On October 26, a French court held that the Church of Scientology and six of its members were guilty of fraud, sentenced the members to as much as two years in jail (suspended) and fined them up to $600,000 each. It did…
The Associated Press reports today that hearings had resumed in Moscow in a libel suit filed by Yevgeny Dzhugashvili. Dzhugashvili is suing a newspaper that printed some negative comments about his grandpappy, Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better known as "Stalin." Now, I…
Now that Ramadan is over, the case of Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno is back in the news. As you know, Ramadan is the Muslim holy month during which followers abstain during daylight hours from things like eating, drinking, smoking, and…
I have been meaning to post on this case for a while, and given yesterday's post on the story of Lubna Hussein, the Sudanese woman punished for wearing pants, now seems like a good time. In July, Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno,…
On June 15, a court in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don (not to be confused with the other Rostov, which is not on Don), fined the English band Deep Purple after finding that the band had illegally performed copyrighted songs at a…
You can now add one to the list of sports tainted by scandal over the possible use of banned substances. If you think chess is a sport, anyway. The possibility of "doping" by international chess athletes got some publicity recently…
Reports this week said that police in Nigeria have begun cracking down on taxi passengers who refuse to wear helmets as a new law requires. The helmets are required for passengers of what the article described as the hordes of "erratic…
Sources reported last week that, although Chinese officials had named three Beijing parks as "protest zones" for use during the Olympics, surprisingly no protests were staged in any of them. The Xinhua news agency said that 77 applications to demonstrate…
A 26-year-old Italian man who was told he had to retake a driving test because he is homosexual has been awarded $150,000 in damages. A court in Sicily ruled that the government agencies involved had discriminated against Danilo Giuffrida after…
With the Beijing Olympics just a couple of months away, the government’s excitement and paranoia are almost tangible. This week, Reuters reported that the government has posted on its official Olympic website an extensive list of things that foreigners are…