It's nearly incomprehensible for people living in a modern, civilized society to fathom there are still countries where it's perfectly acceptable for a 40-year-old man to marry a 10-year-old girl. Yet, it's happening in India, Ethiopia, Nepal and dozens of developing countries.

Iraq has recently put forth a controversial draft law that would allow men to marry girls as young as 9 years old and force their wives to have sex without consent. Women would also not be able to leave the house without their husband's permission.

Approved by the Justice Ministry Cabinet in February, the Jaafari Personal Status Law, named after Jaafar al-Sadiq, a Shiite imam, has yet to be approved by Iraq's parliament. Analysts say it's unlikely to make it through before the April 30 parliamentary elections.

Iraq's current law sets the legal age for marriage at 18 and forbids divorce. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Shiite leaders attempted to annul the existing 1959 personal status law citing decades of oppression suffered under the Baathist Sunni minority.

No minimum martial age is stated in the draft law however it mentions a clause allowing girls to divorce at the age of 9, which is a roundabout way of implying they could conceivably marry even younger.

Albuquerque police have violently cracked down on protesters, using tear gas and arresting several demonstrators, after over nine hours of unrest.

Hundreds expressed their anger over last week's police shooting that saw a homeless man killed.

At the beginning of the rally, protesters asked police to take responsibility for their actions.

"The police serve us, they do not kill us," one protester told the local KRQE media outlet, while one of the demonstrators held a sign that read, "APD: Dressed To Kill."

Another activist, Alexander Siderits, 23, told AP he was participating because he was "fed up" with how police treat citizens.

"It has reached a boiling point, and people just can't take it anymore," he stressed.

Wilmington Delaware -- A judge who sentenced a wealthy du Pont heir to probation for raping his 3-year-old daughter noted in her order that he "will not fare well" in prison and needed treatment instead of time behind bars, court records show.

Superior Court Judge Jan Jurden's sentencing order for Robert H. Richards IV suggested that she considered unique circumstances when deciding his punishment for fourth-degree rape. Her observation that prison life would adversely affect Richards was a rare and puzzling rationale, several criminal justice authorities in Delaware said. Some also said her view that treatment was a better idea than prison is a justification typically used when sentencing drug addicts, not child rapists.

Richards' 2009 rape case became public this month after attorneys for his ex-wife, Tracy, filed a lawsuit seeking compensatory and punitive damages for the abuse of his daughter.

The fact that Jurden expressed concern that prison wasn't right for Richards came as a surprise to defense lawyers and prosecutors who consider her a tough sentencing judge. Several noted that prison officials can put inmates in protective custody if they are worried about their safety, noting that child abusers are sometimes targeted by other inmates.

"It's an extremely rare circumstance that prison serves the inmate well," said Delaware Public Defender Brendan J. O'Neill, whose office represents defendants who cannot afford a lawyer. "Prison is to punish, to segregate the offender from society, and the notion that prison serves people well hasn't proven to be true in most circumstances."

O'Neill said he and his deputies have often argued that a defendant was too ill or frail for prison, but he has never seen a judge cite it as a "reason not to send someone to jail."

Richards was no frail defendant, court records show, listing him at 6-feet-4 and between 250 and 276 pounds. Nor do court records cite any physical illnesses.

© Vince Talotta / Toronto StarJason Wall's complaint against police who arrested and jailed him on the Sunday morning of the G20 summit weekend resulted in a one-day suspension for the arresting officer and a lawsuit settlement against the Toronto police.

The first Toronto Police officer to be found guilty of misconduct during the G20 Summit was sentenced Wednesday.

A Toronto police officer found guilty of unlawfully arresting a G20 protester has been sentenced to a one-day suspension without pay.

Jason Wall was walking home from his girlfriend's house during the June 2010 G20 Summit when he was arrested on Yonge St. for wearing a disguise with intent. He had been wearing a bandana around his neck and carrying a backpack while heading to a church service.

He then spent over 24 hours in police custody at the Eastern Ave. detention centre, which he described in a victim impact statement as "unsanitary" and "chaotic." He was released without charge. Wall, a graphic designer, said during a February hearing the traumatic experience was "dehumanizing" and led him to distrust police to this day.

This month, rural women, indigenous communities, and farmers in Chile found themselves on the winning end of a long-fought battle against a bill that had come to be known by many in this country as simply, the "Monsanto Law."

The bill, which would have given multinational agribusiness corporations the right to patent seeds they discover, develop or modify, was withdrawn by the Chilean government now controlled by newly elected members of the center-left coalition known as the New Majority, amid concerns that the law would bring harm to the country's small and mid-sized farmers.

In making the announcement on March 17, new Secretary General Ximena Rincón pledged that the Chilean government will "analyze all that is known in our country and internationally about this issue in order to protect the rights of agricultural communities, small and medium-sized farmers, and the heritage of seeds in our country."

Rincón has been a leading voice of opposition to the bill in the Chilean government, and part of a larger alliance of approximately fifteen organizations and elected officials across the country who have been lobbying and protesting its passage since the introduction of the bill four years ago.

"We reject this law because it is a threat to family farms and to biodiversity," said Lucía Sepúlveda from the Alliance for a Better Quality of Life/Pesticide Action Network of Chile (RAP-AL Chile). Last August, her organization and thousands of other Chileans took to the streets of cities across the country in mass protests against the law.

