A Kolkata slum dweller talks on a mobile in India, where the phones have become more affordable. Council of elders feared women would use phones to arrange forbidden marriages. An Indian village has banned unmarried women from using mobile phones for fear they will arrange forbidden marriages that are often punished by death, a local official said today. The Lank village council decided unmarried boys... 

Actor Wesley Snipes was ordered on Friday to start serving a three-year prison sentence for failing to file income tax returns by a federal judge who rejected the Hollywood star’s bid for a new trial. “The defendant Snipes had a fair trial … The time has come for the judgment to be enforced,” U.S. District Judge Terrell Hodges said in his ruling. Revoking bail for the 48-year-old... 

Cheng Jianping retweeted the comment as ‘wangyi09’ adding ‘Angry youth, charge!’ A Chinese Twitter user has been arrested, on her wedding day, over a tweet. One week after Paul Chambers lost his appeal in the so-called Twitter joke trial here in the UK, Amnesty International reports that Chinese activist Cheng Jianping has been sentenced to a year of ‘re-education’... 

For 18 minutes in April, China’s state-controlled telecommunications company hijacked 15 percent of the world’s Internet traffic, including data from U.S. military, civilian organizations and those of other U.S. allies. This massive redirection of data has received scant attention in the mainstream media because the mechanics of how the hijacking was carried out and the implications of the incident... 

  13-year-old Cody Alicea rides with an American flag on the back of his bike. He says he does this to be patriotic and to honor veterans, like his own grandfather, Robert. He’s had the flag on his bike for two months but Monday, was told to take it down. A school official at Denair Middle School told Cody some students had been complaining about the flag and it was no longer allowed on... 

Nov. 1: Natalia Garcia Pasmanick yells at a protest of Arizona's new immigration law while Raymond Herrera, rear, holds up an Arizona flag in support of its immigration law outside of a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals building in San Francisco, a sanctuary county and city that received $754,853 in SCAAP grant money in 2010. The Department of Justice has spent tens of millions of dollars this year... 

A conservative watchdog group says new “explosive” documents show top political appointees within the Justice Department “orchestrated” the dismissal of a civil rights case against two black defendants, but even critics of the Justice Department’s handling of the case say the documents raise more questions than answers and don’t add “any particular new facts... 

Alsager School, near Stoke, has received furious complaints from parents after two Year 7 boys were punished for refusing to kneel to Allah during a religious studies class Two British schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and ‘pray to Allah’ during a religious education lesson. Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished... 

The government of Iceland is investigating whether the U.S. Embassy is spying on Icelandic citizens. The Icelandic Ministry of Justice and Human Rights has launched an inquiry after other Nordic countries said they were investigating the practice in their countries. U.S. Embassy officials in Iceland have said no espionage is taking place but have confirmed that the embassy does have a counter-surveillance... 

Secret documents have leaked from inside Kopassus, Indonesia’s red berets, which say that Indonesia’s US-backed security forces engage in “murder and abduction” Secret Files Show Kopassus, Indonesia’s Special Forces, Targets Papuan Churches, Civilians. Secret documents have leaked from inside Kopassus, Indonesia’s red berets, which say that Indonesia’s US-backed... 

People linked with the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm have performed surveillance activities in Sweden without the knowledge of the host nation’s authorities, a government officials said Saturday. The surveillance has been going on since 2000, but Swedish authorities are still not aware of how widespread the practice was, said Justice Minister Beatrice Ask. “It seems as though we haven’t... 

The website of former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has announced that authorities have blocked it without explanation. A statement on Khatami.ir said a government committee had decided to filter the website, which on Thursday could only be reached from inside Iran through proxy servers. While the site was not known to be controversial, Khatami, president from 1997 to 2005, supported opposition... 

Scathing: John Glen's complaints prompted accusations of sour grapes. A new Tory MP has made a scathing attack on David Cameron for pro­moting women and people from the ethnic minorities over ‘white, Christian, married’ men. John Glen, the party’s former head of research, said his background effectively ruled him out for a min­isterial job under Mr Cameron. He said: ‘I don’t anticipate... 

Human rights groups fear that the number of people executed in Iran could double this year after reports of a spike in secret hangings at a large prison in the city of Mashad. Iran already executes more people per capita than any country in the world. Credible information from former inmates indicates that “numerous” undeclared executions have taken place in Vakilabad Prison over the past... 

Zimbabwe’s white farmers face new violent surge in the build up to vote, farm leaders say. A Zimbabwean white farmers’ organization said Thursday they had seen a “renewed onslaught” of farm seizures and attacks, including the slayings of two farmers, in recent weeks. Deon Theron, head of the Commercial Farmers Union that represents Zimbabwe’s dwindling number of white...