The US House of Representatives voted Friday to provide shareholders with an advisory vote on executive compensation , noting that in the last 15 years, compensation of Fortune 500 CEOs has moved from 140 times that of the average employee to over 500 times. The bill only had minimal Republican support, passing 269-134 after the [...]

Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont announced Friday that the Thai government may grant amnesty to Islamic insurgents, but that it still supports Buddhists who have armed themselves for protection. Surayud, who replaced former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra after a bloodless coup last year, promised to end the violence in the southern region of the country. [...]

The government of Japan said Friday in two statements that it accepted the 1948 rulings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East that found Japanese soldiers had coerced women into prostitution, possibly signalling a new course on the sensitive subject of "comfort women" . The government also said that it stood by Japan's [...]

The Office of the New York Attorney General Thursday sent notice of its intent to sue Drexel University for accepting payments from student loan lender Education Finance Partners (EFP) based on the amount of money the private lender loaned to Drexel students. According to NY AG Andrew Cuomo, Drexel committed deceptive business practices for accepting [...]

Four Bosnian Serbs who went on an "illegal military operation" during the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995 went on trial Friday before the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. The indictment alleges that the men, two of whom are former military policemen, helped confine two to three thousand unarmed [...]

The Romanian Constitutional Court Friday upheld the suspension of President Traian Basescu and designated Senate President Nicolae Vacaroiu as the country's interim leader. On Thursday, the Romanian Parliament voted 322-108 to suspend Basescu , alleging that he violated the constitution by overriding the Cabinet and criticizing the judiciary. Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu has also [...]

Several Internet privacy groups filed a joint complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Friday concerning the merger of search engine Google with advertising provider DoubleClick . The groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and the US Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG) , requested that the [...]

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday that the United Kingdom does not need to hold a referendum to approve a new treaty to replace the failed European Constitution . Earlier this week, Blair joined Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende in advocating amendments to current EU treaties rather than reviving the constitution , as [...]

Video game publisher Take-Two Interactive reached a settlement on Thursday with anti-game activist lawyer Jack Thompson. Take-Two agreed to drop a contempt of court charge against Thompson stemming from a prior legal battle over the video game Bully. Thompson had strong words for the judge following his unsuccessful attempt last October to get the "Teen"-rated [...]

Two US lawmakers introduced legislation Thursday to prohibit the government from interfering with a woman's right to have an abortion following the Wednesday's US Supreme Court decision upholding a federal ban on "partial-birth" abortions . Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) announced the reintroduction of the Freedom of Choice Act , which [...]