The administration of Bolivian President Evo Morales is refusing to recognize a National Electoral Court (CNE) decision suspending a constitutional referendum set for Dec. 7 . Nationalization Minister Hector Arce said Monday that letters sent to Morales by CNE President Jose Luis Exeni purporting to suspend the referendum have no legal effect. The administration ratified [...]
South African judge Navanethem Pillay on Monday assumed the role of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, replacing departing commissioner Louise Arbour . Pillay will hold the office for four years, and prior to her appointment, she had served on both the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) . [...]
Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon on Monday began an investigation to assemble a definitive registry of the tens of thousands of victims of the Spanish Civil War and the regime of Gen. Francisco Franco. Garzon ordered government agencies, the Episcopal Conference , the University of Granada and the mayors of four cities to produce the names [...]
Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is seeking to reopen corruption cases against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother, said the NAB's Deputy Prosecutor General Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta on Tuesday. Bhutta said the NAB had filed an application in Accountability Court IV in Rawalpindi asking the court to reverse last month's decision to adjourn [...]
A lawyer for imprisoned Russian oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky said Monday that the founder of the now-defunct Yukos oil company has appealed a Siberian court's rejection late last month of his request for parole. RIA Novosti quoted Khorkovsky lawyer Semyon Rozenberg as saying that "The documents have been sent to the district court, but have [...]
A New Zealand judge serving on the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia warned colleagues and prosecutors Monday that its upcoming genocide trials "are so important for the people of Cambodia must not be tainted by corruption." Silvia Cartwright , a former New Zealand Governor-General, was speaking at the opening of a 5-day meeting [...]
Brazilian intelligence service Abin has pledged to investigate published reports that its agents wiretapped a variety of top Brazilian officials, including Supreme Federal Court president Gilmar Mendes. Veja , a Brazilian weekly newsmagazine, made the claim in an article in its latest issue, published late last week. The officials said to have been wiretapped also [...]
The leaders of Italy and Libya Saturday signed a accord under which Italy pledged to invest $5 billion in Libya as compensation for its colonial rule over the north African state from 1911 to 1943. Meeting with Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi in Benghazi before a crowd which included descendants of Libyan resistance fighters, Italian Prime [...]
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence reached a settlement agreement Friday with four claimants who say they were abused by priests several decades ago and that church officials had taken steps to cover up previous allegations of abuse. Christopher Young, Donald Leighton, Marc G. Banville, and two sisters of a fourth unnamed man who has [...]
London's High Court Friday gave UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband a week to defend his office's refusal earlier this month to turn over documents relating to the alleged extraordinary rendition and torture of Binyam Mohamed , the last British resident still detained at Guantanamo Bay . The High Court ruled last week that the UK [...]
