Five 'crimes' that can get you killed | Amnesty International

Even though most of the world has turned its back on the death penalty, some countries continue to impose capital punishment for acts like having consensual sexual relations outside marriage, opposing the government, offending religion and even drinking alcohol.

This is despite international law barring states from handing out death sentences for any of these crimes.

Here?s a list of some ?crimes? that, in some parts of the world, can get you killed.

1.??? Consensual sexual relations outside marriage
In Sudan, two women, Intisar Sharif Abdallah and Layla Ibrahim Issa Jumul, were sentenced to death by stoning on charges of ?adultery while married? in separate cases in May and July 2012. In both cases the women were sentenced after unfair trials involving forced ?confessions?. The sentences were subsequently overturned on appeal, and both women were released.

In Iran at least 10 individuals, mainly women, remain on death row having been sentenced to stoning for the crime of ?adultery while married?.

2.??? Trafficking drugs
On 30 March 2012, Robert Shan Shiao-may of Hong Kong, and Lien Sung-ching of Taiwan were executed in mainland China. They were both sentenced on 26 June 2009 for drug-trafficking after being arrested in December 2005 and accused of sending 192kg of crystal methamphetamine to the Philippines from mainland China via Hong Kong.

In Thailand, at least half of the at least 106 new death sentences recorded in 2012 were against individuals convicted of drug-related offences, according to figures from the south-east Asian country?s Correction Department.

Likewise, more than 70 per cent of all officially acknowledged executions in Iran in 2012 were for drug offences.

In Saudi Arabia, 2012 saw a marked increase in executions for drug-related offences where at least 22 people were killed (out of at least 79 executed in 2012), compared with three in 2011 (out of 82), and only one (out of 27) in 2010.

3.??? White-collar crimes
In April 2012, China?s Supreme People?s Court ordered a retrial in the high-profile case of businesswoman Wu Ying, whose death sentence for ?fraudulently raising funds? ? a crime that still carries the death penalty ? had been confirmed in January 2012.

In Iran, four men were sentenced to death in July 2012 after conviction of corruption and ?disrupting the country?s economic system? for their role in a massive bank fraud.

4.??? Opposing the government
Sudanese teacher and activist Jalila Khamis Koko was arrested in March 2012 and charged in December with, among other things, ?undermining the constitutional system? and ?waging war against the state? ? capital crimes under Sudanese law. In 2011, she had volunteered to provide humanitarian support to people affected by the armed conflict in Sudan?s Southern Kordofan state and appeared in a Youtube video denouncing conditions in conflict-affected areas and calling for a ceasefire. After being acquitted of these charges and sentenced for a lesser charge, she was released in January 2013.

In 2012, Iran?s Supreme Court upheld the death sentence imposed on Gholamreza Khosravi Savadjani under charges of ?enmity against God? for his alleged ties to a banned Iranian opposition group, the Peoples? Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). He was originally only sentenced to a prison term and his death sentence came after two re-trials.

5.??? Offending or abandoning religion
In Iran, web programmer Saeed Malekpour was sentenced to death in 2010 for ?insulting and desecrating Islam? after a software package he had developed was used without his knowledge to post pornographic images online. His death sentence was reportedly suspended in December after he entered a plea in which he "repented" for his actions, a claim disputed by his family.

Last December, online activist Raif Badawi was prosecuted for ?apostasy? in Saudi Arabia, for founding a website for political and social debate. The charge was dropped in 2013, but his prosecution appeared to be an attempt by the authorities to intimidate those trying to engage in open debates.

Besides those five crimes, many others exist. In some states, even drinking alcohol can land you on death row.

Last June Iran?s Supreme Court upheld death sentences for two men found guilty for a third time of drinking alcohol. Very rarely imposed, no executions for this ?offence? are known to have been carried out in at least the last decade.

And in North Korea, there were unconfirmed reports that a senior North Korean defence ministry official was executed last October for drinking alcohol during the 100-day mourning period for the late leader Kim Jong-il.

Source: http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/five-crimes-can-get-you-killed-2013-04-15

manny pacquiao Chopper Live jerry brown michael buble michael buble Jenni Rivera Alive Facebook Down

British university attacks BBC over covert North Korea trip

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - A leading British university criticised the BBC on Sunday for arranging an academic trip to North Korea to make an undercover documentary, saying it had put students who were unaware of the plans in danger.

The London School of Economics (LSE) said three BBC journalists - including the respected reporter John Sweeney - joined a student society trip at the end of March, posing as tourists to make a film about the secretive state.

