Rape

Two American sailors will be imprisoned for the rape and robbery of a young woman in Okinawa, a crime that has renewed opposition to the heavy U.S. military presence on the Japanese island. The Naha court on Friday sentenced 24-year-old Christopher Browning to 10 years  and 23-year-old Skyler Dozierwalker to nine years for the October assault on a woman who was walking home from work early in the morning, according to Japanese news reports. The attack was captured on security cameras.

Testifying in a blue prison jumpsuit with his ankles chained, Andrew Luster cast himself Wednesday as a victim of tragically bad legal advice. Serving a 124-year sentence on rape and drug charges, Luster, the great-grandson of cosmetics giant Max Factor, took the witness stand in Ventura County Superior Court, where he hopes to have his unusually long sentence reduced because his legal representation was allegedly inept. With drawn face and sometimes terse answers, Luster said attorney Richard G. Sherman urged him to flee to Mexico - advice Luster followed a week into his 2002 trial.

ACAPULCO - Four days after the rapes of six Spanish tourists here, Erick De Santiago sat at his beachfront bar, with its commanding view of the blue expanse of Acapulco Bay, and posted a question on Facebook. If you could describe Acapulco in one word, what would it be? The responses came rolling in from his followers, as contradictory and tragic as modern Mexico itself: "Paradise. " "Sadness. " "Magic. " "Terror. " "Hope. " "Death. " De Santiago, a gregarious bar owner and nightclub manager, is also the president of Habla Bien de Aca, or Speak Well of Acapulco, a 2-year-old group of local business owners trying to balance the city's litany of harrowing drug-war headlines with reminders of its enduring charms.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican officials announced Wednesday that they had arrested six men on suspicion of raping a group of Spanish women who were vacationing this month near the violence-plagued resort city of Acapulco -- an incident that sparked international concern about the safety of the millions of foreign tourists who visit the country each year. At an afternoon news conference in Acapulco, Mexican Atty. Gen.  Jesus Murillo Karam said the six suspects, who range in age from 16 to 30, had confessed to authorities.

MEXICO CITY -- Relatives and supporters of six people detained on suspicion of assaulting and raping a group of Spanish citizens near the port of Acapulco briefly blocked the only road to the city's airport in protest Sunday,  reports  said. Families of the men said they had been wrongly accused of the attack, which sent  shudders through Mexico's crucial tourism industry  and among European tourists and expatriates who frequent the southern Pacific coast where it occurred.

The disturbing case of a Somali woman who alleged she was raped by security forces, only to be convicted by a court Tuesday of making a false claim and insulting the state, has outraged human rights groups and advocates for women's rights around the world. The court also convicted a journalist who had interviewed the woman of the same charges (although he has published nothing so far). Each was given a one-year prison sentence. The State Department and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued statements of concern about the case, and a spokesperson for the U.N. noted that the organization has long been alarmed about underreported incidents of sexual violence in displaced-persons camps in Somalia, such as the one the alleged victim lived in. The case is a stark reminder of how dismissive governments often are - not just in Somalia but around the world - of sexual violence against women.

Despite past assurances that tourists are safe in their country, Mexican tourism officials are again faced with trying to explain away another report of crime against foreign visitors. The latest incident took place in the resort town of Acapulco, where six Spanish tourists on vacation were raped Sunday by masked gunmen. Unlike many crimes involving drug violence in the country's interior states, the rapes took place near the beach, where the tourists were renting bungalows near four-star hotels.

NEW DELHI - They were the boys next door. A bit rough perhaps, a bit rude, prone to wasting money on cheap booze probably brewed in a backroom tub. But who dreamed they could be capable of something like this? A few miles from South Delhi's posh "farmhouse" estates, this part of the R.K. Puram neighborhood was just another slum until mid-December, when a brutal rape awakened a nation long inured to the mistreatment of women. News crews soon traced four of the six alleged attackers to this community.

A woman who accused Somali security forces of raping her must spend a year behind bars for making a “false accusation” and insulting the government, a Mogadishu court ruled Tuesday. Court official Ahmed Aden Farah said medical evidence showed that the woman was not raped, the Associated Press reported. Her prison term was delayed to allow her to care for her baby. Journalist Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, who had interviewed the convicted woman, will also spend a year behind bars on related charges, the court ruled.

MEXICO CITY -- Six Spanish tourists on vacation in Acapulco were raped by masked gunmen who burst into their lodgings in the middle of the night, roughed up their companions and made off with cash, laptops and other valuables, authorities said. The attack early Monday on what was in Mexico a long holiday weekend came as the one-time tourist mecca struggles to salvage its reputation. Acapulco, faded gem of Mexico's Pacific coast, has become one of the deadliest cities in the country as rival drug traffickers fight for control.