LA Times News

LA Times News

Law student clinic in Mexico aims high

Posted: 13 Jun 2011 06:51 PM PDT

A legal studies program combines law school training with hands-on public interest advocacy, a novel field in Mexico. Cases probe uncharted terrain and have yielded legal precedents or led to new laws.

Beneath a crown of black curls, Benjamin Salinas offers his clients encouraging words about past courtroom victories and the chance to make history.

More Syrian refugees pour into Turkey

Posted: 13 Jun 2011 05:22 PM PDT

Turkish authorities say the latest wave of Syrian refugees brings the total to nearly 7,000 as the military crackdown in Syria goes on.

A fresh wave of refugees poured across Syria's border with Turkey on Monday, fleeing an ongoing military crackdown in the northern city of Jisr Shughur and surrounding areas, according to witnesses and activist accounts.

Pakistan's Sufi Muslims brave bombs to worship

Posted: 13 Jun 2011 03:23 PM PDT

A campaign of deadly suicide attacks fails to intimidate the sect, which embraces tolerance and eschews the rigidity that characterizes hard-line Islamist doctrine.

Amid the throngs of Sufi Muslim followers streaming through the white marble corridors of the Data Darbar shrine, a young man in a cream-colored tunic and oversized sunglasses shuffled gingerly, guided by a brother on one side and his father on the other.

China tries to restore order after migrant riots

Posted: 13 Jun 2011 03:06 PM PDT

Migrant workers from Sichuan province take to the streets near Guangzhou after the manhandling of a pregnant vendor, smashing cars and setting fires. Increased violence exposes the fragility of China's social order.

Chinese authorities struggled to restore order Monday after migrant workers, angry over the manhandling of a pregnant vendor, overturned police cars, smashed windows and set fires near the southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou.

Lebanon's new Cabinet shows strong Syrian influence

Posted: 13 Jun 2011 09:14 AM PDT

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati announces a 30-member Cabinet heavily dominated by the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah and its allies. Analysts say it does not bode well for Lebanese democracy at a time of uprisings across the Arab world.

After a five-month deadlock that sowed uncertainty in politically fragile Lebanon, the country's prime minister on Monday further inflamed passions by announcing a new government heavily dominated by the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah and its allies.

Missing Iraq money may have been stolen, auditors say

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:19 PM PDT

U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion, sent by the planeload in cash and intended for Iraq's reconstruction after the start of the war.

After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the George W. Bush administration flooded the conquered country with so much cash to pay for reconstruction and other projects in the first year that a new unit of measurement was born.