Kenya's National Assembly has unanimously approved a sex-crimes law after a month of heated debate over several controversial provisions, most of which were dropped in order to pass the bill . Legislators dropped provisions criminalizing marital rape and female genital mutilation, as well as a provision shifting the burden of proof from the accuser to [...]
US President Bush on Thursday urged Congress to negotiate a comprehensive immigration reform bill that recognizes that "America can be a lawful society and America can be a welcoming society at the same time." In a speech at the US Chamber of Commerce , Bush said that the final immigration reform bill should include a [...]
Montgomery County Circuit Judge James Ryan has sentenced convicted Washington, DC-area sniper John Allen Muhammad to six consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of parole. Muhammad was convicted by a Maryland jury of six counts of murder earlier this week. Last year, Muhammad was convicted and sentenced to death in Virginia for shootings [...]
Mark Corallo , a former spokesperson for ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft, filed an affidavit in federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday criticizing subpoenas issued by current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to compel two San Francisco Chronicle reporters to reveal the source of leaked grand jury testimony. The affidavit was filed in support of the [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday condemned the conviction and imprisonment on last week of 13 Chinese villagers who participated in a riot in Dongzhou last December. The 13 villagers were jailed for up to seven years for disturbing social order, possession of explosives, and illegal assembly while police who abruptly halted the riot by [...]
The Federal Election Commission said Wednesday that it will not appeal a ruling ordering it to either present a "reasoned explanation" for its case-by-case treatment of campaign contribution issues involving tax-exempt 527 groups , or to institute new rules "if necessary." The FEC voted 4-2 to explain how the FEC deals with 527 groups, which [...]
Umer Hayat, who was accused of lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his son's terrorism-related activities, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a lesser charge of trying to smuggle $28,000 in cash into Pakistan three years ago. Umer, who will not serve any more prison time after spending nearly a year in custody, would have [...]
The Jordanian government said Wednesday that it intends to introduce a bill in parliament that will eliminate prison sentences for journalism-related crimes, just one day after a court sentenced two newspaper editors to two months in jail for "attacking religious sentiment" by reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad . The journalists were arrested in February [...]
The Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT) – formerly known as the Iraqi Special Tribunal – has issued two arrest warrants for former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz for crimes against humanity, according to Aziz's Italy-based lawyers. Aziz is already in custody, but Giovanni Di Stefano says that he has received a letter from US Ambassador [...]
The probe charged with finding out why top US military officials did not know about the alleged killings of 24 Iraqis by US Marines in Haditha in November 2005 until February 2006 has uncovered two major failures in how the incident was handled, the Washington Post reported Thursday. According to an anonymous military official, the [...]
