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Showing posts with label Law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Law. Show all posts
10/14/22
Turkey: The Turkish Parltament passes disinformation law
Turkey's parliament on Thursday passed a law proposed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that would make it possible to jail journalists and social media users for up to three years for spreading "disinformation."
9/13/22
E.U. lawmakers advance plan to ban products linked to deforestation
European Union lawmakers have backed a proposal for a law that would ban the sale in the 27-nation bloc of agriculture products linked to the destruction of forests.Read more at: E.U. lawmakers advance plan to ban products linked to deforestation.
Read more at: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/e-u-lawmakers-advance-plan-to-ban-products-linked-to-deforestation
2/17/21
France versus Radical Islam: : French MPs back controversial law aimed at cracking down on Islamic radicalism
French MP's on Tuesday approved a contreversial law on stopping intenet hate speech and separatism and ending foreign funding of religious groups.
Read more at: French MPs back controversial law aimed at cracking down on Islamic radicalism | Euronews
Read more at: French MPs back controversial law aimed at cracking down on Islamic radicalism | Euronews
8/31/20
Sex offenders: Germany unveils plan to crackdown on child sex offenders
Germany's Justice Ministry has proposed a bill introducing a new
crime of "sexualized violence against children" and tougher penalties
for sex offenders.
The reason for the new term would be to "clearly describe the injustice of the acts" of sex abuse against children, said Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht, who presented the bill.
Read more at:
Germany unveils plan to crackdown on child sex offenders | News | DW | 31.08.2020
The reason for the new term would be to "clearly describe the injustice of the acts" of sex abuse against children, said Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht, who presented the bill.
Read more at:
Germany unveils plan to crackdown on child sex offenders | News | DW | 31.08.2020
9/15/18
EU says Churhes are not above the law: EU court demands 'equal treatment' for church workers - by Andrew Rettman
The European Court of Justice has struck a second blow against churches' rights to hire and fire people based on their beliefs.
The EU court said in a judgement on Tuesday (11 September) that the German Catholic Church was wrong to sack a man who managed one of its clinics on grounds that he had divorced and remarried in violation of its belief that marriage was "sacred and indissoluble".
Read more: EU court demands 'equal treatment' for church workers
The EU court said in a judgement on Tuesday (11 September) that the German Catholic Church was wrong to sack a man who managed one of its clinics on grounds that he had divorced and remarried in violation of its belief that marriage was "sacred and indissoluble".
Read more: EU court demands 'equal treatment' for church workers
7/22/17
EU - Polish relations: Polish parliament steps up showdown with EU - by Eric Maurice
The Polish parliament adopted a controversial reform of the Supreme
Court on Thursday (20 July), stepping up a showdown with the EU.
The law, which puts the Supreme Court under government control, was passed with 235 votes against 192 and 23 abstentions, just a day after the European Commission had called on Polish authorities to suspend the bill or face a rule of law procedure that could lead to sanctions.
"We are coming very close to triggering Article 7," the EU executive vice president Frans Timmermans warned on Wednesday, referring to a rule of law procedure.
The vote led the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, who is a former Polish prime minister, to publish a statement calling for a solution to a "very serious situation".
Tusk said that he proposed a meeting with Polish president Andrej Duda to try to avoid "bleak outcomes which could ultimately lead to the marginalisation of Poland in Europe."
He said that the reforms carried out by the Polish government were a "dangerous tendency".
Read more: Polish parliament steps up showdown with EU
The law, which puts the Supreme Court under government control, was passed with 235 votes against 192 and 23 abstentions, just a day after the European Commission had called on Polish authorities to suspend the bill or face a rule of law procedure that could lead to sanctions.
"We are coming very close to triggering Article 7," the EU executive vice president Frans Timmermans warned on Wednesday, referring to a rule of law procedure.
The vote led the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, who is a former Polish prime minister, to publish a statement calling for a solution to a "very serious situation".
Tusk said that he proposed a meeting with Polish president Andrej Duda to try to avoid "bleak outcomes which could ultimately lead to the marginalisation of Poland in Europe."
