David Stockman , former director of the US Office of Management and Budget during the Reagan administration, was charged Monday with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and making false statements. The indictment , which also listed three others as charged, relates to his time spent as CEO of auto parts manufacturer Collins & Aikman Corp. [...]
Few Egyptians voted Monday in a referendum on proposed constitutional amendments in the face of a boycott by opposition parties that regard them as an attempt to take away basic rights. Most participating voters were either gathered by the government or were government employees granted breaks to vote. Amnesty International has condemned the amendments , [...]
The US Supreme Court granted certiorari Monday in two cases . US v. Williams (06-694) , on appeal from the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit , considers whether part of the federal anti-child abuse PROTECT Act of 2003 is unconstitutional for criminalizing speech protected by the First Amendment. The Eleventh Circuit held [...]
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed his sympathy and apologized Monday for the "situation" faced by so-called Korean and Chinese "comfort women" who were forced into sexual slavery during World War II. Abe stopped short of explicitly acknowledging the alleged roles of the wartime military and government in Japan in facilitating the practice. Until this [...]
Prosecutors in Thailand filed criminal tax evasion charges Monday against the wife of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra , Pojaman Shinawatra, as well as her secretary and her brother, Bhanapot Damapong. Shinawatra and her brother were arraigned by the Bangkok Criminal Court on two counts of evading taxes based on an alleged failure to [...]
The Miyazaki District Court in Japan dismissed a lawsuit Monday by a group of Chinese men who claim they were forced to work as slave laborers during World War II because the 20-year deadline for filing compensation claims under Japanese law had expired, according to a court spokesperson. The lawsuit sought $1.56 million in damages [...]
The Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia (BAKC) Monday denounced a threatened boycott by four international judges appointed to the tribunal set to prosecute former Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide as a "childish game" and an excuse to delay the anticipated tribunal. The judges from the Extraordinary Chamber of the Courts of Cambodia said [...]
Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks will be arraigned Monday as the first prisoner charged under the new Military Commissions Act passed by the US Congress last year. Lawyers for Hicks, who has been held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for over five years, say their client plans to make a statement to the [...]
Top GOP senators Arlen Specter (R-PA), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) expressed concern Sunday about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' credibility in the wake of Friday document disclosures indicating his direct involvement in discussions surrounding the firing of eight US Attorneys, contrary to previous testimony to Congress. Democrat Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) meanwhile called for [...]
A Libyan court Sunday postponed for the second time the criminal defamation trial of six foreign medics accused of slandering three Libyan police agents and a Libyan doctor. Five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death in December for deliberately infecting 426 children with the HIV virus. The medics have maintained that [...]
