A U.S. federal court has made a decision and ruled on Thursday that a 1998 law, which was designed to block children from viewing Internet pornography, violates the U.S. Constitution’s free speech protections right. Apparently the ruling sided with a challenge that was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had argued that the provisions of the Child Online Protection Act were too restrictive for most people.
Britain’s parliament is expected to approve a new nuclear arsenal this week, but the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, may have to rely completely on opposition votes to make sure his plans go through. Blair will be stepping down in the next few months and is convinced that Britain needs to renew its nuclear deterrent, even though there is much deep-rooted opposition within his Labour Party which could see scores of Labour lawmakers voting against him.
Prosecutors have opened an investigation into the death of Ivan Safronov, a military affairs writer for the daily Kommersant who died Friday after he fell from a five-story window. Some beleive that this could have been murder and not mere coincidence. Kommersant stated that Safronov told his editors he would write a story about Russian plans to sell weapons to Iran and Syria via Belarus. They said that he was not given a chance to write the article.
The Bush administration has decided to file charges against David Hicks, an Australian citizen who is suspected of aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan. He is the first terrorism-war era detainee to be charged by the Pentagon under new rules for military commissions. This decision was made even after officials of Australia already had asked the United States not to bring such charges to life. Australia has always been a steadfast ally to the Bush administration in the war on terrorism.