The university said the students had been told "a journalist" would accompany them, but it had not been made clear the BBC's aim was to use the visit to record an undercover film for "Panorama", a current affairs programme.

"This was not an official LSE trip," Craig Calhoun, the Director of the LSE, wrote on Twitter. "Non-students & BBC organised it, used the society to recruit some students, & passed it off."

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have escalated in recent weeks, with North Korea threatening nuclear war against the United States and South Korea.

Alex Peters-Day, general secretary of the LSE's student union, told Sky News the students were only told of the BBC's intentions to make an undercover film at a very late stage, with one saying she was only informed when they were on the plane to North Korea.

She said the BBC had used the students as "human shields".

The university said Sweeney, who graduated from the LSE in 1980, had posed as a history PhD student at the university to gain entry to the country even though he currently had no connections with the institution.

"BBC staff have admitted that the group was deliberately misled to the involvement of the BBC in the visit," the LSE said in an email to staff and students released to the media.

"It is the LSE's view that the students were not given enough information to enable informed consent, yet were given enough to put them in serious danger if the subterfuge had been uncovered prior to their departure from North Korea."

"STUDENTS WARNED"

It said the LSE's chairman had asked the BBC to pull the documentary, which is due to be shown on Monday, but the broadcaster's director-general had refused.

Sweeney admitted he had lied to the North Korean government agency that helped organise the visit, but defended the BBC's actions.

"What the LSE has been doing is putting out stuff which is factually inaccurate in our view," Sweeney told BBC TV. "They're putting words into the students' mouths. The majority of students support this programme."

Ceri Thomas, the Head of BBC News Programmes, said the students had been told twice about the possible dangers of having a journalist on the trip, but were not informed about the broadcaster's plans to make an undercover film because it would have put them in a worse position had the BBC team been found out.

"They had the information we think to make informed consent," he told BBC TV. He said he could not categorically rule out students' lives were put at risk but stated there was an "overwhelming" public interest in making the documentary.

"It's vital that we get in... because the public in this country on mainstream television on tomorrow night has a very, very strong interest ... particularly at this moment in seeing what's going on inside North Korea," he said.

Panorama's website said Sweeney had spent eight days undercover "inside the most rigidly-controlled nation on Earth".

"Travelling from the capital Pyongyang to the countryside beyond and to the De-Militarised Zone on the border with South Korea, Sweeney witnesses a landscape bleak beyond words, a people brainwashed for three generations and a regime happy to give the impression of marching towards Armageddon," it said.

The LSE said aspects of North Korea were legitimate objects of study in several academic disciplines but said the BBC may have seriously damaged the university's reputation, and jeopardised future visits to North Korea and other countries.

"BBC story put LSE students at danger but seems to have found no new information and only shown what North Korea wants tourists to see," Calhoun wrote.

(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/british-university-attacks-bbc-over-covert-north-korea-141125944.html

michael pineda charles taylor bruins boston bruins carl crawford mad cow disease rampart

As U.S. talks up diplomacy, N. Korea takes hard line

TOKYO (AP) ? The United States and Japan opened the door Sunday to new nuclear talks with North Korea if the saber-rattling country lowered tensions and honored past agreements, even as it rejected South Korea's latest offer of dialogue as a "crafty trick."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Tokyo that North Korea would find "ready partners" in the United States if it began abandoning its nuclear program.

Japan's foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, also demanded a resolution to a dispute concerning Japanese citizens abducted decades ago by North Korean officials.

The diplomats seemed to point the way for a possible revival of the six-nation talks that have been suspended for four years.

China long pushed has for the process to resume without conditions. But the U.S. and allies South Korea and Japan fear rewarding North Korea for its belligerence and endless repetition of a cycle of tensions and failed talks that have prolonged the crisis.

Kerry's message of openness to diplomacy was clear, however unlikely the chances appeared that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's government would meet the American's conditions.

"I'm not going to be so stuck in the mud that an opportunity to actually get something done is flagrantly wasted because of a kind of predetermined stubbornness," he told U.S.-based journalists.

"You have to keep your mind open. But fundamentally, the concept is they're going to have to show some kind of good faith here so we're not going to around and around in the same-old, same-old," he said.

Tensions have run high on the Korean Peninsula for months, with North Korea testing a nuclear device and its intercontinental ballistic missile technology.

