human rights

Stories 221 - 240 | << Prev   Next >>

US, China Grow Closer Despite Touchy Issues

Bush accepts Olympics invitation; talks recalls, environment with Hu

(Newser) - President Bush accepted an invitation today from China’s president to attend next summer’s Olympics, a gesture that will likely anger human rights activists but may increase pressure on Beijing, the Times reports. In a 90-minute meeting in the eve of the APEC summit, Hu Jintao and Bush also...

In China, Yahoo Names Names
In China, Yahoo
Names Names
Aug 28, 2007 1:05 PM CDT

In China, Yahoo Names Names

Lawsuit accuses net giant of complicity in torture, human rights abuses

(Newser) - Yahoo asked a US federal court yesterday to dismiss a human rights lawsuit accusing the company of abetting the Chinese government. Two imprisoned Chinese journalists accuse the Web giant of passing along information about users that led to the arrest, imprisonment, and sometimes torture of writers and dissidents, the San ...

Lay Judges to Join Bench in Japan
Lay Judges
to Join Bench
in Japan
Aug 25, 2007 8:38 AM CDT

Lay Judges to Join Bench in Japan

Will citizens temper Japan's courts, where 99.9% are found guilty?

(Newser) - Japan will give citizens the gavel in an effort to counteract its judicial system’s prejudice for presuming guilt. Six citizens and three trained jurists will sit on criminal cases, and the majority will rule, Bloomberg reports. The new system follows a clamor of criticism about forced confessions, inhumane treatment...

Pakistani Court Frees Terror Suspects

Bin-Laden go-between among dozens released before trial

(Newser) - Dozens of Pakistani terror suspects have been released from jail without trial following orders from the nation's supreme court that they be freed. The bold move by the judiciary against President Musharraf's tenuous rule is bound to elicit protests from the US and Britain. The most notorious prisoner released is...

Psychologists Won't Impose Gitmo Ban

Group votes to list interrogation techniques it won't help with

(Newser) - The American Psychological Association has voted not to ban members from assisting with interrogations at Guantanamo and other military prisons, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Instead, the group approved a measure listing specific procedures members won't help with, including sleep deprivation and water-boarding. "If we remove psychologists from these...

Iran Executes 30 in Past Month
Iran Executes 30 in Past Month
Aug 19, 2007 1:18 PM CDT

Iran Executes 30 in Past Month

(Newser) - Iran executed up to 30 people in the past month, mostly in public hangings, in a nationwide crackdown on murderers, sex offenders, drug traffickers, and other threats to "social security," reports the Observer. Human rights advocates say the sweep, also advertised as countering an alleged surge in US-backed...

Dems Court Rainbow Vote
Dems Court
Rainbow Vote
Aug 10, 2007 11:37 AM CDT

Dems Court Rainbow Vote

At Forum debate, Hillary's pink; Obama's on the brink; Edwards, Richardson stink

(Newser) - All of the Democrats who appeared at last night’s gay rights forum touted their support of sponsor Human Rights Campaign—but it was Hillary Clinton who aced the tightrope test, according to Time’s Mark Halperin. Hillary managed to oppose gay marriage without playing defense, all the while supplying...

In Countdown to 2008 Olympics, Beijing Besieged

Pollution, human rights, food safety issues all draw fire

(Newser) - As the one-year countdown to the Beijing Olympics begins tomorrow, activists and Olympic organizers alike have been vocal in their concerns about the host city. The government is under fire for press harassment: journalists were detained for several hours yesterday after a Reporters Without Borders conference, and six Free Tibet...

Extremists, Militias Target Gays in Iraq

Officials, human rights groups dispute extent of escalating violence

(Newser) - Gays in Iraq are the targets of increasing violence by militias, police, and religious extremists, a largely unreported consequence of the 2003 US invasion. A fatwa is in place, reports the Chicago Tribune, and gays are fighting to emigrate to Sweden, Germany, and other countries. Recent reports by the...

Bush OKs New Interrogation Guidelines

CIA program will continue with "enhanced" methods

(Newser) - President Bush set broad new limits for questioning of CIA terror detainees yesterday, the Washington Post reports. The new regulations for "enhanced" interrogations—used to press suspects by means not allowed in US military custody—are an attempt at partial compliance with the Geneva Conventions.

