A three judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday unanimously upheld a US District Court ruling that a California law banning sales of video games to minors is unconstitutional because it is a violation of First Amendment free speech rights. In Video Software Dealers Assoc. v. Schwarzenegger, the [...]
A judge for the Khamovnichesky District Court in Moscow on Thursday ordered former Russian oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky to be transferred to the Russian capital to face new charges including embezzlement and theft, according to court officials. Both Khodorkovsky and his former partner Platon Lebedev are to be transferred from the Siberian region of Chita, [...]
A US Army Special Forces soldier facing court-martial proceedings over the killing of an Afghan civilian in March 2008 has admitted to killing the man but argued during opening statements Thursday that the act was committed in self-defense. Master Sgt. Robert Newell of the 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) was arraigned and charged with killing [...]
US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Mary Schapiro on Thursday named Robert Khuzami as the new director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement. Khuzmani replaces former director of enforcement Linda Thomsen, who stepped down from the position last week. Khuzami has previously served as a federal prosecutor in the US Attorney's Office for the [...]
The UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said Friday that the US has agreed to return UK resident and Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed to the country as soon as his transfer can be arranged. Mohamed was found by British authorities on Sunday to be healthy enough to return to the UK after stopping his [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Wednesday reversed a lower court ruling that dismissed a suit resulting from Hurricane Katrina brought on behalf of the US against eight flood insurers. The original suit, brought by Realtor Branch Consultants under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act , alleged that [...]
Both the Sri Lankan government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have committed human rights violations by attacking civilians in the Vanni region, according to a report released Thursday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) . The report alleges that both sides "appear to be engaged in a perverse competition to demonstrate the [...]
Under the leadership of successive Labour Party governments the UK Parliament has systematically infringed on freedoms and rights of individual British citizens over the past decade, according to a report released Thursday by the Convention of Modern Liberty . The report, compiled by the University College of London Student Human Rights Programme cites governmental actions [...]
A judge for the US District Court for the District of Maine on Wednesday dismissed charges of making false statements against former Republican National Committee regional director James Tobin . Tobin had earlier been convicted in connection with a scheme to jam phone lines to block Democratic voting drives during the 2002 Senate election in [...]
Neel Lalchandani : "Last week, two Pennsylvania judges pled guilty to charges including receiving $2.6 million in bribes from companies running private juvenile detention centers. Although in their guilty plea, they did not admit that they agreed to the bribes in exchange for sentencing teenagers to those facilities, we know that since 2002, the judges [...]
