Search Results for: 2016-06-01

After a contentious debate Thursday, the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish legislature, voted on four abortion–related proposals Friday and created an Extraordinary Committee to draft new abortion laws. Meanwhile, the EU Parliament voted to include the right to a safe and legal abortion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, specifically condemning Poland’s [...]

Every Eid-Al-Fitr, the Albanian Muslim community organizes a collective prayer in Tirana’s public square, a crowded event filled with people adoring and worshipping their God, ideals and morals. While attending as a spectator, one can witness a scene colored with feelings of tranquility, peace and harmony. Since the prayer is done in the direction of [...]

The US prides itself on being a nation built on freedom, justice, and individual rights. And yet the evolution of its system of mass incarceration — a system that cannot be defined without reference to shocking racial disparities — seems to directly contradict these founding principles. The US prison population dwarfs those of nearly every other [...]

Gambian lawmakers referred a bill attempting to reverse the Women’s (Amendment) Act, 2015 to the national committee for further consultation on Monday. The Women’s (Amendment) Act, 2015 bans female genital mutilation (FGM). Local activists gathered outside the National Assembly of The Gambia on Monday with protest signs to boycott the bill. FGM is a practice [...]

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 US Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments this week in a landmark case that will determine whether states are entitled to remove former president and current Republican frontrunner Donald Trump from election ballots over his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when the US Capitol was stormed by protesters. In anticipation of the [...]

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows disqualified former US President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot on Thursday, citing Section 3 of the US Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment. Maine is now the second state to remove Trump from the ballot, joining Colorado, which removed Trump from the ballot under the same constitutional provision [...]

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) announced Sunday that it deployed two ships to the Julian Felipe Reef (also called the Whitsun Reef) in response to an alleged increase in Chinese Maritime Militia (CMM) ships in the area. PCG spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela stated that the PCG noticed the alleged increase in CMM activity on November [...]

With the stroke of his pen, California Governor Gavin Newsom could have a significant impact on the death penalty across the US. Though Newsom lacks the power to end capital punishment in California, he could take executive action to commute the sentences of the roughly 700 condemned awaiting execution in in the state—a death row figure [...]

A Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesperson announced Monday that the PCG removed a floating barrier allegedly placed by China near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. This comes days after the PCG claimed that China had placed the floating barrier to prevent Philippine fishermen from accessing fishing grounds near the shoal, which [...]