The bill's passage came despite urgent calls from international rights groups - including Access Now, Civil Rights Defenders, Eurasian Coalition on Health, Rights, Gender and Sexual Diversity, Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, International Partnership for Human Rights, and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee - for lawmakers to reject the legislation, saying it would "blatantly violate" Kazakhstan's human rights commitments.
Subjecting desperate and traumatised men, women and children to invasive searches including examinations of their clothing and even inside their mouths immediately after they have survived a terrifying Channel crossing is profoundly inhumane. Applying these powers indiscriminately to everyone arriving by small boat risks treating all refugees as a security threat, regardless of evidence, and shows a shocking disregard for the fundamental right to privacy.
Israeli officers closed an event celebrating Christmas on Sunday, confiscating equipment, and arresting the Palestinian Santa Claus, as well as a DJ and a street vendor. In a video, police can be seen pushing the men to the ground and handcuffing them as bystanders watched. The Israeli police said in a statement that the man wearing the Santa Claus costume resisted arrest and assaulted an officer.
On Sunday, the CBS News program 60 Minutes was set to air a report by Sharyn Alfonsi about CECOT, the notorious prison in El Salvador that has housed migrants deported by the Trump administration. At the last moment, this segment was spiked by Bari Weiss, the editor in chief of CBS News. But the segment was mistakenly aired in Canada and is now widely circulating on social media.
The U.S. military said Monday that it had conducted another strike against a boat it said was smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing one person. In a social media post, U.S. Southern Command said, "Intelligence confirmed the low-profile vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations." Southern Command provided no evidence that the vessel was engaged in drug smuggling.
Israel's Cabinet has approved a proposal for the construction of 19 new Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move that violates international law and further threatens the possibility of creating a Palestinian state. Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has led Israel's illegal settlement expansion campaign. There's been a sharp rise of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank under Israel's current far-right government, with the latest approval bringing the total number of settlements to at least 210, compared to 141 in 2022, according to the settlement watchdog group Peace Now.
The attorney general's office posted on X that 248 members of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) street gang had received exemplary sentences for 43 homicides and 42 disappearances, among other crimes. It did not specify the date of the sentencings or whether the accused had been tried en masse. One individual was sentenced to 1,335 years in prison, while 10 others received prison terms ranging from 463 to 958 years, the post on Sunday said.
While federal agents working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) are running up on migrant workers in Home Depot parking lots, the home improvement corporation has decided to take a stand - against the migrant workers. Reporting by The Guardian reveals a cruel new initiative being rolled out to one high-traffic Home Depot location in Los Angeles' Cypress Park: high-pitched noise machines meant to shoo away day laborers.
Palestinian prisoners in Israel already face horrific conditions, with a rights group documenting the deaths of at least 94 of them in the past two years, and the rape of prisoners caught on camera. The far-right Israeli minister responsible for prisons, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has proudly declared that conditions have gotten harsher for Palestinian prisoners under his watch. And in late October, he stood over Palestinian prisoners forced to lie face-down on the floor.
Tens of people gathered in central London on Saturday to call for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, drawing attention to those detained under what Israel calls administrative detention a system under which people can be held for indefinite renewable periods of time without a charge and without having committed an offence on the grounds that a person plans to break the law in the future.
Iran has executed a man convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, judicial authorities announced, as Tehran continues a widening crackdown on alleged collaborators following the 12-day Israel-United States-Iran war earlier this year. Aghil Keshavarz was put to death on Saturday morning after the Supreme Court upheld his conviction on espionage charges, according to Mizan, the judiciary's official news agency.
This past Monday morning, Chileans awoke to a new reality. Some 35 years after the return to civilian rule following the infamous Pinochet dictatorship, Chile will soon be governed by a rabid right-wing, pro-Pinochet apologist-President-elect José Antonio Kast. For the 58 percent of the Chilean public sold on Kast's Trumpian anti-immigration and pro-security populism, that was great news. But for the 42 percent of Chileans who voted for progressive candidate Jeannette Jara, Chile's swing to the far right is devastating, and a bitter political pill to swallow.
As we move beyond 2030, it is crucial to rethink how we measure progress and development. The current relevance of GDP [gross domestic product] as the dominant indicator of economic performance has been widely criticized for its inability to capture the full dimensions of human well-being, social equity, and environmental sustainability. Recent policy discussions and research, including the OECD's [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's] " Beyond GDP " initiatives, highlight the urgent need to develop alternative metrics.
Supporters of Hong Kong democracy activist and media mogul Jimmy Lai have begun queuing overnight outside a Hong Kong court ahead of a verdict in his lengthy trial. The verdict will be delivered by a three-judge panel in a hearing that begins at 10am local time (02:00 GMT) on Monday and comes amid international calls to release Lai, who has already spent five years in jail.
A Tunisian court has sentenced prominent opposition leader Abir Moussi to 12 years in prison amid a sweeping crackdown on critics of President Kais Saied, who has said he is cleansing the North African country of traitors. Lawyer Nafaa Laribi, who represented Moussi, the leader of the Free Destourian Party (Free Constitutional Party), in her third trial in the space of two years, called Friday's ruling unjust, saying that it was not a judicial decision but a politically motivated order.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
Reimagining Philanthropy explores transformative and decolonialized approaches to philanthropy that can shift our sector from traditional top-down models toward more equitable, community-centered practices. In community, we explore how philanthropic organizations can share power authentically, center affected communities in decision-making, and build truly reciprocal relationships. "How can you think about creating civic spaces when those who fight for them are being threatened?" Funding, safety, democracy promotion, and community control in the Global South cannot be understood in isolation from one another.