The reclusive communist state hasn't stopped there. It has issued almost daily threats that have included possible nuclear strikes against the United States. Analysts and foreign officials say that is still beyond the North Koreans' capability.

While many threats have been dismissed as bluster, U.S. and South Korean say they believe the North in the coming days may test a mid-range missile designed to reach as far as Guam, the U.S. territory in the Pacific where the Pentagon is deploying a land-based missile-defense system.

Japan is the last stop on a 10-day trip overseas for Kerry, who visited Seoul and Beijing as well in recent days.

In South Korea, he strongly warned North Korea not to launch a missile and he reaffirmed U.S. defense of its allies in the region. In China, he secured a public pledge from Beijing, the lone government with significant influence over North Korea, to rid the North of nuclear weapons.

Before returning to the United States, Kerry planned a speech Monday in Japan on the Obama administration's Asia policy.

So far, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. have largely backed the administration's efforts on North Korea.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told CBS' "Face the Nation" that he was encouraged by Kerry's China visit and that he hoped "we can get the Chinese to care more about this issue.

U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona suggested on CNN's "State of the Union" that the U.S. make a counter-threat by using missile interceptors to hit any North Korean missile that is test-fired.

At each stop along his trip, Kerry stressed that the United States wanted a peaceful resolution of the North Korea situation six decades after a cease-fire ended the Korean War.

But North Korea on Sunday served a reminder of the difficult task ahead. Its Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said the government had no intention of talking with Seoul unless the South abandons its confrontational posture, as the North called it.

Seoul had pressed North Korea to discuss restarting operations at a joint factory park on the border and President Park Geun-hye has stressed peace opportunities after taking power from her more hard-line predecessor, Lee Myung-bak. The presidency expressed regret with North Korea's rebuttal Sunday.

At a news conference in Tokyo, Kerry stressed that gaining China's commitment to a denuclearized North Korea was no small matter given its historically strong military and economic ties to North Korea.

But he refused to say what the Chinese were offering to do concretely to pressure the North into abiding by some of the conditions it agreed to in a 2005 deal that required it to abandon its nuclear program.

"They have to take some actions," Kerry said of North Korea. "How many or how much? I'd have to talk to folks back in Washington about that. But if the Chinese came to us and said, 'Look, here's what we have cooking,' I'm not going to tell you I'm shutting the door today to something that's logical and might have a chance of success."

In remarks to U.S. journalists, Kerry said that under the right circumstances, he even would consider making a grand overture to North Korea's leader, such as an offer of direct talks with the U.S.

"We're prepared to reach out," he said. Diplomacy, he added, required risk-taking and secrecy such as when President Richard Nixon engaged China in the 1970s or U.S. back-channel talks were able to end the Cuban missile crisis a decade earlier.

Given their proximity and decades of hostility and distrust, Japan and South Korea have the most to fear from the North's unpredictable actions.

Kerry clarified a statement he made Saturday in Beijing, when he told reporters the U.S. could scale back its missile-defense posture in the region if North Korea goes nuclear-free.

It appeared to be a sweetener to coax tougher action from a Chinese government which has eyed the increased U.S. military presence in its backyard warily, but which has done little over the years to snuff out funding and support for North Korea's weapons of mass destruction program.

Kerry said America's basic force posture wasn't up to debate. "There is no discussion that I know of to change that," he said.

But he said it was logical that additional missile-defense elements, deployed specifically in response to the Korean threat, could be reversed if that threat no longer existed.

"I was simply making an observation about the rationale for that particular deployment, which is to protect the United States' interests that are directly threatened by North Korea," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-talks-diplomacy-nkorea-takes-hard-line-160454630--politics.html

harden nor easter nor easter veep los angeles kings earth day timothy leary

Coachella 2013 Friday Night: Skrillex, Blur, Stone Roses Bring The Noise

Dog Blood and a reunited Jurassic 5 steal the festival's first night.
By Mary J. DiMeglio

Skrillex and Boys Noize at Coachella on Friday
Photo: Tim Mosenfelder/ WireImage

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705585/coachella-skrillex-blur-stone-roses.jhtml

don t trust the b in apartment 23 world financial center shabazz muhammad angela corey zimmerman charged bonobos charles manson

U.S. says agrees with China on peaceful North Korea solution

By Arshad Mohammed and Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States said on Saturday that China had agreed to help rid North Korea of its nuclear capability by peaceful means, but Beijing made no specific commitment in public to pressure its long-time ally to change its ways.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met China's top leaders in a bid to persuade them to push reclusive North Korea, whose main diplomatic supporter is Beijing, to scale back its belligerence and, eventually, return to nuclear talks.

