A Zambian court on Tuesday rejected the application for the de-registration of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) party which had held power for the past 20 years until September of last year. Lusaka High Court Judge Jane Kabuka reasoned that the application filed by the registrar of societies Clement Andeleki to suspend the entire [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Monday issued a temporary injunction blocking enforcement of a new Florida law that denies government contracts to companies that do business in Cuba or Syria. The law is currently facing a challenge from Odebrecht Construction Inc. , a company that would [...]
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday urged the international community to take measures to stop torture by numerous states against their own citizens. Commemorating the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture , Ban and other UN officials addressed the need for continued support to end inhumane practices in various places around the world. [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday issued a report documenting refugee abuse and urging the government of China to provide basic food and shelter needs to thousands of refugees fleeing sectarian violence in neighboring Myanmar . Escalating violence between the Myanmar Army and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has put thousands of ethnic Kachin civilians [...]
Army Col. Denise Lind on Monday ordered the prosecution in the case against Pfc. Bradley Manning to submit to her a number of files that were allegedly withheld from the defense during discovery. Manning is accused of transferring more than 700,000 confidential documents and video clips to Wikileaks , the largest intelligence leak is US [...]
A Ukrainian appeals court on Tuesday delayed the appeal hearing for former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko challenging her corruption conviction and seven-year sentence. Although Tymoshenko has previously indicated that she would discontinue all appeals in Ukrainian courts , she is required to exhaust all national options before appealing to the European Court of Human [...]
The International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh (ICTB) on Monday rejected a bail petition from Jamaat-e-Islami party (JI) leader Delwar Hossain Sayeedee . Lawyers for Sayeedee asserted that he just had a surgery and needed to be placed on bail in order to recover fully. The prosecutor opposed the bail petition, citing that Sayeedee has been recovering [...]
A New York judge on Friday approved a $410 million settlement agreement between hedge fund manager Ezra Merkin and the state of New York in a lawsuit connected with the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme . New York state brought suit against Merkin in 2009, accusing him of directing funds into Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and charging [...]
Prosecutors in the retrial of Ramush Haradinaj , a Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander and the former prime minister of Kosovo, on Monday asked the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to give him a sentence of at least 20 years. Prosecutor Paul Rogers told the court that he believed this was the [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday issued a per curiam opinion , striking down a century-old campaign finance law in Montana that restricts the amount of money corporations can spend on campaigns. In American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock , the court found that the restrictions imposed by Montana’s 1912 Corrupt Practices Act were already [...]
