The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that police must face an "immediate threat" from an offender before using a taser gun to subdue them. Sacramento County police officer Brian McPherson had shot Carl Bryan with a taser gun during a traffic stop causing him to fall face-first on the asphalt, [...]
A Vietnamese court on Monday sentenced pro-democracy dissident Tran Anh Kim to five and a half years in prison for subversion under Article 79 of the Vietnamese penal code. During a four-hour trial Kim admitted being to member of the banned groups Democracy Party of Vietnam and Bloc 8406 . He could have faced the [...]
US President Barack Obama on Monday announced steps the federal government is taking to address air travel security following the Friday attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate an explosive device on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. He said that as soon as the attempted attack was discovered, officials increased screening requirements and increased the number [...]
The US Department of Justice has begun investigating political donations and other connections between billionaire financier Allen Stanford , accused of defrauding investors out of $7 billion, and US lawmakers, according to a Sunday report by the Miami Herald. Stanford donated over $2.3 million to lawmakers' campaigns and spent over $5 million in lobbying efforts [...]
The Philippine Department of Justice (PDOJ) on Monday began the trial of over 600 people charged with rebellion for allegedly interfering with government operations following the November killings of 57 in the country's semi-autonomous province of Maguindanao. All but five of the accused missed a Monday deadline to respond to the charges against them, and [...]
Several human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) , on Sunday expressed concern over the potential for violence as the Thai government begins the forced deportation of 4,000 ethnic Hmong to Laos from a refugee camp inside Thailand. The Hmong fear that they will face persecution in Laos for supporting the opposition government if [...]
At least four people were killed in Iran on Sunday after violence broke out between government security forces and opposition protesters. The protests, which were the largest since those that followed the June presidential election , interrupted the Shia Muslim celebration of Ashura, which marks the 7th century death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein. [...]
Former US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) this week began a campaign to urge state legislatures to move towards merit-based judicial appointments instead of direct judicial elections. According to the IAALS there are 33 states that select judges through direct elections, which [...]
US authorities on Saturday filed charges against a Nigerian national for allegedly attempting to set off an explosive device on an airplane bound from Amsterdam to Detroit on Friday. According to an affidavit filed by Special Agent Theodore Peissig of the Federal Bureau of Investigation , 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab detonated a device thought to [...]
The US Senate on Thursday approved a measure raising the federal borrowing limit by $290 billion. The bill was passed pursuant to recommendations by officials at the US Treasury Department that additional funding was necessary to continue government operations. HR 4314 , which passed 60-39 , amends 31 USC § 3101 to authorize the federal [...]