He said that the reforms carried out by the Polish government were a "dangerous tendency".
Read more: Polish parliament steps up showdown with EU
2/12/14
Spain: 500 years after the Inquisition, Spain wants its Jews back.
Spain is considering a new change
to its citizenship laws that would allow the descendants of Jews
expelled from the country during the Spanish Inquisition to obtain
citizenship:
Until now the descendants of Jews expelled from Spain during the 15th century – known as Sephardic Jews – could claim Spanish citizenship only after living in the country for two years, and then only if they renounced their previous nationality.
The new bill, which is still to be approved by the Spanish parliament, will allow the estimated 3.5m Sephardic Jews who are alive today to claim Spanish nationality without having to give up their current passport.[…]
While the biggest community of Sephardic Jews lives in Israel, other communities also exist in Latin America, Turkey, the US and other parts of Europe. The proposed offer of Spanish citizenship would also apply to them.
12/28/13
EU-US Trade Negotiations: The lies behind this transatlantic trade deal-by George Monbiot
Panic spreads through the European commission like ferrets in a rabbit warren. Its plans to create a single market incorporating Europe and the United States, progressing so nicely when hardly anyone knew, have been blown wide open. All over Europe people are asking why this is happening; why we were not consulted; for whom it is being done.
They have good reason to ask. The commission insists that its Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership should include a toxic mechanism called investor-state dispute settlement. Where this has been forced into other trade agreements, it has allowed big corporations to sue governments before secretive arbitration panels composed of corporate lawyers, which bypass domestic courts and override the will of parliaments.
This mechanism could threaten almost any means by which governments might seek to defend their citi
zens or protect the natural world. Already it is being used by mining companies to sue governments trying to keep them out of protected areas; by banks fighting financial regulation; by a nuclear company contesting Germany's decision to switch off atomic power. After a big political fight we've now been promised plain packaging for cigarettes. But it could be nixed by an offshore arbitration panel. The tobacco company Philip Morris is currently suing Australia through the same mechanism in another treaty.
No longer able to keep this process quiet, the European commission has instead devised a strategy for lying to us. A few days ago an internal document was leaked. This reveals that a "dedicated communications operation" is being "co-ordinated across the commission". It involves, to use the commission's chilling phrase, the "management of stakeholders, social media and transparency". Managing transparency should be adopted as its motto.
The message is that the trade deal is about "delivering growth and jobs" and will not "undermine regulation and existing levels of protection in areas like health, safety and the environment". Just one problem: it's not true.
From the outset, the transatlantic partnership has been driven by corporations and their lobby groups, who boast of being able to "co-write" it. Persistent digging by the Corporate Europe Observatory reveals that the commission has held eight meetings on the issue with civil society groups, and 119 with corporations and their lobbyists. Unlike the civil society meetings, these have taken place behind closed doors and have not been disclosed online.
Though the commission now tells the public that it will protect "the state's right to regulate", this isn't the message the corporations have been hearing. In an interview last week, Stuart Eizenstat, co-chair of the Transatlantic Business Council – instrumental in driving the process – was asked if companies whose products had been banned by regulators would be able to sue.
Yes. "If a suit like that was brought and was successful, it would mean that the country banning the product would have to pay compensation to the industry involved or let the product in." Would that apply to the European ban on chicken carcasses washed with chlorine, a controversial practice permitted in the US? "That's one example where it might."
What the commission and its member governments fail to explain is why we need offshore arbitration at all. It insists that domestic courts "might be biased or lack independence", but which courts is it talking about? It won't say. Last month, while trying to defend the treaty, the British minister Kenneth Clarke said something revealing: "Investor protection is a standard part of free-trade agreements – it was designed to support businesses investing in countries where the rule of law is unpredictable, to say the least." So what is it doing in an EU-US deal?
Why are we using measures designed to protect corporate interests in failed states in countries with a functioning judicial system? Perhaps it's because functioning courts are less useful to corporations than opaque and unjust arbitration by corporate lawyers.
