Russian oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his former business partner Platon Lebedev pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of money laundering and embezzlement. Khodorkovsky made two statements to the court, one reflecting his opinion on the charges, and the other specifically refuting each charge. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office filed these new charges against Khodorkovsky [...]
The US Supreme Court issued three opinions Tuesday. The Court ruled in Ministry of Defense and Support for the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran v. Elahi that the brother of dissident Cyrus Elahi, assassinated in Paris in 1990, cannot collect on a default judgment he holds against Iran by attaching a $2.8 [...]
Turkey's Eleventh Criminal Court in Ankara on Monday granted permission for a case involving the 2006 killing of a senior judge by lawyer Alparslan Aslan to be merged with a larger case against alleged Ergenekon coup leaders. Ergenekon is accused of planning to destabilize the country's Justice and Development Party (AKP) led government in an effort to incite a military coup. [...]
Delegates to the UN Durban Review Conference on Racism walked out of a speech on Monday by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after he described Israel as "totally racist." Additionally, a protester dressed as a clown threw his rubber nose at the Iranian president. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon released a statement in response to Ahmadinejad's speech [...]
US President Barack Obama on Monday defended his recent decision to release memos describing interrogation methods employed by CIA officials in questioning Guantanamo Bay detainees. He made the remarks to CIA officials who had expressed concern that their release would compromise the agency's ability to conduct effective interrogations. Obama said that due to widespread speculation about the memos, it was in the [...]
A Rwandan court rejected a lawsuit brought by captured Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) rebel leader Laurent Nkunda seeking his release from Rwandan custody. Nkunda was apprehended by Rwandan authorities in January near the DRC border after a joint DRC-Rwandan military operation to capture him and root out Rwandan Hutu rebels operating in the DRC. [...]
Judge Denny Chin of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a restraining order Monday that protects from bankruptcy more than $100 million in assets of financier Bernard Madoff . Chin signed the order to protect assets that will likely be forfeited by Madoff to the US government as a [...]
Kenneth P. Green : "The EPA's issuance of an endangerment finding for the greenhouse gases was inevitable, given the 2007 decision of the Supreme Court in Mass. v. EPA , and the stated intention of the Obama Administration to move ahead in compliance with the court's order. The endangerment finding opens up several potential pathways [...]
The Seoul Central District Court on Monday acquitted a South Korean blogger charged with spreading misleading financial information online. Park Dae-sung had been charged with spreading false and misleading financial information for writing that the South Korean government had ordered local banks not to buy US dollars in an effort to stabilize currency. The judge concluded [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday heard oral arguments in two cases. In Iraq v. Beaty and Iraq v. Simon, the Court will consider whether Iraq has sovereign immunity from the jurisdiction of US courts in cases involving alleged misdeeds that occurred during the Saddam Hussein regime. The plaintiffs in both cases sued the Iraqi [...]