Sepúlveda explained that the Monsanto Law - derived from the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) 1991 Act -- would allow companies to register patents for the vast majority of seeds in Chile, and require small and medium producers to pay those companies for the right to use similar seeds. This, said Sepúlveda, would create a barrier for small and medium producers to use strains of seeds that have been developed and used by farmers and indigenous communities in Chile for generations. Producers would be faced with renewing their seed rights every year for a high price, or leaving agriculture all together.

"We're left without farmers and without production," said Sepúlveda.

After signing up for coverage and disclosing they were smokers, about 100 New Hampshire consumers, including Terry Wetherby, find their new Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield policies canceled because they were charged incorrect "non-smoker" rates.
Retired New Hampshire nurse Terry Wetherby doesn't hide the fact that she smokes.

She checked the box on HealthCare.gov saying she uses tobacco and fully expected to pay more for her insurance policy under the Affordable Care Act. "It's not a secret at all," she said.

Wetherby dutifully paid the premium Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield charged her for January and again for February - and believed she had coverage effective on Jan. 1.

Then when Wetherby went to pay her March premium, she was told she couldn't. A check arrived in the mail refunding her February premium with a two-word explanation: "Contract cancelled."

Turns out, Wetherby was among about 100 smokers in New Hampshire caught up in a "technical glitch" that caused them to lose their new health insurance policies because they had been mistakenly charged non-smoking rates, according to the New Hampshire Department of Insurance.

It is unclear if the error affected smokers in other states served by Anthem.

We received the note below from a British Jew. I then had a conversation on the phone with him and he said he felt the urgent responsibility to communicate the world's opinion of Israel to American Jews before public opinion in the U.S. shifts dramatically, led by the BDS movement. I'm honoring his wish to remain anonymous.How do you describe the feeling that your life has been a lie? I think that the reason Jews are so reluctant to acknowledge what is clearly in front of them, is that shifting from 'Israel is never wrong' to 'we have created a monster' is such a terrifying realisation, self delusion is the easier path.

Please hold my hand. I need you to talk me 'down from the ledge' because as I finally see the horror in front of us, I am petrified. I'm reaching out because I don't know what to do and I hope that by explaining to you, how scary shifting your position on Israel is, I can help us establish a process for other Jews. I need help.

Like Alcoholics Anonymous we need a place where Jews can safely process the ramifications of Israel. This is not a well written article, I've edited it many times, but please identify the confused structure, panic and paranoia as the experience all Jews go through when we realise what is in front of us.

I am sure there is a clever word for people like me (a play on birthright, birthrefusal?) who were raised pro-Israel and now see that the only logical position, any sane person can take is that the USA was complicit in Israeli crimes against humanity. How can any normal person not be pro-Palestinian? How can any American not be outraged at what they funded, supported and received hatred for?

I live in London in the UK, my father is Israeli and I was raised to support Israel. Pure hasbara. The atmosphere in Europe towards Israel was bad but is now toxic. If the USA shared the European view, the Jews would be deported out of Israel. Europe used to hate Jews because of anti-semitism, now they have a reason to hate us.

In Brazil, the land of mini bikinis and voluptuous carnival dancers, most people say a woman who shows off her body deserves to be raped, according to a poll that has triggered outrage.

Of the 3,810 respondents of both sexes who responded to the government's Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) survey released this week, about 2,480 -- 65 percent -- justified raping women who wear "clothing that shows off the body."

And 58.5 percent of respondents also agreed that "if women knew how to behave, there would be fewer rapes."

Most of the May-June poll's respondents -- 66.5 percent -- were women.

Brazilian women -- and some men, too -- promptly reacted angrily on blogs and social media to the study's findings.

Journalist Nana Queiroz launched an online protest event on Facebook that invited women to take pictures of themselves topless while covering their breasts accompanied with the phrase: "I don't deserve to be raped."

A pilot searching for the missing Malaysian Airlines plane claims his crew spotted four orange objects floating in the Indian Ocean which could be a 'promising lead' in the hunt for the vanished aircraft.

Royal Australian Air Force Lieutenant Russell Adams said his crew saw the items during an 11-hour mission, each more than six-feet long.

Despite the potential breakthrough, the pilot stressed he could not confirm whether the objects were parts of the plane which disappeared three weeks ago.

It comes just days after debris pulled from the search area turned out to be fishing gear and items not related to the vanished flight MH370.

An Idaho state trooper arrested and fully searched a 70-year-old Washington man's vehicle solely because he had a Colorado license plate - a state where marijuana is legal - a federal "license plate profiling" lawsuit alleges.

Darien Roseen was driving along I-84 between his second home in Colorado and Washington state on Jan. 25 when Idaho State Trooper Justin Klitch "immediately" pulled out from the Interstate median and began "rapidly accelerating" to catch up to Roseen, according to the complaint in a Courthouse News Service report. Exiting at a designated rest area, Roseen says he became "uncomfortable" that Klitch had followed him though he had not "done anything wrong."

After pulling Roseen over, Klitch reportedly failed to explain why he made the stop, although he later said he made the stop because Roseen failed to use his signal when pulling off on the exit, and because he bumped the curb. Klitch rejected Roseen's reason for pulling into the rest area, telling him, "You didn't have to go to the bathroom before you saw me ... I'm telling you, you pulled in here to avoid me."