As for the commission's claim that the trade deal will produce growth and jobs, this is also likely to be false. Barack Obama promised that the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement would increase US exports by $10bn. They immediately fell by $3.5bn. The 70,000 jobs it would deliver? Er, 40,000 were lost. Bill Clinton promised that the North American Free Trade Agreement would create 200,000 new jobs for the US; 680,000 went down the pan. As the commentator Glyn Moody says: "The benefits are slight and illusory, while the risks are very real."
So where are our elected representatives? Fast asleep. Labour MEPs, now frantically trying to keep investor-state dispute mechanisms out of the agreement, are the exception; the rest are in Neverland. The Lib Dem MEP Graham Watson wrote in his newsletter, before dismissing the idea: "I am told that columnists on the Guardian and the Independent claim it will hugely advantage US multinational companies to the detriment of Europe." We said no such thing, as he would know had he read the articles, rather than idiotically relying on hearsay. The treaty is likely to advantage the corporations of both the US and the EU, while disadvantaging their people. It presents a danger to democracy and public protection throughout the trading area.
Caroline Lucas, one of the few MPs interested in the sovereignty of parliament, has published an early-day motion on the issue. It has so far been signed by seven MPs. For the government, Clarke argues that to ignore the potential economic gains "in favour of blowing up a controversy around one small part of the negotiations, known as investor protection, seems to me positively Scrooge-like".
Quite right too. Overriding our laws, stripping away our rights, making parliament redundant: these are trivial and irrelevant beside the issue of how much money could be made. Don't worry your little heads about it.
Read more: The lies behind this transatlantic trade deal | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian
They have good reason to ask. The commission insists that its Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership should include a toxic mechanism called investor-state dispute settlement. Where this has been forced into other trade agreements, it has allowed big corporations to sue governments before secretive arbitration panels composed of corporate lawyers, which bypass domestic courts and override the will of parliaments.
This mechanism could threaten almost any means by which governments might seek to defend their citi
zens or protect the natural world. Already it is being used by mining companies to sue governments trying to keep them out of protected areas; by banks fighting financial regulation; by a nuclear company contesting Germany's decision to switch off atomic power. After a big political fight we've now been promised plain packaging for cigarettes. But it could be nixed by an offshore arbitration panel. The tobacco company Philip Morris is currently suing Australia through the same mechanism in another treaty.
No longer able to keep this process quiet, the European commission has instead devised a strategy for lying to us. A few days ago an internal document was leaked. This reveals that a "dedicated communications operation" is being "co-ordinated across the commission". It involves, to use the commission's chilling phrase, the "management of stakeholders, social media and transparency". Managing transparency should be adopted as its motto.
The message is that the trade deal is about "delivering growth and jobs" and will not "undermine regulation and existing levels of protection in areas like health, safety and the environment". Just one problem: it's not true.
From the outset, the transatlantic partnership has been driven by corporations and their lobby groups, who boast of being able to "co-write" it. Persistent digging by the Corporate Europe Observatory reveals that the commission has held eight meetings on the issue with civil society groups, and 119 with corporations and their lobbyists. Unlike the civil society meetings, these have taken place behind closed doors and have not been disclosed online.
Though the commission now tells the public that it will protect "the state's right to regulate", this isn't the message the corporations have been hearing. In an interview last week, Stuart Eizenstat, co-chair of the Transatlantic Business Council – instrumental in driving the process – was asked if companies whose products had been banned by regulators would be able to sue.
Yes. "If a suit like that was brought and was successful, it would mean that the country banning the product would have to pay compensation to the industry involved or let the product in." Would that apply to the European ban on chicken carcasses washed with chlorine, a controversial practice permitted in the US? "That's one example where it might."
What the commission and its member governments fail to explain is why we need offshore arbitration at all. It insists that domestic courts "might be biased or lack independence", but which courts is it talking about? It won't say. Last month, while trying to defend the treaty, the British minister Kenneth Clarke said something revealing: "Investor protection is a standard part of free-trade agreements – it was designed to support businesses investing in countries where the rule of law is unpredictable, to say the least." So what is it doing in an EU-US deal?
Why are we using measures designed to protect corporate interests in failed states in countries with a functioning judicial system? Perhaps it's because functioning courts are less useful to corporations than opaque and unjust arbitration by corporate lawyers.
