A Moroccan editor and journalist were both convicted Monday of insulting the Islamic religion in a 10-page article about religious jokes published in a Moroccan newspaper in early December. Journalist Sanaa al-Aji and Driss Ksikes, editor of Nichane weekly, were given suspended sentences of three years, fined $9,280 each, and are prohibited from engaging in [...]
Former Saddam-era Revolutionary Court judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar and former Iraqi intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti , sentenced to death with Saddam Hussein in November in connection with crimes against humanity committed in the town of Dujail in 1982, were executed before dawn Monday at an Iraqi military facility in Baghdad. As shown by official [...]
Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev approved several new amendments to the country's new constitution Monday, returning key powers to the presidency, including the right to appoint cabinet officials. The new constitutional amendments pushed through parliament at his urging contradict the aims of a compromise reached in November which led to the adoption of a new constitution [...]
US Vice President Dick Cheney Sunday defended the Pentagon and CIA's review of banking and credit records of hundreds of American citizens suspected of ties to terror groups, calling it a "perfectly legitimate activity" in an interview with Fox News Sunday. Cheney said the authority of the US Department of Defense to review such records [...]
An Italian judge has thrown out some tax fraud and false accounting charges against former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi because the statute of limitations has expired. Berlusconi and co-defendant David Mills will no longer have to face tax fraud and accounting charges related to events before the end of 1998 and fraud charges prior [...]
Giovanni Di Stefano : "On the 3rd January 2007 I saw both Judge Al Bandar and Barzan Al Tikriti at Camp Cropper. On the 5th January 2007 I duly presented to the Iraqi High Tribunal a motion in accordance with para. 266 of the Law on Criminal Proceedings With Amendments Number 23 of 1971 which [...]
Germany will introduce draft legislation tightening anti-corruption law, according to a Der Spiegel report to be published Monday. The move comes on the heels of scandals at Volkswagen AG and Siemens AG and is intended to increase public prosecutors' power to investigate corruption of a broader range of implicated employees. The law would allow employees [...]
The Japanese government is considering expanding the ability of Japan's Self Defense Forces to use arms in peacekeeping operations in ways that exceed the scope of self-defense, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Sunday. If the revisions are enacted, Japanese troops will be able to participate in more aggressive international peacekeeping missions, such as ceasefire monitoring. The [...]
Ecuadorian President-elect Rafael Correa renewed his pledge to redraft the nation's constitution in a speech in Quito Sunday. Correa, an economist who will take office Monday, declared that his first act as president will be to call a referendum to form a constitutional assembly to be charged with making "profound" socialist economic changes. Other proposals [...]
Former Maoist insurgents are preparing to enter their first session of parliament in Nepal after the Nepalese cabinet approved a draft interim constitution on Sunday. The party will hold roughly twenty-five percent of seats in the temporary parliament, which is set to pass the interim constitution and oversee elections to draft a permanent constitution. The [...]