Internet Users Slam Chinese Censorship

As top sites are banned, web surfers rail against 'Great Firewall'

(Newser) - Frustration with government curbs on the Internet is growing among China's 140M web users. Wikipedia has been banned, and the censors recently shuttered photo-sharing web site Flickr, after a user uploaded a picture of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Tens of thousands of human monitors and an elaborate filter system...

Vatican Shuns Amnesty International
Vatican Shuns Amnesty International
Jun 14, 2007 10:10 PM CDT

Vatican Shuns Amnesty International

Church urges Catholics to withhold support after shift on abortion

(Newser) - The Vatican is calling on Catholics to stop contributing to Amnesty International, a reaction to the human rights group's new stance on abortion. "AI has betrayed its mission," a prominent cardinal said this week, referring to the April announcement that the organization supports access to abortion services in...

Investors Clash With Yahoo CEO
Investors Clash With Yahoo CEO
Jun 13, 2007 10:34 AM CDT

Investors Clash With Yahoo CEO

Stockholders blast chief for $107M payday; nix change on company's China policy

(Newser) - Investors railed yesterday against Yahoo Inc.'s management team in an unusually rowdy session of the search engine's annual shareholders' meeting. Angry investors interrogated CEO Terry Semel over his $107.5M paycheck and the company's slumping stock price, which fell 9% in the last year. A third of shareholders mutinied...

China Curbs Executions as Olympics Loom

Executions down 40% in runup to 2008

(Newser) - Capital punishment is on the decline in China, a country responsible for more than half of the world's executions. Beijing doesn't release figures, but human rights watchers say death penalty cases are down as much as 40% over the last six years. Sinologists reckon much of that drop represents an...

Rights Groups Pressure US
Rights Groups Pressure US
Jun 8, 2007 9:36 AM CDT

Rights Groups Pressure US

Report urges release of info on "disappeared" terror suspects

(Newser) - Six prominent human rights groups want the US to disclose the whereabouts of 39 terrorism suspects, or "ghost prisoners," believed to have been in government custody. The organizations released a report today charging that children as young as 7 have been detained, invoking the loaded term "disappeared,...

Two More Arrested for Pearl Killing

Pakistani police say suspects were caught in a car with explosives

(Newser) - Police in Pakistan have nabbed two men suspected of involvement in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The two suspects —alleged members of a Al Qaeda affiliate—were picked up traveling in a car full of weapons and explosives, police said. One of...

Bush Asks Congress to Double AIDS Effort

Calls for $30 billion over 5 years, after he's out of office

(Newser) - President Bush wants to double the funding of a U.S. program that battles the global AIDS crisis. Bush will ask Congress today to commit $30 billion over the next five years after the current program expires in 2008. The extra cash could save the lives of 1.5 million...

Amnesty Faults Sudan for Arming Darfur

Planes disguised as U.N. aircraft to foil arms embargo

(Newser) - Amnesty International accuses Sudan of violating the UN arms embargo with the help of  Security Council members Russia and China. The human rights group claims the Khartoum government is using planes disguised as all-white UN aircraft to move military equipment into the embattled region where 200,000 people have already...

Afghan Prison Is as Bad as Gitmo
Afghan Prison Is as Bad as Gitmo
May 3, 2007 3:15 PM CDT

Afghan Prison Is as Bad as Gitmo

(Newser) - The U.S. prison at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan is as bad as Guantanamo, reports Eliza Griswold in the New Republic. Prisoners are kept in barbed-wire cages, beaten, tortured, raped, and held without promise of trial. But unlike Gitmo, Bagram has no visiting congressional delegations.

Democracy Depends on Kurdistan
Democracy Depends on Kurdistan
May 1, 2007 12:52 PM CDT

Democracy Depends on Kurdistan

Human-rights activist sees region as harbinger of Iraq's fate

(Newser) - While the U.S. focuses on Baghdad, a potentially defining crisis is developing in Kurdistan, according to Mark Lattimer, director of Minority Rights Group International. He argues in the Guardian that bloodshed in the only relatively secure region of Iraq is increasing as Kurds forced out of Kirkuk by Saddam...

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