A protester in the UK faced criminal charges for calling the MP behind the anti-squatting law a "coward".

The fact that such charges could even be brought demonstrates that the UK does not respect freedom of speech.

I don't know whether that MP is a coward, but it is clear that he is cruel and chooses to make the poor suffer. Which, in my book, is much worse than being a coward.

A US bomb killed civilians in Afghanistan, and Karzai demands greater efforts to avoid such casualties.

Accidentally hitting civilians is an inevitable part of war: bombs do miss, even despite the best attempts to hit the target. Thus, this event is not a war crime.

I wish, however, that the US made the best possible efforts to avoid killing civilians and that it owned up to civilian casualties when they occur. It does not.

Judges say Berlusconi paid witnesses to lie in court.

US hospitals have a new trick to charge medicare patients a lot more: put them on "observation" when they ought to be admitted as inpatients.

The UK government asked UK energy companies to keep prices stable for a while (through the next election) in exchange for the abolition of taxes meant to pay for energy efficiency.

In other words, the ruling parties want to give the public a short-term pleasure (cheap energy for the moment) in order to avoid investing in the country's future.