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The Big Picture - Boston.com
After 10 years of civil war, Sierra Leone is at peace. Charles G. Taylor, the former president of Liberia and once a powerful warlord, was convicted April 26 by an international tribunal of 11 counts of planning, aiding and abetting war crimes committed in Sierra Leone during it's civil war in the 1990s. Taylor was guilty of involvement in crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, rape, slavery and the use of child soldiers.
British schoolboy's amazing speech on social justice - Boing Boing
By Cory Doctorow at 10:08 pm Friday, Dec 10 In this video, a fifteen-year-old British student (I think the announcer calls him "Berkeley," but it could be "Rodney" or something else) gives and rousing, articulate call-to-arms for social justice, solidarity, and social justice. This young man is one of the best speakers I've heard, and I salute his passion and his integrity: They can't stop us demonstrating, they can't stop us fighting back, and how ever much they try to imprison us in the streets of London, those are our streets.
Bush Cancels Trip Over Fear of Arrest - Truthdig
Former President George W. Bush canceled a planned trip to Switzerland over fear of legal action there as pressure mounted on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal probe into allegations of torture if he visits the country. —JCL Reuters: Former President George W.
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The movement that makes so much of hate crimes legislation seems to think nothing of passing hateful laws in the land of starkest scenery; in fact, the same people who brought you S.B. 1070 wanted to give Arizonans the toughest anti-Sharia protection in the country (.PDF). This nasty little item would have prohibited judges from enforcing "religious sectarian law," defined as ANY STATUTE, TENET OR BODY OF LAW EVOLVING WITHIN AND BINDING A SPECIFIC RELIGIOUS SECT OR TRIBE. RELIGIOUS SECTARIAN LAW INCLUDES SHARIA LAW, CANON LAW , HALACHA AND KARMA BUT DOES NOT INCLUDE ANY LAW OF THE UNITED STATES OR THE INDIVIDUAL STATES BASED ON ANGLO-AMERICAN LEGAL TRADITION AND PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THE UNITED STATES WAS FOUNDED.
Arizona's Karmic Injustice | Crooks and Liars
Mr Jones had said the burning would be a stand against terrorism Home Secretary Theresa May has said she will be "actively looking at" whether a controversial US pastor should be banned from entering the UK. She said she had the power as home secretary to exclude an individual from coming to the UK if she considered they were not conducive to the public good or threatened national security.
BBC News - Koran-protest pastor Terry Jones may be banned from UK
Henry Glover's family and friends had to push to have his killing investigated Later, one of the officers drove the car to an area of scrubland next to the Mississippi river and set fire to it, with Mr Glover's body inside. "In their closing arguments they noted that there were a lot of bodies after the storm. Only one was burned up, and he just happened to have been shot by a cop," he added. In June 2011, six officers are due to stand trial over the Danziger Bridge shootings, in which two unarmed civilians were killed and four others injured.
BBC News - New Orleans police under scrutiny after killing verdict
BBC News - US foreclosures in new legal trouble
The ruling could affect other lenders - and other borrowers who have been foreclosed upon Backing a lower court ruling made in 2009, it said two foreclosure sales were invalid because the banks did not prove that they owned them at the time. Bank shares fell sharply after the ruling dragging the wider market down. The decision is among the earliest to address the validity of foreclosures done without proper documentation - so-called robo-loans because they were carried out by people who were unqualified and who often did not check a single line in the paperwork.
Thousands of demonstrators march through Dublin to protest against budget cuts and an EU-IMF bailout. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP More than 100,000 Irish citizens took to the streets of Dublin today to protest against the international bailout and four years of austerity. Despite overnight snow storms and freezing temperatures, huge crowds have gathered in O'Connell Street to demonstrate against the cuts aimed at driving down Ireland 's colossal national debt.
Thousands protest against Irish bailout | World news | guardian.co.uk
Chief Justice Roberts Calls for End to Senate Obstruction of Judges
Nearly one in nine federal judgeships are currently vacant , a vacancy rate that is leaving many courts barely able to function. Indeed, the problem has become so severe that Republican Chief Justice John Roberts used his annual year-end report on the federal judiciary to call upon the Senate to end this logjam: Over many years, however, a persistent problem has developed in the process of filling judicial vacancies. Each political party has found it easy to turn on a dime from decrying to defending the blocking of judicial nominations, depending on their changing political fortunes.
The beginning of the end for the War on Drugs?
A report to the U.N. General Assembly at the end of October about the need for better sex education was met with a flurry of angry voices. African nations rejected the report. Caribbean countries said they took "umbrage" and wanted to "put on record" their strong disapproval.