Former Argentine president Carlos Menem failed to appear in a Buenos Aires court Thursday as he and other former officials went on trial on arms trafficking charges. The court excused Menem's absence after a defense lawyer presented a medical certificate indicating that the former president had been suffering from acute anemia. Menem, who led Argentina [...]
The US Defense Department (DOD) has released a revised directive mandating military supervision of intelligence interrogations and questioning conducted by other US government agencies, foreign governments and contractors. The directive, issued October 9 by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England but only made public this week, supersedes a 2005 version that merely required non-DOD entities conducting [...]
The Moscow District Military Court opened closed preliminary hearings Wednesday on the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya . The hearings began without prominent human rights lawyer Karina Moskalenko, who is representing Politkovskaya's family, because the lawyer fell ill Wednesday, giving rise to suspicions that she was poisoned , possibly by mercury later found in her [...]
Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon Thursday ordered the exhumation of 19 mass graves in Spain, launching an investigation into the disappearances of tens of thousands of people beginning in the Spanish Civil War , and continuing through the early years of Francisco Franco's dictatorship . In a 68-page writ , Garzon argued the mass disappearances constitute [...]
The FBI is investigating allegations of voter registration fraud involving the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) ahead of the November presidential election. According to senior law enforcement officials quoted by AP Thursday, the FBI is analyzing evidence gathered from recent raids of ACORN state headquarters to determine whether there is a nationwide [...]
Vietnam's Hanoi People's Court on Wednesday sentenced journalist Nguyen Viet Chien of Thanh Nien news agency to two years in prison for "abusing democratic freedoms" to infringe state interests for his reporting on the so-called PMU 18 corruption scandal . Nguyen's co-defendant, Nguyen Van Hai of Tuoi Tre news agency , received a two year [...]
US insurance giant American International Group (AIG) is lobbying state governments to relax strict, recently enacted rules designed to provide greater oversight of the mortgage lending industry, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The rules are contained in the S.A.F.E. Mortgage Licensing Act of 2008 , which was signed into law by President Bush at [...]
The Pakistani cabinet led by Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani Wednesday approved changes to a statute governing the country's lawyers and endorsed a draft bill that would establish a new National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR). The changes to the Legal Practitioners Act of 1973 would undo an amendment to the Act promulgated by [...]
A commission established to investigate the political and ethnic violence that followed Kenya's disputed December 2007 presidential election released a report on Wednesday recommending the establishment of an international tribunal to try suspected perpetrators. The Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence cited “systematic attacks on Kenyans based on their ethnicity and their political leanings” and [...]
US President George W. Bush on Tuesday signed a bill designed to further insulate federal inspectors general (IGs) from political interference. The Inspector General Reform Act of 2008 is the latest in a series of amendments to the Inspector General Act of 1978 , which created the oversight offices within executive agencies. The new law [...]
