Australia Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek Thursday announced that the federal government will legislate new protections for Aboriginal cultural heritage sites following a report that mining giant Rio Tinto destroyed a sacred 46,000-year-old site at Juukan Gorge. However, the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) Aboriginal Cooperation released a statement saying they were “angry and disappointed” [...]

German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach Wednesday unveiled plans for the legalization of cannabis for recreational use in keeping with an election promise made by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Lauterbach presented the Federal Government’s key issues paper, including key regulations: (1) the minimum age limit for sale and purchase shall be 18 years of age; (2) the acquisition [...]

Russia’s Federal Service for Financial Monitoring, Rosfinmonitoring, Tuesday added US tech giant Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to its list of “terrorist and extremist” organizations, Russian news agencies reported. The impact of Rosfinmonitoring’s designation reportedly means that Russian citizens and companies who buy ads from Facebook or Instagram could potentially [...]

The FBI Wednesday released its 2021 annual crime report, estimating that murders reported in the US increased from 22,000 in 2020 to 22,900 in 2021, constituting a 4.3 percent increase. The overall violent crime volume decreased by 1 percent across the US from 1,326,600 incidents in 2020 to 1,313,200 incidents in 2021. The amount of [...]

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) Tuesday ruled that Germany’s data retention statute is not compatible with EU law. German telecommunication companies SpaceNet and Telekom Deutschland brought actions in German courts arguing that Germany’s Law on Telecommunications (TKG) breached EU rules. The TGK law imposed an obligation on telecom operators to retain customers’ traffic data [...]

California Attorney General Rob Bonta Wednesday filed an antitrust lawsuit against ecommerce company Amazon, accusing the company of stifling competition and creating artificial pricing floors. The 84-page complaint was filed in San Francisco Superior Court and argues that Amazon’s anticompetitive practices are in violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law and Cartwright Act. The lawsuit mirrors [...]

UN Secretary-General António Guterres Thursday appointed Austrian diplomat Volker Türk to be the next High Commissioner for Human Rights. Following approval by the UN General Assembly, Türk will replace Chilean national Michelle Bachelet, who decided not to seek a second term after she served as the High Commissioner for Human Rights from September 1, 2018, until August 31, [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona (ACLU) and a group of 10 news organizations filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging an Arizona law that makes it a crime for the public to record law enforcement within eight feet without an officer’s permission. The law was signed by Republican Governor Doug Ducey in July. The suit [...]

United Nations Special Rapporteur on slavery Tomoya Obokata released a report Tuesday on contemporary forms of slavery where he found that it was “reasonable to conclude” that forced labor “among Uygur, Kazakh and other ethnic minorities in sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing” is taking place in China’s Xinjiang region. Obokata’s assessment was made “based [...]

Wyoming Judge Melissa Owens granted a preliminary injunction Wednesday against the state’s abortion ban, protecting abortion access while litigation against the law moves forward. “The legislature cannot pass a discriminatory law on the basis of sex that restricts the constitutionally protected right to make one’s own health care decisions,” Judge Ownes wrote. Wyoming Governor, Mark [...]