On Friday, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order establishing the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AA and NHPI) and the President’s Advisory Commission on AA and NHPI. In recent months, hate crimes against Asian-Americans have increased due to the xenophobic rhetoric that blames Asians for the spread [...]

Policy decisions of EU member states and Libya caused deaths along the central Mediterranean route, according to a report from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Wednesday. The report covers the period from January 2019 to December 2020. It is primarily based on interviews with migrants, government officials and relevant experts. [...]

The Constitutional Council of France struck down a bill Friday permitting schools to teach the majority of the day in regional languages such as Basque, Breton, and Corsican for being unconstitutional. In April 2021, the National Assembly of France had passed the impugned bill to protect and promote regional languages. It enabled primary schools to [...]

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed a bill Monday allowing those with concealed weapons permits to carry their firearms openly in public. In a statement, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) said, “the Open Carry with Training Act does not change the law on who can carry a firearm. Rather, it merely changes the way [...]

The US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions Tuesday against seven Lebanese nationals associated with Hezbollah and its financial arm, Al-Qard al-Hassan (AQAH). Hezbollah and AQAH were designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists in 2001 and 2007, respectively. Andrea Gacki, Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, said, “from the [...]

The Supreme Court of India on Saturday formed a 12-member national task force to formulate a scientific, rational and equitable methodology for the allocation of medical oxygen to states and union territories. Since the beginning of the second wave of coronavirus infections in India the country has been facing an acute shortage of supply of [...]

Sri Lanka’s cabinet on Tuesday approved the proposal to ban all kinds of face veils, including burqas, in public places due to threats to “national security.” The approval comes a month after the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution “to promote reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka.” Based on a UN report [...]