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George Floyd murder trial 

US prosecutors ask a judge to sentence the white former police officer convicted of murdering African-American George Floyd to 30 years in prison. Prosecutors said Derek Chauvin’s actions were egregious abuse and his conduct was cruel. After a trial lasting several weeks, Chauvin was convicted of murder in April and immediately jailed. The most serious charge that he was convicted of is second-degree murder, which carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison. Attorneys for Chauvin argue that he is a first-time offender requesting a probationary sentence with an incarceration period of time served. They say he was guilty of an error made in good faith and not the intentional commission of an illegal act. Chauvin killed hand-cuffed Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Aussie troops misconduct 

An Australian court has been presented with hundreds of photographs of Aussie soldiers drinking from the prosthetic leg of a slain Afghan national. The photos were presented by lawyers for a soldier suing several media outlets for defamation. The publication of potentially incriminating photos of Australian soldiers guzzling alcohol from the artificial limb in December 2020 followed the conclusion of a 4-year probe that found credible evidence of war crimes committed by Aussie troops in Afghanistan. A newspaper alleged in 2009 that a soldier shot dead an Afghan civilian and brought the prosthetic leg as a 'souvenir.' The defamation case against the Australian media was filed in response to a series of reports published in 2018 wherein the soldier was accused of war crimes, which his lawyers deny as baseless and false.

Civilians killed in US wars

The US military says nearly two dozen civilians were killed in its operations in foreign war zones last year. According to the Defense Department, 23 civilians lost their lives and nearly 10 were wounded in separate operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria in 2020. In its report, the Pentagon confirmed that 20 civilians were killed in Afghanistan alone. The report also acknowledged that the families of victims were not compensated by the Pentagon. However, the Pentagon tally on civilian killings is much lower than those provided by NGOs. Some NGOs put civilian casualties in US foreign wars last year at around 100 and above. They blast the US military’s investigations and acknowledgment of civilian deaths as 'woefully inadequate.' They also slam the Pentagon for failing to pay damages to impacted civilians and families.

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