An Internet privacy advocacy group on Wednesday filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging that the new Google social networking service Buzz violates privacy laws. The complaint was filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and asks the FTC to investigate possible unfair business practices, privacy violations, and to restore [...]
The UN announced on Tuesday that the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) will enter into force on August 1 after being ratified by 30 countries. Burkina Faso and Moldova both submitted their instruments of ratification Tuesday, becoming the 29th and 30th countries to do so. In a statement, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that "the [...]
A Finnish government commission established to investigate a 2008 school shooting proposed a ban on semiautomatic handguns in a report released Wednesday. If approved by the Finnish Parliament , the ban would affect more than 200,000 semiautomatic handguns across the country. The commission made other recommendations for stricter gun control laws, including raising the age [...]
A judge from the US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama sentenced former HealthSouth executive Ken Livesay to five months in prison on Tuesday for his involvement in the company's accounting fraud. Judge Karon Bowdre sentenced Livesay for the fourth time after the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in November [...]
A Malaysian appeals court on Wednesday denied a request by opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to dismiss the charge of sodomy against him. Anwar was appealing the Malaysian high court's December decision not to dismiss the charge. Anwar is accused of sodomizing his former aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari, in 2008. He contends the charge is a [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Tuesday that claims of unlawful treatment and wrongful death brought on behalf of two former Guantanamo Bay detainees are barred by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) . The two men, Yasser Al-Zahrani and Salah Ali Abdullah Ahmed Al-Salami, were among [...]
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued its annual report on Tuesday confirming the work-related killings of more than 70 journalists worldwide during 2009, the highest in the 30-year history of the CPJ. Of the 71 confirmed killings identified in the report, 51 are believed to be murders, with several others still under investigation. The [...]
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko filed a lawsuit on Tuesday with the Supreme Administrative Court of Ukraine claiming that last weekend's presidential election was corrupt. Tymoshenko alleges that widespread voter fraud allowed her opponent, Viktor Yanukovych , to win the election. An initial fraud appeal to the Ukrainian Central Election Committee was rejected. Tymoshenko said [...]
A member of the "Toronto 18" was convicted on Tuesday for his role in the failed 2006 terrorist plot to bomb the Toronto Stock Exchange and other government buildings. Shareef Abdelhaleem, who pleaded not guilty last month, was convicted after the Canadian judge found that virtually no evidence existed to support his claims of entrapment. [...]
Kaplan, et al. v. Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., US District Court for the District of Columbia, February 17, 2010 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available here. JURIST has more on the Second Lebanon War.
