Panama communities challenge canal expansion project in Supreme Court
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Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Sydney Harbour Bridge march: Pro-Palestine protesters given the green light to shut down landmark
A pro-Palestinian rally across the Sydney Harbour Bridge has been authorised by a court with thousands of protesters likely to gather. NSW Supreme Court Justice Belinda Rigg rejected a police application to prohibit Sunday's planned rally due to public safety risks. Thousands of anticipated protesters are expected at the demonstration to highlight what the United Nations has described as 'worsening famine conditions' in Gaza. Organised by the Palestinian Action Group Sydney, the protest has garnered support from activists nationwide, human rights and civil liberties groups as well as several MPs and public figures such as former Socceroo Craig Foster. Arguments were presented to the court on Friday with Justice Rigg choosing to reserve her decision until Saturday morning. In her judgment, she refused the police commissioner's application, saying arguments the rally would cause disruption on the bridge were not sufficient reason to bar the protest. 'It is in the nature of peaceful protests to cause disruption to others,' she said. In solidarity with their interstate peers, protesters in Melbourne are gearing up to rally through the city's CBD, aiming to reach the King Street Bridge. A last-minute application on Friday was also lodged with police by a pro-Israel fringe group for a counter-protest in the tunnel under Sydney Harbour, the court heard. Police confirmed to AAP the group withdrew the application soon after. Meanwhile, more than 60 per cent of Australians want tougher government measures to stop Israel's military offensive in Gaza, a poll has found. Respondents to the YouGov survey published on Friday and commissioned by the Australian Alliance for Peace and Human Rights believed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's condemnations of Israel had fallen short. 'While the government has recently signed a statement calling for an immediate ceasefire, 61 per cent of Australians believe this is not enough,' the alliance said. '(Australians) want to see concrete economic, diplomatic and legal measures implemented.' The alliance called for economic sanctions and the end of any arms trade with Israel, which the federal government has repeatedly said it has not engaged in directly. The poll surveyed 1,507 Australian voters in the last week of July, coinciding with a deteriorating starvation crisis and while diplomatic efforts from countries such as Canada have ramped up. Some 42 per cent of polled coalition voters supported stronger measures and more than two thirds of Labor voters, 68 per cent, are pushing their party to be bolder in placing pressure on Israel. An overwhelming number of Greens voters (91 per cent) wanted a more robust suite of measures as did 77 per cent of independent voters. The results highlighted how the nearly two-year long war on Gaza had resonated with Australians, YouGov director of public data Paul Smith said. 'This poll shows there's clearly across the board support for the Australian government to be doing much more in response to the situation in Gaza,' he told AAP. 'Sixty-one per cent shows the depth of feeling Australians have towards this issue.' More than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed including more than 17,000 children, according to local health authorities, with reports of dozens of people dead in recent weeks due to starvation. Israel's campaign began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, reportedly killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages.
Reuters
4 hours ago
- Reuters
US Supreme Court poised to assess validity of key voting rights law
WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court signaled on Friday that it will assess the legality of a key component of a landmark federal voting rights law, potentially giving its conservative majority a chance to gut a provision enacted 60 years ago that was intended to prevent racial discrimination in voting. The brief order issued by the court raises the stakes in a case already pending before the justices involving a legal challenge to an electoral map passed by Louisiana's Republican-led legislature that raised the number of Black-majority U.S. congressional districts in the state from one to two. The justices said they will consider whether it violates the U.S. Constitution for states to create additional voting districts with populations that are majority Black, Hispanic or another minority as a way to remedy a judicial finding that a state's voting map likely violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The case, due to be heard by the justices in their next term that begins in October, sets the stage for a major ruling expected by the end of June 2026 that could affect the composition of electoral districts around the United States. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. The dispute strikes at tensions between the Voting Rights Act, passed by Congress during the U.S. civil rights era to bar racial discrimination in voting, and adhering to the constitutional principle of equal protection, which limits the application of race when the borders of electoral districts are redrawn. Boundaries of legislative districts across the country are reconfigured to reflect population changes every decade in a process called redistricting. The court previously heard arguments in the case in March. But in June, the justices declined to issue a ruling and indicated they would invite the parties to address additional questions. Rick Hasen, an election law expert at UCLA, called the stakes enormous, writing in a blog post that the court seems to be asking whether the section of the Voting Rights Act at issue "violates a colorblind understanding of the Constitution." The action follows a major ruling by the court in 2013 in a case involving Alabama's Shelby County that invalidated another core section of the Voting Rights Act that determined which states and locales with a history of racial discrimination need federal approval for