In honor of International Women's Day today, the Guardian has posted a graphic map of political rights for women around the world. North Korea threatened to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on the United States yesterday; even though they lack the range to hit the US, South Korea and Japan could be realistic targets. The UN slapped new sanctions on North...
The rebel leader whose followers invaded Sabeh has called for a ceasefire with Malaysia. According to US Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama will release more information about the US drone program; further commenting on the program, Holder did not rule out drone strike attacks on US soil in extraordinary circumstances akin to 9/11. US and European officials are worried about the rise in English-language videos coming...
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has died from cancer. Thousands of mourners took to the streets to pay their respects to their late president. World leader reactions: here. A trial on Operation Condor of the 1970s and 1980s in South America has started in Buenos Aires. It is expected that the proceedings could take up to two years to conclude. North Korea threatens to end its 1953 armistice agreement after...
The head of the IAEA has urged Iran to allow international inspectors access to a military site near Tehran to explore whether nuclear tests have been carried out there. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Counterterrorism, Ben Emmerson, has urged the US to publish a Bush-era detention and rendition program report. On the island of Borneo, Malaysian troops attacked an armed Filipino group with...
Sudan's government has violated UN sanctions on the Darfur region by carrying out airstrikes in the country's west. Israel has plans to launch "Palestinian-only" buses to transport people from the West Bank to Israel, in a move officials claim is designed to reduce traffic congestion but many concerned with civil rights see this as a move toward further segregation. Al-Qaeda has issued an English-language magazine (downloadable) offering advice...
Events Fordham Law School presents the Eighth Annual Conference on International Arbitration and Mediation on April 11-12, 2013. The conference will bring together leading international arbitrators, mediators, practitioners, and scholars to discuss contemporary issues in international arbitration and mediation. Calls for Papers PolSci, the Romanian journal of political science, is accepting submissions for publication in its summer 2013 issue on the topic Democracy and the Rule of Law. The...
Ex-Yugoslav army leader Momcilo Perisic was acquitted on appeal at the ICTY yesterday. After the sentencing to death of Jamaat e-Islami in Bangladesh, deadly clashes broke out, where at least 30 were killed and more than 200 injured. The UN is accused of a cover-up in a humanitarian mission for a cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe in 2008 that cost some 4,000 lives;...
The ICTY is scheduled to release the appeals decision in the Momčilo Perišić case at 3:00 p.m. Hague time today. The European Parliament's Environment Committee has approved the European Commission's proposal to "stop the clock" on the inclusion of aviation in the EU ETS. The EU has agreed to cap banker bonuses at a maximum of one-year's basic annual salary. China has arrested five Tibetans for...
Western powers have said that Iran is considering their offer of lifting some financial sanctions in return for a scaled-back nuclear program from Tehran. Saudi Arabia has purchased a large amount of infantry weapons from Croatia and quietly funneled them to rebel forces in Syria. Fighting rages on in Syria, with battles nearing a 12th-century mosque in Aleppo, threatening to further damage the historic structure. Symantec Corp...
The Associated Press has released a translation of a jihadist instruction manual (.pdf) of how to avoid being a victim of a drone strike found in a pile of garbage in Timbuktu, Mali. As thousands mourn the death of a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail, fears of a revolt grow. The U.N. has called for an investigation into the death reportedly caused by torture. A rocket has been...
South Korea has inaugurated its first female president, Park Guen-Hye, who now faces regional tensions amid North Korea's nuclear testing. In one of her first moves as president, she demanded an end to nuclear ambitions by North Korea. Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, has expelled US special forces from the key battleground Wardak province, because, according to Karzai's spokesperson, some US soldiers...
The Syrian opposition, the Syrian National Coalition, is willing to negotiate a peace agreement, but they demand that President Al-Assad cannot be a part of any deal going forward. Syria's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has blamed al-Qaeda affiliated groups for yesterday's deadly blasts in Damascus, and called on the UN to do more to fight terrorism. Japan's Prime Minister Abe is in...
