The Tokyo District Court on Wednesday sentenced former Japanese administrative vice defense minister Takemasa Moriya to two and a half years in prison for accepting bribes and committing perjury. In April, Moriya pleaded guilty to accepting approximately $126,000 worth of illegal benefits from military contractor Yamada Corporation , and to giving false testimony to conceal [...]

A ballot measure to prohibit governmental agencies from discriminating or granting preferences on the basis of race and sex appeared to win approval from Nebraska voters Tuesday, while the outcome of a similar proposal in Colorado remained unclear midday Wednesday. In Nebraska, Initiated Measure 424 would amend the state constitution to prohibit the state and [...]

Voters in California and South Dakota Tuesday rejected ballot measures that would restrict access to abortion , In California, Proposition 4 would have amended the state constitution to require that a physician notify a parent or legal guardian of an unemancipated minor who has sought an abortion and wait 48 hours before performing the procedure. [...]

Israeli deputy permanent representative to the UN Daniel Carmon on Tuesday accused the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) of "targeting Israel in an obsessive and discriminatory fashion" and "fail to uphold the basic standards of human rights in an impartial, universal, non-selective, and objective manner." Addressing a plenary session of the UN General Assembly following [...]

A panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Tuesday suspended its review of Guantanamo Bay detainee Yasin Muhammed Basardh’s status as an “enemy combatant,” saying it may lack jurisdiction over the case. Basardh had petitioned the court to review a Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) determination that he could be [...]

Several members of the anti-drug trafficking force of Mexican President Felipe Calderon , including Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino Terrazo , were killed Tuesday when their airplane crashed in Mexico City. Former chief drug crimes prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, four Interior Secretariat employees, and three crew members were also killed as the plane crashed [...]

A judge in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas on Tuesday dismissed a suit filed by three Hispanic residents of the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch to change the city council election voting system from at-large to district-based, a shift they say would result in more attention to Hispanic interests on [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor Ali Khan of Washburn University School of Law says that the election of Barack Obama as US president heralds a Second American Revolution that not only marks a rejection of the country's racist past but also has the potential to restore American dedication to justice, liberty and peace at home and abroad…. [...]

ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Tuesday reasserted that the ICC has jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed in the Congolese province of North and South Kivu in the wake of renewed fighting there and that his office intends to punish those responsible. Moreno-Ocampo, who met Friday with a delegation of [...]

The US Department of Defense (DOD) on Tuesday announced the transfer of one Guantanamo Bay detainee to Somaliland. DOD hailed the move as proof of the effectiveness of its review processes and of US desire not to hold detainees any longer than necessary. The Department reports that approximately 60 detainees at Guantanamo are currently eligible [...]