British national Akmal Shaikh was executed Tuesday by the Chinese government after being convicted of bringing almost nine pounds of heroin into the country. Following Shaikh's 2007 arrest and November 2008 death sentence, rights groups have urged the Chinese government not to carry out the punishment , arguing that Shaik suffers from mental illness. British [...]
Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Tuesday appointed a delegation to begin an investigation of ten civilian deaths, including eight schoolchildren, that are thought to have occurred during a raid by international forces in Kunar province. The raid in the Narang district occurred on December 26th, and allegedly involved NATO forces , though their involvement has [...]
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 [...]
