SAN FRANCISCO: The US announced plans yesterday to reduce its use of mandatory sentences for drug offenses in order to tackle a cycle of poverty and incarceration in overcrowded jails.
In remarks to the American Bar Association, Attorney General Eric Holder was to call minimum jail terms “counterproductive,” according to excerpts from his speech released in advance.
Holder says the US should remain strict but be smarter about tackling crime.
And he warned that, while the total US population has increased by a third since 1980, the prison population has soared by 800 percent.
The US accounts for five percent of the world population but nearly a quarter of all people imprisoned, he said.
HRW says Ecuador trampling NGOs
WASHINGTON: A prominent human rights group sharply criticised Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa yesterday for a decree imposing restrictions on non-governmental organisations.
Human Rights Watch said the decree, issued in June, undermines Ecuadorans’ rights to free assembly and should be revoked. The decree sets forth new procedures for Ecuadoran and international civic groups to gain legal status and requires international groups like HRW to go through a screening process.
Colombia questions US Internet snooping
BOGOTA: Colombian officials will raise the issue of US electronic surveillance during a visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry, the American ambassador said.
A team of Colombian officials visited Washington recently to discuss the snooping, which came to light when fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden revealed details of huge US telephone and Internet surveillance programs. Kerry arrived in Bogota yesterday for his first tour of Latin America as America’s top diplomat. Agencies
