A Beijing court has denied an appeal hearing for Ching Cheong , who was convicted in August on charges of spying for Taiwan. Ching, the chief China correspondent for Singapore's Straits Times , was sentenced to five years in jail by a Chinese court in August after being convicted of selling state secrets . While [...]
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin promised Monday to extend the scope of anti-vandalism laws following the burnings of some 200 vehicles over the weekend. After an emergency meeting on transportation security, de Villepin said the laws should be modified to punish not only the perpetrators of such attacks, but also those who are "involved [...]
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) announced Monday that it will hear the appeal of a British woman trying to use frozen embryos despite objections from her former partner who fertilized the eggs. The ECHR ruled in March that Natallie Evans could not use the embryos resulting from a 2001 IVF program with Howard [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Monday upheld a preliminary injunction preventing South Dakota from enforcing a 2005 abortion law pending a lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota . The statute, which the governor signed along with three other bills restricting abortion , requires doctors [...]
A federal judge in Chile placed former dictator Augusto Pinochet under house arrest Monday, marking the first time Pinochet has been detained on torture charges. Federal Judge Alejandro Solis ordered Pinochet's arrest on Friday in connection with 36 cases of kidnapping, 23 cases of torture and a single case of homicide at the Villa Grimaldi [...]
An Italian court on Monday ordered former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and British corporate lawyer David Mills to face trial on corruption charges. According to Italian media reports, Mills in 1997 and 1998 allegedly gave false testimony at trials involving a Berlusconi-owned broadcasting company in exchange for some $600,000 that Berlusconi funneled to Mills. [...]
Nicolas Eyle : "Nearly three decades after California cracked down on rising crime rates with tougher sentencing laws, Californians are beginning to realize the downside of what many experts say has been one of the most poorly planned prison expansions in the country. A recent Justice Policy Institute study states that California leads the nation [...]
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Sunday he was optimistic that a proposed amendment to the Egyptian constitution to permit multi-candidate direct elections for the Egyptian presidency will pass when the Egyptian parliament begins its next session on November 8. The proposed amendment to Article 76, which was approved by referendum in May 2005, allows an [...]
Public trust in the Chinese judiciary needs in be restored in the face of court corruption and systemic failures to implement court orders, according to a report by the China's chief justice submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Monday. The report says that 800,000 court orders remain unimplemented by the courts [...]
Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri told a British appeals court Monday that his February conviction on incitement to murder charges should be overturned on the grounds that he was denied a fair trial. Hamza was convicted on 11 of 15 counts of inciting murder for urging his followers to kill Jews and other non-Muslims and [...]
