India’s Supreme Court has rejected a plea seeking more compensation for victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster. The court said the issue could not be “raked up three decades after the settlement”. Thousands of people died after a leak from Union Carbide’s plant in the Madhya Pradesh state capital. Dow Chemicals, which bought Union Carbide in 1999, said that a settlement agreed upon in 1989 was fair and final. The Bhopal gas disaster is considered the world’s worst industrial disaster. The Indian government says some 3,500 people died within days of the gas leak and more than 15,000 in the years since. Campaigners put the death toll as high as 25,000 and say the effects of the gas continue to this day. In 2010, an Indian court had convicted seven former managers at the plant, handing down minor fines and brief prison sentences. But many victims and campaigners have felt justice has still not been served against Union Carbide.(BBC)…[+]

A celebrity gossip YouTuber turned MP will become Japan’s first lawmaker to be kicked out of parliament without ever actually entering it. Yoshikazu Higashitani was expelled on Tuesday by his Senate colleagues for never coming to work. He has not attended a single day of parliament sessions since being elected to office seven months ago. The parliament’s discipline committee stripped him of his status because of the continued absence. Voters had elected Mr Higashitani to the upper house last July. He is better known as GaaSyy on YouTube where he is famous for his celebrity gossip videos. Expulsion is the most severe punishment a lawmaker can receive. It has happened only two times since 1950 and this is the first time an MP has been expelled due to continued absence. The chamber is set to formalise the decision later this week. The lawmaker – who has been nicknamed ‘No-show MP’- is believed to be living in the United Arab Emirates.(BBC)…[+]

US President Joe Biden is set to issue an executive order that aims to increase the number of background checks conducted before firearm sales. It aims to move the US “as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation”. The Democratic president will sign the measure during a visit Tuesday to Monterey Park, California, where a gunman killed 11 people in January. Action on gun control appears unlikely in a divided Washington. Last year, Mr Biden signed a cross-party gun violence reduction measure into law and he has repeatedly asked Congress to do more about what he calls an “epidemic”.  But his call for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks on gun sales and repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from prosecution are unlikely to make headway while Republicans control the US House of Representatives. Mr Biden’s executive order – a law a US president can enact without Congress – acknowledges this political reality and lays out a series of actions within his authority, beginning with the expansion of background checks.(BBC)…[+]