Visiting Beijing for the first time as secretary of state, Kerry has made no secret of his desire to see China take a more active stance towards North Korea, which in recent weeks has threatened nuclear war against the United States and South Korea.

Kerry and China's top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, said both countries supported the goal of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.

"We are able, the United States and China, to underscore our joint commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in a peaceful manner," Kerry told reporters, sitting next to Yang at a state guesthouse in western Beijing.

But North Korea has repeatedly said it will not abandon nuclear weapons which it described on Friday as its "treasured" guarantor of security.

Yang said China's stance on maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula was clear and consistent, repeating phrasing used by the Foreign Ministry since the crisis began.

"We maintain that the issue should be handled and resolved peacefully through dialogue and consultation. To properly address the Korea nuclear issue serves the common interests of all parties. It is also the shared responsibility of all parties," he said, speaking through an interpreter.

"China will work with other relevant parties, including the United States, to play a constructive role in promoting the six-party talks and balanced implementation of the goals set out in the September 19 joint statement of 2005."

The United States and its allies believe the North violated the 2005 aid-for-denuclearization deal by conducting a nuclear test in 2006 and pursuing a uranium enrichment program that would give it a second path to a nuclear weapon in addition to its plutonium-based program.

Six-party aid-for-disarmament talks, involving the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China, collapsed in 2008 when the North walked away from the deal.

Kerry declined to comment on what specifically China may do to push for a peaceful solution on North Korea, saying only that they had discussed all possibilities.

At a news conference in Seoul on Friday and in a U.S.-South Korean joint statement issued on Saturday, Kerry signaled the U.S. preference for diplomacy, but stressed North Korea must take "meaningful" steps on denuclearization.

"We don't want to get into a threat for threat or ... some kind of confrontational language here. There's been enough of that," Kerry said in Beijing.

If North Korea got rid of its nuclear capabilities, then the United States would have no reason to maintain recently deployed defensive capabilities - such as a missile defense system sent to Guam - he said.

"Now, obviously, if the threat disappears, i.e. North Korea denuclearizes, the same imperative does not exist at that point in time for us to have to have that kind of robust, forward leaning posture of defense."

The Pentagon has in recent weeks responded to the North Korean threats by announcing plans to position two Aegis guided-missile destroyers in the western Pacific and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system to Guam.

'CONSTRUCTIVE' TALKS

As the North's main trading partner, financial backer and the closest thing it has to a diplomatic ally, China had a unique ability to use its leverage against the impoverished, isolated state, Kerry said in Seoul before leaving for Beijing.

China, which sided with North Korea in the 1950-53 civil war against the U.S.-backed South, has always been reluctant to apply pressure on Pyongyang, fearing instability if the North were to implode and send floods of refugees into China.

It has also looked askance at U.S. military drills in South Korea.

China's Xinhua news agency said in a commentary that Washington had itself been "fanning the flames" on the Korean peninsula with its shows of force.

"It keeps sending more fighters, bombers and missile-defense ships to the waters of East Asia and carrying out massive military drills with Asian allies in a dramatic display of preemptive power," it said.

Chinese state television quoted Premier Li Keqiang as telling Kerry that rising tensions on the Korean peninsula were in nobody's interests, in apparent reference to both Washington and Pyongyang to dial down the war of words.

"All sides must bear responsibility for maintaining regional peace and stability and be responsible for the consequences," the television report paraphrased Li as saying.

"Disturbances and provocation on the peninsula and regionally will harm the interests of all sides, which is like lifting a rock only to drop it on one's feet."

Still, U.S. officials believe China's rhetoric on North Korea has begun to shift, pointing to a recent speech by China's Xi in which - without referring explicitly to Pyongyang - he said no country "should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain".

Kerry's Asia trip, which includes a stop in Tokyo on Sunday before flying home on Monday, takes place after weeks of shrill North Korean threats of war since the imposition of new U.N. sanctions in response to its third nuclear test in February.

North Korean television made no mention of Kerry's visit and devoted most of its reports to preparations for celebrations on Monday marking the birth date of state founder Kim Il-Sung.

But Rodong Sinmun, the ruling Workers' Party's newspaper, issued a fresh denunciation of joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, saying: "If the enemies dare provoke (North Korea) while going reckless, it will immediately blow them up with an annihilating strike with the use of powerful nuclear means."