As for the commission's claim that the trade deal will produce growth and jobs, this is also likely to be false. Barack Obama promised that the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement would increase US exports by $10bn. They immediately fell by $3.5bn. The 70,000 jobs it would deliver? Er, 40,000 were lost. Bill Clinton promised that the North American Free Trade Agreement would create 200,000 new jobs for the US; 680,000 went down the pan. As the commentator Glyn Moody says: "The benefits are slight and illusory, while the risks are very real."
So where are our elected representatives? Fast asleep. Labour MEPs, now frantically trying to keep investor-state dispute mechanisms out of the agreement, are the exception; the rest are in Neverland. The Lib Dem MEP Graham Watson wrote in his newsletter, before dismissing the idea: "I am told that columnists on the Guardian and the Independent claim it will hugely advantage US multinational companies to the detriment of Europe." We said no such thing, as he would know had he read the articles, rather than idiotically relying on hearsay. The treaty is likely to advantage the corporations of both the US and the EU, while disadvantaging their people. It presents a danger to democracy and public protection throughout the trading area.
Caroline Lucas, one of the few MPs interested in the sovereignty of parliament, has published an early-day motion on the issue. It has so far been signed by seven MPs. For the government, Clarke argues that to ignore the potential economic gains "in favour of blowing up a controversy around one small part of the negotiations, known as investor protection, seems to me positively Scrooge-like".
Quite right too. Overriding our laws, stripping away our rights, making parliament redundant: these are trivial and irrelevant beside the issue of how much money could be made. Don't worry your little heads about it.
Read more: The lies behind this transatlantic trade deal | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian
5/20/13
New EU law to mean no more taxpayer bailouts
A European Union law up for a vote today will only fully shield taxpayers from bailing out troubled banks if there is a global framework as well, a top UK regulator said.
Bank of England Deputy Governor Paul Tucker said the EU law on bank recovery and resolution would be a milestone towards a global system and help convince markets that governments were no longer willing to rescue "too big to fail" lenders.
Since governments had to shore up banks during the 2007-09 financial crisis, regulators have wanted to stop markets assuming big banks would not be allowed to go out of business.
The European Parliament's economic affairs committee holds a first vote in Strasbourg, France at 1830 GMT. It has joint say with EU states on the law that gives regulators powers to impose losses on creditors, replace management and take other steps when a bank gets into trouble.
Read more: BUSINESS WORLD - EU law to mean no more taxpayer bailouts
Bank of England Deputy Governor Paul Tucker said the EU law on bank recovery and resolution would be a milestone towards a global system and help convince markets that governments were no longer willing to rescue "too big to fail" lenders.
Since governments had to shore up banks during the 2007-09 financial crisis, regulators have wanted to stop markets assuming big banks would not be allowed to go out of business.
The European Parliament's economic affairs committee holds a first vote in Strasbourg, France at 1830 GMT. It has joint say with EU states on the law that gives regulators powers to impose losses on creditors, replace management and take other steps when a bank gets into trouble.
Read more: BUSINESS WORLD - EU law to mean no more taxpayer bailouts
1/26/13
Gun Control USA: Thousands march in D.C. for gun control
Leading the crowd were marchers with "We Are Sandy Hook" signs, paying tribute to victims of the December school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Washington Mayor Vincent Gray and other city officials marched alongside them. The crowd stretched for at least two blocks along Constitution Avenue.
Participants held signs reading "Gun Control Now," "Stop NRA" and "What Would Jesus Pack?" among other messages. Other signs were simple and white, with the names of victims of gun violence.
About 100 residents from Newtown, where a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six teachers, traveled to Washington together, organizers said.
Participant Kara Baekey from nearby Norwalk, Conn., said that when she heard about the Newtown shooting, she immediately thought of her two young children. She said she decided she must take action, and that's why she traveled to Washington for the march. "I wanted to make sure this never happens at my kids' school or any other school," Baekey said. "It just can't happen again."
Read more: Thousands march in D.C. for gun control - CBS News
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