US President Barack Obama on Friday signed a bill that will allow Americans to claim contributions made to Haitian earthquake relief efforts as a deduction on their 2009 federal income tax returns. Under the new law, monetary donations made between January 11 and March 1, 2010, including those made by cellular telephone, are eligible for [...]
The Swiss Federal Administrative Court ruled Thursday that an American taxpayer's financial information at Swiss bank UBS may not be disclosed to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) pursuant to an August 2009 agreement . The court ruled in favor of an undisclosed American taxpayer, who appealed a November decision by the Swiss Federal Tax [...]
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas resigned Thursday in the midst of a dispute with President Dalia Grybauskaite over secret US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) secret prisons in the country. Grybauskaite has publicly said that she believes there were prisoners held in Lithuania, but Usackas has denied this. The dispute follows a parliamentary report that found [...]
Homer Moyer : "This week's highly publicized arrest of 22 corporate executives for violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is newsworthy and in some respects unprecedented, but otherwise confirms FCPA enforcement trends that have been increasingly evident in recent years. Unprecedented were the simultaneous arrests of 22 individuals, a number that surpassed [...]
The Constitutional Court of Turkey on Thursday overturned a law that allowed the prosecution of military personnel in civilian courts and prevented military prosecution of civilians during peacetime. The court was unanimous in its decision to overturn the law, which was seen as necessary for Turkish accession to the European Union (EU) . The law [...]
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu stated in a press conference Thursday that Chinese human rights lawyer and activist Gao Zhisheng is "where he should be." Ma stated that holding Gao in Chinese custody since February 2009 comports with the law. The official version of the press conference transcript omitted the exchange between the media [...]
European Union (EU) justice ministers considered Friday whether to use "enhanced cooperation" to enable some EU countries to work together to create uniform marriage laws for mixed-nationality couples. Incoming EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said that she would enter a demand for enhanced cooperation, a technique used when only some EU member states agree. In [...]
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that nuclear arms reduction negotiations with the US are likely to resume in early February and will soon result in a landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty. The treaty is to be the successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty , which expired in December. Official negotiations in [...]
A presidential task force has recommended that 35 Guantanamo Bay prisoners face trial or military commissions , the Associated Press reported on Friday. Government officials said that the proceedings for these detainees will most likely be carried out on US soil. The 35 detainees named in the task force report include five detainees that are [...]
Imam Hassen Chalghoumi of Paris gave his support Friday to a proposed law that would ban wearing the burqa or niqab in public. In an interview with Le Parisien, Chalghoumi said that the full veil is not a part of French culture and that a woman should move to a country where it is accepted [...]