South Korea's Yonhap news agency, quoting a government source, said North Korea had not moved any of its mobile missile launchers for the past two days after media reports that as many as five missiles had been moved into place on the country's east coast. It said this suggested no launches were imminent.

(Additional reporting by Terril Yue Jones in BEIJING and Ronald Popeski in SEOUL; Editing by Nick Macfie and Vicki Allen)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-meet-chinas-top-leaders-discuss-north-korea-035019792.html

Michigan Election Results Missouri Election Results Amendment 64 marijuana huffington post Colorado Marijuana elizabeth warren

Two women shot at Virginia community college

(Reuters) - Two women were wounded in a shooting on Friday at a campus of New River Community College in Christiansburg, in southwestern Virginia, and the suspected shooter is in custody, police said.

The shooting took place at the school's satellite campus at the New River Valley Mall. One of the victims was airlifted and the second was taken by ambulance to a hospital, the Christiansburg Police Department said in a statement.

"We have no information on their identities or present conditions. The suspected shooter was taken into custody," it said.

The mall was cleared of shoppers. Montgomery County Schools were briefly locked down as a precaution, it said.

It was the second shooting scare at a U.S. college on Friday. Earlier, North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro was locked down for several hours after reports of a gunman near a classroom building.

That lockdown was later lifted with no shots fired.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Scott Malone and David Gregorio)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/two-wounded-shooting-virginia-community-college-police-193633750.html

Chris Kyle Russian meteor Meteor Hits Russia Dorner Manifesto Valentines Day Quotes nerlens noel Mark Balelo

AP source: FBI eyes possible extortion at Rutgers

The FBI is investigating whether a former Rutgers basketball employee tried to extort the university before he made videos that showed former coach Mike Rice shoving and kicking players and berating them with gay slurs.

A person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on Sunday that investigators are interested in Eric Murdock, who left his job as the men's basketball program's player development director last year and later provided the video to university officials and ESPN.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the inquiry has not been announced. The investigation was first reported by The New York Times.

The FBI, which generally does not confirm whether investigations exist, did not return a call or email Sunday from the AP, and neither did Murdock's lawyer. A Rutgers spokesman referred questions to the FBI.

A December letter from Murdock's lawyer to a lawyer representing Rutgers requested $950,000 to settle employment issues and said that if the university did not agree by Jan. 4, Murdock was prepared to file a lawsuit. The letter was obtained last week by the AP and other media outlets.

No settlement has been made. The video became public last week, and Murdock on Friday filed a lawsuit against the university, contending he was fired because he was a whistleblower trying to bring to light Rice's behavior.

The video's release last week set off a chain reaction that led to Rice's firing and the resignations of athletic director Tim Pernetti, the university's top in-house lawyer and an assistant basketball coach. Some critics want the university's president, Robert Barchi, to resign.

At a news conference last week, Barchi said the firing and resignations likely never would have happened unless Murdock provided the video to ESPN. Barchi said he did not see the video himself until after it had been made public.

Murdock, a New Jersey native who played for seven NBA teams from 1991 to 2000, was on the initial staff Rice assembled when he became the Rutgers coach in 2010. He left the team last year, though there are conflicting stories about the circumstances.

Murdock has said Rice fired him after he skipped a session of Rice's summer basketball camp, but has said he was targeted because he had spoken with others about Rice's conduct at practice. The university found in a report that Murdock was not actually fired and that he could have continued working at the school.

After Murdock left, he spoke with university officials about his allegations against Rice. He also used an open public records request to obtain hundreds of hours of videos of basketball practice. That's the footage that was edited into the half-hour video later given to the university that touched off a scandal last week.

The university report on Rice, which was completed in December but not made public until Friday, criticized the video provided by Murdock as taken many situations out of context. While the report found fault with Rice's behavior in several instances, it also said he did not create a hostile work environment, as Murdock had suggested.

The report also said that Murdock had claimed some violations of NCAA rules - including that he and others in the program paid players - but that he did not provide any evidence.

After a review, university officials agreed to suspend Rice without pay for three games, fine him $50,000, send him to anger-management counseling and monitor his behavior.

Barchi said that when he saw the video for the first last week he immediately decided Rice could not continue as coach.

----

AP sports writer Tim Sullivan contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-source-fbi-eyes-possible-171313032--ncaab.html

felicia day nfl 2012 draft st louis rams miami dolphins buffalo bills pittsburgh steelers seattle seahawks