A court has confirmed a four-year imprisonment against a visitor who was carrying a tiny drug leaf which his lawyer described as "dry and useless".
The Dubai Court of Appeal confirmed the initial verdict of four years in jail followed by deportation, and convicted the 20-year-old Saudi national, M.S., of smuggling and possessing drugs for personal use.
The Public Prosecution charged the accused with illegally bringing 0.52-gram of Qat drug (in the form of a green leaf) with the intent to use it.
His lawyer Saif Al Mutawaa, of Middle East Advocates and Legal Consultants, said: "My client had no intention to use the drug leaf. Drug enforcement officers found the insignificant qat leaf stuck on his kandoura [national dress] when he was coming from Yemen. It is dry and tiny enough not to affect the user."
Gulfnews: Jail term upheld for man who carried tiny qat leaf
Moscow schools have been ordered to ban students from celebrating the cult of the dead, better known as Halloween, despite the widespread popularity of the imported festival to Russia. 
confessions extracted with torture is worse than a national disgrace. It is an assault on the foundations of the rule of law.
Some of the illegal workers who sought help from the authorities were arrested and deported. Opponents of illegal immigration, including civilian border watch groups, seized on news that immigrants had been detained at the Qualcomm Stadium evacuation center as evidence of trouble that illegal immigrants cause. 
Posters of a rosy, puffy cheeked newborn baby have provoked controversy in Italy because the infant is shown wearing a wristband name-tag with the word "homosexual" written on it.
SECONDARY school pupils are having their "every step traced" under a new monitoring system which sees a microchip embedded in their school uniform.
Campaigning politician Norman Baker believes Dr Kelly, who exposed the Government's "sexed-up" Iraq dossier, was killed to stop him making further revelations about the lies that took Britain to war. 
Prominent Tino Rangatiratanga activist Tame Iti was among the first arrested at his home at 4am Monday morning. At 6am raids were carried out at A Space Inside anarchist social centre in Auckland [ 
U.S. President George W. Bush warned on Wednesday a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to World War III as he tried to shore up international opposition to Tehran amid Russian scepticism over its nuclear ambitions.
In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in 
Within hours, Justice Department lawyers notified the federal courts that they no longer had the authority to hear pending lawsuits filed by attorneys on behalf of inmates of the penal camp at Guantánamo Bay. They cited passages in the bill that suspend the fundamental principle of habeas corpus, making Mr. Bush the first president since the Civil War to take that undemocratic step.
of ambushes apparently waged by a Kurdish rebel group with bases in northern Iraq. And on Wednesday, Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships attacked suspected rebel positions close to the Iraq border. 
Beginning the 10th of October, rural popular organizations will mobilize in particular places in Colombia. Going from their streets and villages, they aim to arrive in the capitals of their departamentos. They seek to launch a repeal of the anti-popular laws recently approved by the Congress; for example, the ill-fated Rural Statute and the reduction of transfers, that place equally in danger the campesinos and all Colombians. These groups reject the TLC (Tratado de Libre Comercio, or Free Trade Area Agreement) as well as the state politics of annihilation of the peasant economy and of the indigenous people. Furthermore, they propose to heighten the consciousness of the Colombian people concerning the necessity of demanding the resignation of President Uribe and his Vice-President Santos and to fight for a popular, democratic government. The answer from the régime regarding the call to mobilization has been a brutal repression: ever since the 
In 2004, Hirsi Ali collaborated with Theo van Gogh on the film "Submission," which examined the link between Islamic law and the suffering of millions of women under Islam. The reaction from the Muslim community was nothing short of psychopathic, and it confirmed the necessity of Hirsi Ali's work and the reasonableness of her fears. Van Gogh, having declined bodyguards of his own, was gunned down and nearly decapitated on an Amsterdam street, and a letter threatening Hirsi Ali was staked to his chest with a butcher knife. 
Hirsi Ali was immediately forced into hiding and moved from safe house to safe house, sometimes more than once a day, for months. Eventually, her security concerns drove her from the Netherlands altogether. She returned to the U.S., and the Dutch government has been paying for her protection here -- that is, until it suddenly announced last week that it would no longer protect her outside the Netherlands, thereby advertising her vulnerability to the world. 
according to a statement by China 
Pioneering research into a "gay bomb" that makes enemy troops "sexually irresistible" to each other has scooped one of this year's Ig Nobel Prizes.
That's where the Western Kansas Weather Modification Program and other cloud-seeding operations across the western U.S. come in. The WKWMP is among about 10 programs that tinker with the weather — either by trying to cut the size of hail or boost rainfall and snowpack. They do it largely by shooting up storm clouds with silver iodide or dry ice mixtures.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he could be a future prime minister, giving a clear sign he plans to keep power after his second term ends next year.
138 Panamanians last year.