South Korean officials announced Monday that President Lee Myung-bak plans to pardon former Samsung Chairman and CEO Kun-Hee Lee on tax fraud charges he was convicted of in 2008. Lee had faced a suspended three-year prison term after an additional breach of trust conviction against him was vacated . The already lenient sentence given to [...]

The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) confirmed Tuesday that police have detained a US citizen for illegally entering North Korea. The KCNA did not disclose the identity of the individual, but it is suspected to be US-Korean rights activist Robert Park. A spokesperson for Pax Koreana, a rights group associated with Park, said that [...]

British national Akmal Shaikh was executed Tuesday by the Chinese government after being convicted of bringing almost nine pounds of heroin into the country. Following Shaikh's 2007 arrest and November 2008 death sentence, rights groups have urged the Chinese government not to carry out the punishment , arguing that Shaik suffers from mental illness. British [...]

Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Tuesday appointed a delegation to begin an investigation of ten civilian deaths, including eight schoolchildren, that are thought to have occurred during a raid by international forces in Kunar province. The raid in the Narang district occurred on December 26th, and allegedly involved NATO forces , though their involvement has [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that police must face an "immediate threat" from an offender before using a taser gun to subdue them. Sacramento County police officer Brian McPherson had shot Carl Bryan with a taser gun during a traffic stop causing him to fall face-first on the asphalt, [...]

A Vietnamese court on Monday sentenced pro-democracy dissident Tran Anh Kim to five and a half years in prison for subversion under Article 79 of the Vietnamese penal code. During a four-hour trial Kim admitted being to member of the banned groups Democracy Party of Vietnam and Bloc 8406 . He could have faced the [...]

US President Barack Obama on Monday announced steps the federal government is taking to address air travel security following the Friday attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate an explosive device on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. He said that as soon as the attempted attack was discovered, officials increased screening requirements and increased the number [...]

The US Department of Justice has begun investigating political donations and other connections between billionaire financier Allen Stanford , accused of defrauding investors out of $7 billion, and US lawmakers, according to a Sunday report by the Miami Herald. Stanford donated over $2.3 million to lawmakers' campaigns and spent over $5 million in lobbying efforts [...]

The Philippine Department of Justice (PDOJ) on Monday began the trial of over 600 people charged with rebellion for allegedly interfering with government operations following the November killings of 57 in the country's semi-autonomous province of Maguindanao. All but five of the accused missed a Monday deadline to respond to the charges against them, and [...]

Several human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) , on Sunday expressed concern over the potential for violence as the Thai government begins the forced deportation of 4,000 ethnic Hmong to Laos from a refugee camp inside Thailand. The Hmong fear that they will face persecution in Laos for supporting the opposition government if [...]