LA Times News

LA Times News

Some see the hand of Iran in Syria's crackdown

Posted: 10 May 2011 06:56 PM PDT

Others point out that the Assad family regime hardly needs pointers on becoming a police state.

Syrian security forces appear to be shifting their strategy for crushing the popular uprising against the rule of President Bashar Assad to a less bloody approach similar to that used effectively by its main ally, Iran, to end massive 2009 street protests.

Egypt tries to erase Hosni Mubarak's name

Posted: 10 May 2011 06:42 PM PDT

A judge rules that the ousted president's name be removed from all public institutions. But when the letters are removed, a mark often remains, just as his imprint lingers in the words of those tortured by his police and in allegations of corruption.

They say he dyes his hair no more, jet-black sheen turning white. He lies in a hospital bed. Out of view so long that he seems to have become invisible. But it is his name they want to erase, as if it had never been painted on signs, chiseled into marble, whispered in fear.

Human Rights Watch urges Bangladesh to end killings by elite force

Posted: 10 May 2011 06:42 PM PDT

The Rapid Action Battalion is accused of using torture and extrajudicial executions in its crime fighting operations. The nation's home minister says the group shoots only in self-defense.

A human rights group urged Bangladesh on Tuesday to end torture, extrajudicial killings and related abuses by an elite anticrime force that the organization said had killed nearly 200 people since January 2009, including many allegedly executed while in the unit's custody.

Ex-head of Formula One racing loses court fight over orgy

Posted: 10 May 2011 05:33 PM PDT

Max Mosley argued that the news media should be forced to notify subjects before publishing information about their private lives. The European Court of Human Rights disagrees.

A former head of Formula One racing who successfully sued a tabloid newspaper over a story about his orgy with five women lost his bid Tuesday to force media organizations to notify subjects before publishing information about their private lives.

Review board weighs in on Afghan detainees

Posted: 10 May 2011 04:32 PM PDT

Rights groups say conditions at the Parwan detention center are a vast improvement over the old Bagram prison. But they complain the release hearings violate rights to counsel and to review evidence.

The teenager in the white prayer cap and prison uniform with a number scrawled across the front in black marker took his place on the stand, absentmindedly biting his lip.

Protest a tough sell among Palestinians

Posted: 10 May 2011 04:32 PM PDT

The reasons for the reluctance to hit the streets, many conclude, are that Palestinians are cynical about prospects of ending the Israeli occupation and skeptical their leaders can make the difference.

Camped under a tent in what he hoped would become the Tahrir Square of the West Bank, hunger striker Iyas Sarhan reclined on a foam mattress in a pair of increasingly baggy slim-fit jeans and waited for the Palestinian revolution to begin.