The recession´s latest victim in Japan may not be corporate earnings but the political careers of the ruling party in the country´s parliament.
Chinese legislators said on Thursday that their country will "strive to control greenhouse gas emissions" and consider new laws to fight climate change, while warning against using the issue to raise trade barriers.
The U.S. Energy Department will award nearly $300 million to a clean cities program to help communities buy alternative-fuel vehicles, Vice President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Wednesday.
Google Inc., owner of the most popular Internet search engine, is being investigated by Italian antitrust regulators after national newspapers said the company’s news service deprives them of advertising revenue.
The Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has put out a campaign designed to raise awareness of the privacy implications of Facebook´s developer platform. It´s focusing specifically on the popular "quiz" applications, like "Which Cocktail Best Suits Your Personality?" and "Which Wes Anderson Movie Character Are You?" These are largely one-time-use apps that many a Facebook user clicks on and tries out with little concern.
Venezuelan lawmakers are moving to outlaw the sale of violent videogames and toys in an attempt to fight rampant crime in the country.
The European Court of Human Rights [official website] ruled [judgment text; press release] Tuesday that Italy was negligent in completing an accurate investigation of the death of a protester at the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa [BBC backgrounder]. The court awarded €40,000 to the family of Carlo Giuliani, the protester who died after being shot by an Italian police officer as his van was mobbed, finding:
Spanish National Court Judge Baltasar Garzon [BBC profile] said during a visit to Honduras Tuesday that he is gravely concerned by the human rights situation in the country. Garzon, famed for indicting Osama bin Laden and former Latin American dictator Augusto Pinochet [JURIST news archives], spoke at a human rights forum [El Universal report, in Spanish] organized by the Center for Research and Promotion of Human Rights and the Committee of Relatives of Victims of Disappearance [advocacy websites, in Spanish]. Garzon arrived in Honduras [El Tiempo report, in Spanish] Sunday to investigate the human rights situation in the wake of the ouster of President Manual Zelaya [BBC profile]. Garzon reported hearing from victims who had suffered numerous violations of their fundamental rights. Meanwhile, interim leader Roberto Micheletti announced Tuesday that Honduras would go ahead with plans to hold elections, whether the rest of the world recognizes them or not.
The High Court of Australia [official website] ruled [judgment text] Wednesday that the Australian Military Court (AMC) [Department of Defence backgrounder] is unconstitutional
The Michigan Supreme Court [official website] has permitted lower courts to use "reasonable control" over the appearance of those who arrive in court, effectively allowing judges to ban certain religious clothing. In an order [text, PDF] issued Tuesday, the court amended the Michigan Rules of Evidence [text, PDF], motivated by the 2006 case of Ginnah Muhammad. Muhammad had filed a suit in a Michigan small claims court where she was asked by Judge
Hawaii prison officials said Tuesday that all of the state’s 168 female inmates at a privately run Kentucky prison will be removed by the end of September because of charges of sexual abuse by guards. Forty inmates were returned to Hawaii on Aug. 17.
The U.S. Embassy in Honduras will stop issuing many visas for Hondurans wishing to travel to the United States, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in a Wednesday.
Argentina´s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday it is unconstitutional to punish an adult for private use of marijuana as long as it doesn´t harm anyone else.
Toyota is poised to slash production by as much as 580,000 vehicles -- or almost 6 percent of global capacity -- in an effort to stem losses amid the sharp downturn in car sales.
Two former Pennsylvania judges on Monday withdrew their guilty pleas [JURIST report] on charges of accepting more than $2.6 million in kickbacks for sentencing teenagers to two private juvenile detention facilities in which they had a financial interest. Former Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas [official website] judges Mark ciavarella and Michael Conahan pleaded guilty in February to federal corruption charges [criminal information, PDF] of honest services fraud and tax fraud.
Repeat offenders who persist in illegally downloading music from file-sharing sites such as Limewire could be blocked from accessing the Web under British government proposals issued on Tuesday.
The US will continue its practice of sending terror detainees to third countries for interrogation with increased oversight to prevent torture, the New York Times [media website] reported [text] Monday. The practice, known as rendition [JURIST news archive], received worldwide attention during the Bush administration when many detainees alleged they had been tortured by the governments of the countries to which they had been transferred.
Yahoo and Microsoft hope that by joining forces, they can tilt the balance of power in Internet search away from Google. First, however, Yahoo and Microsoft have to convince regulators that their plan won´t hurt online advertisers and consumers.
A Swedish district court has ordered an Internet service provider there to stop servicing The Pirate Bay. The most popular BitTorrent tracker in the world appeared to be inaccessible to many in the U.S. on Monday morning but the blog TorrentFreak reported that the site had found a new connection to the Web and there were reports from readers that they were able to log on to the site. Citing a source close to The Pirate Bay, TorrentFreak said that the tracker was still down but would be back up on Tuesday.
A presidential special task force on interrogations and transfer policies issued its recommendations Monday calling on the Obama administration to create a specialized interrogation group to question top terrorist suspects. The task force, created by executive order 13491, in January recommended that the US create a joint panel, consisting of "experienced interrogators and support personnel from across the intelligence community" to interrogate high value terrorism detainees. Controversial techniques such as waterboarding will not be used by the new panel, which will be spearheaded by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and not the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which has previously taken the lead on interrogating detainees.
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