— Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim failed Tuesday in his bid to stop his sodomy trial from going ahead in another blow to his fluctuating fortunes since achieving spectacular election results last year. The Kuala Lumpur High Court rejected Anwar's application to have the case thrown out before it is heard in court, and set the trial date for Jan. 25. Anwar's lawyer Sankara Nair said he will appeal the decision in the Appeal Court. "I didn't expect anything ...

"Things have gotten a bit hairy," admitted British Lieut. Colonel Graeme Armour as we sat in a dusty, bunkered NATO fortress just outside the city of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, a deadly piece of turf along Afghanistan's southern border with Pakistan. A day earlier, two Danish soldiers had been killed and two Brits seriously wounded by roadside bombs. The casualties were coming almost daily now. And then there were the daily frustrations of Armour's job: training Afghan police ...

Famously dubbed the "mad dog of the Middle East" by former President Ronald Reagan, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has a reputation that has run the gamut from eccentric revolutionary to international pariah over his long career. Often seen swathed in animal skins and surrounded by a posse of virgin female bodyguards, the colorful leader has become as well known for his unusual personality as for his controversial political moves, the latest of which included celebrating convicted ...

The Get-Your-Man-to-Marry-You Plan: Buying the Cow in the Age of Free MilkBy Lori Uscher-PinesSt. Martin's Press; 196 pp. The Gist:Ladies, dying to get engaged, but your would-be groom is dragging his feet Look no further than this how-to guide to snagging your very own diamond. Culled from her own personal experience, Uscher-Pines, a PhD from Johns Hopkins, tackles the dos and don'ts of getting even the most reticent man down on one knee. There's no excuse he can give ...

When Iranian Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work as a lawyer and human-rights activist, the regime in Tehran faced a dilemma. The award infuriated the country's hard-liners, but the regime privately acknowledged that it had also earned Ebadi the admiration of most Iranians. Reluctant to arrest or openly target such a popular figure, the government tolerated Ebadi's activities and limited itself to low-level harassment of her legal office. That tacit policy has now ...

Lawyers in Italy have now fired their best shots at Amanda Knox, the Seattle exchange student accused of killing her British roommate, explaining the murder of Meredith Kercher in terms of saint vs. sinner. In final arguments, Perugia's public prosecutor Giuliano Mignini said the American slit her roommate's throat on the night of Nov. 1, 2007, driven by sexual desire and alpha-female competitiveness. Asking for a life sentence with nine months' isolation, Mignini said "La Knox" wanted a sex ...

More than 60 years after the end of World War II, an 89-year-old retired auto worker from Ohio went on trial in Germany on Monday in what many are calling the country's last Nazi war crimes proceeding. That's not the only reason the world is watching the trial closely: John Demjanjuk is also No. 1 on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most-wanted war criminals, accused of being an accessory to the deaths of at least 27,900 people. Then there's the added drama of his ...