The US has transferred two brothers from its Guantánamo Bay detention centre to Pakistan, bringing the total number of people held at Guantánamo down to 32. Guantánamo came to symbolise the excesses of the US “war on terror” because of harsh interrogation methods that critics have said amounted to torture.
USA: Illinois Supreme Court allows massive damages in biometric privacy cases but says lawmakers sho
The Illinois Supreme Court ruled biometric privacy claims accrue under state law every time a person provides their biometric information without prior informed consent, but also suggested damages should not be so large as to bankrupt businesses. In last week's ruling, damages would have added up to $17 billion.
If passed as written, it would preemptively ban the use of the COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna as well as countless other mRNA vaccines that are now in development, such as shots for RSV, a variety of cancers, HIV, flu, Nipah virus, and cystic fibrosis, among others.
"Both sides know that Beijing can make no commitment and get away with it", said Dolkun Isa from the World Uyghur Congress. Instead, any forthcoming bilateral meeting should be used by the EU to commit to follow up the UN report on Xinjiang and set up an independent, international investigative mechanism into crimes against humanity.
The author and entrepreneur Raymond Baker accuses the US and China, which together account for over 40% of the world’s nominal GNP, of knowingly exploiting secrecy in global economic relations. Now, the COVID pandemic, the war in Ukraine and climate change even worsen inequality within and among nations.
[Highly recommended book if I may say so. I've read it, too, and although I don't agree in every aspect, Baker's arguments are very legitimate.]
The protests were sparked by cuts to monthly allowances paid to retirees under China’s vast public health insurance system. The changes, gradually introduced since 2021, come as local government finances are strained following years of strict and costly zero-Covid policies.
A new generation of younger, female, Indigenous, Black, Latinx and queer farmers are still contending with US land prices out of reach, and old attitudes that minimize a healthier, more sustainable food production. By focusing on voices not typically part of mainstream man-to-man economic discourse, however, their new approach celebrates an economy waged as life—not as war.
Rights groups accuse Beijing of abuses against Uyghurs, the ethnic minority that numbers about 10 million in Xinjiang, including the mass use of forced labour in internment camps. China is also alleged to have forcibly sterilised women in the province.
The former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith said that the governor of Xinjiang, Erkin Tuniyaz, should be arrested if he arrives in the UK. Tuniyaz, who is due to visit the UK next week and may meet officials, is accused of overseeing widespread attacks against the Uyghur ethnic group and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang.
Erkin Tuniyaz, the Chinese Communist Party deputy secretary in Xinjiang and chairman of the Xinjiang government, who is slated to meet with UK and EU officials in February, gave a speech in 2018 in which he instructed officials to ensure that “absolutely secure” measures were adopted to prevent people from escaping from political education camps and police detention facilities. The US sanctioned Tuniyaz in 2021 for his role in Xinjiang abuses.
The communist party’s propaganda machine pulled out all the stops to ensure the public opinion was in accordance with party narrative (and, yes, countries in "the west" are frequently trying the same).
"What they're accusing Julian of, they could accuse [...] any other journalist, any other publisher, any day they choose. ... If we want an open and accountable democracy, where you can expose corruption and criminality, if that is the society that we want, Julian has to be free", his wife Stella Assange said.
The US football forward Alex Morgan has questioned the possible sponsorship deal between the world's football federation Fifa and Saudi Arabia’s tourism authority for the upcoming Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand this summer. Both host countries' federations have also decried the move because of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, especially when it comes to women and LGBTQ individuals.
“In recent years the residential school system for Tibetan children appears to act as a mandatory large-scale programme intended to assimilate Tibetans into majority Han culture, contrary to international human rights standards,” three UN experts say.
The 32 year old Afghan, who completed his MSc at a leading university last year, despite spending more than a year in a succession of single hotel rooms with his wife and two children under the age of three, now says he is having to choose between an academic career or a place to live.
The search for the missing capsule captured the world’s imagination, but radioactive material goes awol about 100 times a year around the world, says Dr Edward Obbard, a senior lecturer in nuclear engineering at UNSW Sydney.
Allegations of brutal interrogations, where Ukrainian men were shot and threatened with rape, have been made by a former Russian military officer.
Experts of the Technical University Delft found that out of six public statements made by the Commission in support of its new measures legislative initiative, three were incorrect.
Czech lower house of parliament speaker Marketa Pekarova Adamova assured Taiwan of her country's support for partner states who respect human rights and liberal democracy, ahead of a visit to Taipei planned for March this year. The election of new president Petr Pavel marks a turnaround in his countries politics, observers say.
“To the Chinese government, normalising the relationship means Australia first conforming to various Chinese government demands, including putting issues like human rights in Xinjiang off the table,” says Kyinzom Dhongdue, a strategic campaigns lead for Amnesty International Australia and a Tibetan human rights campaigner. He claims, however, that any human rights dialogue “must take place unconditionally”.
Hongkongers in Britain have called on Suella Braverman to reconsider controversial measures in her public order bill, which they likened to the repressive measures used to crack down on democratic opposition in their home city.
The Conservative Rami Ranger has been accused of using “deplorable” and “racially charged language” in a scathing attack on the BBC’s recent documentary about the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi. He hit out at a documentary that has caused significant controversy in India and been banned from YouTube and Twitter by authorities there over the depiction of Modi’s role in riots in 2002.
Autocrats and dictators quickly acquire new arms technologies from abroad and often use them against their own citizens. A new study covering all countries from 1820 to 2010 shows that the spread of military technologies inhibits democratic reform.
Here is the study: https://academic.oup.com/ej/article/133/650/728/6750008?login=false
Non-autocratic countries condemn what China is doing but don't provide corridors for refugees.
The disappearances – arrests and detentions mostly of young women – are drawing criticism and condemnation from various human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
The Kremlin has stamped out public dissent but makeshift memorials to Ukrainian dead are a focus for those opposed to the conflict.
"The ensuing conversations about the role of monarchy and especially the way the British Empire profited at the expense (and death) of indigenous peoples across the world really opened my eyes", says Cumming who was awarded the OBE - 'Officer of the Order of the British Empire' - in 2009 as part of the Queen's birthday honours list.
The government-affiliated civil organization CÖF (Civil Cooperation Forum), which operates with money from a state-owned gambling service provider, attacked the opposition through posters. In a recent press conference, a CÖF spokesperson said that Átlátszó could pose a national security risk by receiving financial support from foreign partners.
Ciba-Geigy Chemical Corp., the town's largest employer, has been flushing chemicals into the Toms River and the Atlantic Ocean, burying 47,000 drums of toxic waste in the ground. This created a plume of polluted water that has spread beyond the site into residential neighborhoods.
While attacking journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who wrote critically of the Saudi government and was killed in October 2018 by a group of assassins, Republican politician Mike Pompeo notes in his new book that the U.S. has a "strategic" relationship with the Saudis to consider.
New guidelines tighten longstanding restrictions, threatening to make it even harder for Palestinians in the West Bank, who already face severe Israeli-imposed movement restrictions, to be with family members who lack a West Bank ID and to engage with foreign students, academics, experts, and others.
Trying to commemorate those killed by Russian bombing in Dnipro, Ukraine. In Moscow, a 15-year old girl was detained for bringing flowers to the memorial of famous Lesya Ukrainka.
Chinese social media users debunk the official COVID-19 death figure.
US president Joe Biden has been accused of hypocrisy for demanding the release of journalists detained around the world while he continues seeking the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from Britain to face American espionage charges.
Cuban reporters are regularly detained, can have their phones and laptops seized, and their internet cut.
In-depth political discussion from around the world.
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Beehaw
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