Content in Other Languages

Earlier this year, Germany became the world’s latest country to pass a clear law that allows transgender people to change their legal gender to reflect their identity based on self-declaration. A number of other countries are staggering toward this goal; in some, policies allow self-identification for some documents and not others. But the majority of the world’s governments still either disallow changes in legal gender recognition altogether, or have laws that require trans people to undergo medical intervention to access their rights.

The undersigned civil society organizations and researchers urge you to fulfill your civic obligations by maintaining the full functionality of CrowdTangle beyond Inauguration Day through at least January 31, 2025, to ensure this vital tool can be used to ensure the integrity of this important election cycle.

Daily Brief, 15 May, 2024

Between 6 and 9 June 2024 voters in all 27 EU member states will go to the polls to elect 720 members of the European Parliament. These will be the first European elections since Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, and conflicts in Ukraine and in the Middle East that have polarized Europe.

An armed group linked to the Islamic State (ISIS) in northern Mozambique used boys as young as 13 to raid and loot the town of Macomia, in Cabo Delgado province, on May 10, 2024.

A Swiss court’s conviction of the former Gambian Interior Minister Ousman Sonko for crimes against humanity is monumental for Gambian victims of atrocity crimes during the rule of Yahya Jammeh. The verdict is a major achievement for Switzerland’s efforts to hold accountable those responsible for grave crimes committed abroad.

In April 2016, Vietnam experienced one of the worst environmental disasters in its history when Formosa Ha Tinh Steel, a subsidiary of the Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics Group, discharged toxic chemical waste off the coast of Ha Tinh province, killing millions of fish and destroying the livelihoods of fishing communities.

Thai anti-monarchy activist Netiporn “Bung” Sanesangkhom, 28, died in custody in Bangkok today while on a hunger strike she began in January.

Lakshmi remembers when the guns finally fell silent in Sri Lanka, in May 2009. She had been sheltering in a shallow hole in the sand – what passed for a “bunker” for the hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians huddled on the beach. For weeks they had endured continual bombardment in an area the military had declared a “no fire zone”.