US Says Israeli Settlements Are No Longer Illegal: Daily Brief
US announces that Israeli settlements are not illegal; British government accused of covering up war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan; Hong Kong protesters trapped; Egypt targets dissidents' families; prisoners living with HIV denied treatment in United Arab Emirates; attacks in the Central African Republic continue as peacekeeping mandate is renewed; Myanmar jails more members of satirical theater group; rules needed for new surveillance reality; and young people take France and others to task for failing to fight the global climate crisis.
United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced that the US no longer considers Israeli settlements in the Occupied West Bank as illegal under international law.
The British government and military actively covered up evidence of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, a BBC TV Panorama investigation has claimed. While British judges have concluded in case after case that some British soldiers mistreated Iraqis in detention during the Iraq war, those implicated have been shielded from the law.
Hundreds of students have been arrested and hundreds remained trapped as a violent standoff between protesters at Hong Kong Polytechnic University campus and Hong Kong police entered its third day. Meanwhile, Beijing struck another blow at the rule of law, claiming that only it, not a Hong Kong court, can decide the constitutionality of the territory's sweeping anti-mask law.
Egyptian authorities have carried out arrests, house raids, interrogations, and travel bans against dozens of relatives of dissidents who live abroad, apparently in reprisal for their activism, HRW said today.
Forty human rights and public health groups have joined forces to press the United Arab Emirates to aid prisoners living with HIV. Recent HRW research found that some prisoners living with HIV are denied regular and uninterrupted access to lifesaving antiretroviral treatment in the UAE.
As the peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic, MINUSCA, commits to another year in the country, preventing the killing of civilians and supporting accountability measures should remain the mission's top priorities.
A Yangon court has handed down more convictions for members of a satirical theater troupe for allegedly mocking Myanmar’s armed forces.
Facial recognition technology is already being used in many U.S. cities and around the world. And unless new regulation is put in place, things are about to get a lot scarier.
And finally, a 16-year-old boy named David is among a group of children lodging a UN complaint against France and four other countries for lagging efforts to fight the global climate crisis.