Daily News Channel
Nicaragua’s total ban on abortion is a "cruel, inhuman disgrace" that’s led to the rise in maternal deaths, human rights organization Amnesty International has said. The Central American country’s revised penal code on abortion came into force in July 2008 and criminalizes all forms of abortion regardless of the circumstances, even in cases of rape or incest, a deformed fetus, or when the mother’s life is in danger
About 300 people have been killed in a spate of violence in northern Nigeria, the president of a human rights group said Tuesday. The violence has pitted Islamic militants against government police and troops in the north-central part of the nation, officials said. Attacks continued Tuesday in the suburbs of the northern city of Maiduguri, said Shehu Sani, president of the Civil Rights Congress, a human rights organization based in northern Nigeria.
Government agents used tear gas to disperse demonstrators, and beat and kidnapped a human rights lawyer, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said Saturday, citing witnesses. The advocacy group said human rights lawyer Shadi Sadr, who was walking with friends to Friday prayers, was confronted by people dressed in civilian clothes. They pushed her into a car and drove off, the group said, citing witnesses.
The office of the wife of former British prime minister Tony Blair refused to comment Thursday on UK media reports that she has swine flu. A spokeswoman for Cherie Blair told CNN: “This is a private matter and we will not be making a comment.” Blair was reported to have contracted the H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu, on Tuesday, according to the British Press Association and various media reports.
When 3-year-old Rowan Isaacson darted away from his father and dived into a herd of grazing horses, it easily could have been the end of the small autistic boy. He was babbling under the hooves of a boss mare.
Prosecutors will recommend that a Spanish court drop its investigation of six former Bush administration officials for alleged torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Spain’s attorney general said Thursday. The claim against the former officials, presented by a human rights group and provisionally accepted last month at the court — pending an opinion from the prosecutors — is a fraudulent claim, said Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido, according to his press chief. If alleged torture at Guantanamo is going to be investigated at all, that should be done first in the United States, so that the former American officials would have a chance to defend themselves there, Conde-Pumpido added, according to his press chief, Fernando Noya
The power of women hit the State Department on Wednesday when first lady Michelle Obama joined Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to celebrate champions of women’s rights around the world.