voting rule changes affecting Black people and other minorities. "This Court is more conservative than the Court that in 2013 struck down the other main pillar of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County case," Hasen wrote. "This is a big, and dangerous, step toward knocking down the second pillar." The matter is being litigated at the Supreme Court at a time when Republican President Donald Trump is taking steps to eliminate programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion that aim to promote opportunities for minorities, women, LGBT people and others. In the Louisiana case, state officials and civil rights groups appealed a lower court's ruling that found the map laying out the state's six U.S. House of Representatives districts - with two Black-majority districts, up from one previously - violated the constitutional promise of equal protection. A group of 12 Louisiana voters identifying themselves in court papers as "non-African American" sued to block the redrawn map. A lawyer for the plaintiffs did not respond to requests to provide the racial breakdown of the plaintiffs. The state and the rights groups are seeking to preserve the map. Black people comprise nearly a third of Louisiana's population. During the first round of arguments in the case in March, lawyers for Louisiana argued that the map was not drawn impermissibly by the legislature with race as the primary motivation, as the lower court found last year. The map's design, the Republican-governed state argued, also sought to protect Republican incumbents including House Speaker Mike Johnson and No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise, who both represent districts in the state. Black voters tend to support Democratic candidates. Arguments in the case centered on Louisiana's response to U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick's June 2022 finding that an earlier map likely violated the Voting Rights Act and whether the state relied too heavily on race in devising the remedial map. Dick ruled that a map adopted earlier that year by the legislature that had contained only one Black-majority district unlawfully harmed Black voters. Dick ordered the addition of a second Black-majority district. The Supreme Court in 2023 left Dick's ruling in place, and it previously allowed the map at issue in the current case to be used in the 2024 election. A three-judge panel in a 2-1 ruling in April 2024 found that the map relied too heavily on race in the map's design in violation of the equal protection provision. The Constitution's 14th Amendment contains the equal protection language. Ratified in 1868 in the aftermath of the American Civil War, the amendment addressed issues relating to the rights of formerly enslaved Black people.
The Guardian
5 hours ago
- The Guardian
Opposition leaders say ‘democracy in El Salvador has died' after scrapping of presidential term limits
Activists and opposition leaders have warned that El Salvador is following Venezuela's path towards dictatorship after the Central American country's congress scrapped presidential term limits, paving the way for Nayib Bukele to seek indefinite re-election. 'Democracy in El Salvador has died,' opposition congresswoman Marcela Villatoro declared late on Thursday as the legislature – in which Bukele's Nuevas Ideas party controls 90% of seats – approved the highly controversial constitutional reform, by 57 votes to three. Villatoro accused fellow lawmakers of dealing a 'death blow' to the country's democratic system during the late-night session. 'Today some people applaud this. Tomorrow they will regret it,' she said, comparing El Salvador's slide into authoritarianism to the collapse of Venezuela's democracy. 'When all the orders come from one person and everything revolves around one single person, democracy no longer exists. And when you lose democracy … it takes years to get it back,' Villatoro warned. Loyalists of Bukele – a social media-savvy 44-year-old who once called himself 'the world's coolest dictator' – celebrated the reforms, which will also see presidential terms extended from five years to six and bring the presidential election scheduled for 2029 forward to 2027. The election's second round will also be scrapped. Suecy Callejas, one of 54 Nuevas Ideas lawmakers in El Salvador's 60-seat assembly, tweeted: 'The constitution isn't untouchable. What should be untouchable is the WILL of the people. And today, more than ever, the people are at the centre of our decisions.' Bukele, who is one of Donald Trump's top Latin American allies, was first elected in 2019 and was re-elected last year thanks to widespread public support for his hardline crackdown on gangs, which has seen homicide rates plummet. That three-year clampdown has seen 2% of El Salvador's adult population jailed and due process suspended, and made Bukele a role model for rightwing Latin American politicians grappling with high crime rates, and for members of Trump's Maga movement. But Bukele's concentration of power has horrified opposition politicians and activists. Juanita Goebertus, Human Rights Watch's Americas director, compared El Salvador's scrapping of presidential term limits to Venezuela's 2009 referendum, which approved the same measure under its then populist president Hugo Chávez. Sixteen years later, Chávez's heir, Nicolás Maduro, remains in power, having claimed a third term last year despite apparently losing the July 2024 election. '[El Salvador is] traveling down the same path as Venezuela,' Goebertus warned. 'It starts with a leader who uses his popularity to concentrate power, and it ends in dictatorship.' In a rare interview with the foreign media last year, Bukele said he would not seek re-election, citing the constitutional 'prohibition' which was this week removed. 'Also, we have an agreement with my wife that this is my last term,' Bukele told Time magazine, musing that he might write a book after leaving power. Few believe Bukele will honour that pledge. 'Welcome to the club of the authoritarian dictatorships of Maduro, [Daniel] Ortega, [Miguel] Díaz Canel,' tweeted Carlos Fernando Chamorro, a prominent Nicaraguan journalist forced into exile because of his country's democratic decline.
