Bolivia on Sunday held a national referendum on whether to keep Bolivian President Evo Morales , Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, and Bolivia's nine governors in office. Morales himself actually proposed the idea of a recall election last December in response to accusations that his process for rewriting the Bolivian constitution has been illegitimate, but [...]
A judge in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday sentenced Tai Shen Kuo, a naturalized US citizen and Louisiana businessman, to 188 months in prison for his part in a conspiracy to deliver national defense information to China . Judge Leonie Brinkema also required Kuo to forfeit $40,000 after [...]
The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. disclosed Friday in its quarterly report that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating possible breaches of procedure by one of the bank's subsidiaries in auction-rate securities sales and purchases. Auction-rate securities are long-term bonds with varying interest rates that change based on weekly or monthly auctions. [...]
The UN observed its fourteenth International Day of the World’s Indigenous People Saturday, marking the first observance since the September 2007 adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples . In 1994, the General Assembly declared that the day would be observed every August 9 in an effort to "promote the [...]
International human rights groups on Saturday condemned any violence Russian or Georgian forces might commit against civilians in the separatist region of South Ossetia , warning that those actions may amount to war crimes. After a period of smaller conflicts, on Friday the Republic of Georgia announced that to restore constitutional order, it was launching [...]
Farzana Hassan and Hasan Mahmud : "The Iranian government's decision to commute its earlier stoning sentence against four adults convicted of adultery is the right decision and a welcome move. It is also encouraging news that Iran has put a moratorium on such punishments, however, the nation must review its current laws on adultery with [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Friday dismissed a shareholder suit against government-sponsored lender Fannie Mae for alleged wrongdoing by the board of directors. Shareholders accused the board of failing to take appropriate steps in 2004 to prevent accounting violations, and also asserted that the board should not have approved $31 [...]
According to high-level supporters on Friday, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has affirmed his June vow that he will neither step down nor go into exile, despite the recent pressure from opposition forces. Secretary General of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q party Mushahid Hussain said that Musharraf will fight against impeachment, with plans to portray himself as [...]
An August 17 trial date has been set for five Sudanese men accused of killing John Granville, an aid worker affiliated with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) , Sudan's state media reported Friday. Following the January shooting of John Granville and his driver, a previously-unknown extremist group calling itself Ansar al-Tawhid claimed responsibility [...]
US District Judge James Robertson on Thursday ruled in a 12-year class action lawsuit concerning the US government's alleged mismanagement of trust funds for a group of some 500,000 Native Americans. Plaintiffs led by Eloise Cobell had argued that the federal government owed them $58 billion, representing its profits from land use violative of trust [...]
