While children under 18 cannot legally buy cigarettes in the US, they can work long hours picking tobacco in the fields. Children absorb as much nicotine during a day in the field as smoker would over the same time period, and many report symptoms of serious nicotine poisoning. Tobacco grown in the US is bought by some of the world’s largest tobacco companies.
Qatar appointed a leading international law firm to examine claims of migrant worker abuses in its construction sector, which is working to prepare Qatar to host the football World Cup. The results laid out the exploitation of these workers, but the government has yet to respond to the report’s recommendations.
France has proposed a resolution to the UN Security Council that would give the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction over crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Syria. Rights groups have long been pushing for such a move. Meanwhile, atrocities continue, and new evidence has emerged that Syrian government helicopters have dropped barrel bombs loaded with chlorine gas on three towns in northern Syria in April.
Civil society activists, media and humanitarian workers have been particularly targeted for their work since the beginning of the Syrian uprising three years ago, and many have been arrested or abducted. Learn more about who they are.
The United States and others have pledged to help the Nigerian government rescue the nearly 300 kidnapped schoolgirls. The problem: The tactics of the government security forces, known for raiding local communities and executing men in front of their families, are barely more palatable than those of the militants themselves.
