider whether Assange can appeal an earlier ruling ordering his extradition from the UK to the US, where he [...]

The Seoul Central District Court on Monday acquitted Samsung Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee of stock manipulation and accounting fraud charges, according to local media outlet The Korea Herald. This eliminated the possibility of him being imprisoned. The decision focused on Lee’s involvement in a controversial merger of Samsung affiliates C&T and Cheil Industries in [...]

A US federal judge prohibited the practice of separating migrant children from their families for eight years on Friday following a settlement that will allow migrant children and their families, who were separated at the US-Mexico border, to be reunited. The “Mrs. L” deal, the result of a lawsuit against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement [...]

Last month, Pakistan’s caretaker government issued an ultimatum to all undocumented immigrants, including some 1.73 Afghan nationals: leave the country voluntarily, or face expulsion. The deadline was Nov. 1. Since the announcement, over 86,000 undocumented Afghan nationals, including women and children have returned to their country, presumably to avoid arrest. Pakistan, a country that hosts [...]

The US government announced on Monday that it will settle a 2018 class-action lawsuit that challenged the Trump administration’s family separation practice at the US-Mexico border. The parties filed a joint petition asking the court to approve the settlement. The proposed settlement would create a process to reunify families who were separated. Additionally, the government [...]