Bolivian President Evo Morales announced Thursday that a national referendum on his proposed reforms to the country's constitution will be held on December 7. If approved, the reforms would distribute more of Bolivia's land and energy resource income to the country's indigenous population. Morales said that a national referendum which permitted him to retain his [...]
Lawyers blocked streets in the major cities of Pakistan on Thursday to demand the reappointment of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and other judges removed last year by former President Pervez Musharraf . Aitzaz Ahsan , president of Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar Association, vowed that the blockades would continue until Chaudhry is [...]
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir Wednesday threatened to ignore any arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court . Bashir, speaking to legislators Wednesday in semi-autonomous southern Sudan, said he would not "deal with or respond to" the ICC, according to AFP. Bashir's speech rallied support against the ICC and predicted that ICC charges against him [...]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has suspended the war crimes trial of Serb nationalist leader Vojislav Seselj pending an appellate ruling on whether the defendant may represent himself. In a press briefing Wednesday, the court announced that hearings had been adjourned until the court's Appeals Chamber "rules on the Prosecution’s appeal [...]
The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Wednesday submitted requests to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (UNCLCS) to claim exclusive harvesting rights to an area of the seabed surrounding Ascension Island, a British possession in the remote South Atlantic technically part of St Helena, the British overseas territory that where [...]
A Bosnian immigrant to Norway accused of mistreating Bosnian Serbs imprisoned during the 1992-95 Bosnian war went on trial Wednesday in Oslo, marking the start of the first war crimes trial to take place in Norway since World War II. Norwegian citizen Mirsad Repak pleaded not guilty to war crimes, crimes against humanity, rape and [...]
The US Justice Department (DOJ) has asked federal judges in Florida and Washington, DC, to give lenient sentences to former lobbyist Jack Abramoff , who has cooperated in the prosecution of several legislative and executive branch officials. Since 2006, Abramoff has been serving a six-year prison term on fraud and conspiracy charges filed in Florida; [...]
Lebanon on Wednesday charged Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and six other officials with the 1978 disappearance of a prominent Lebanese cleric and issued warrants for their arrests. In Beirut, investigating magistrate Samih al-Haj charged Gaddafi with inciting the abduction of Imam Mussa Sadr , who had traveled to Tripoli to meet Libyan officials. Libya has [...]
Michele Waslin : "This week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that it had suspended its latest immigration enforcement experiment. Dubbed as ICE's "compassionately conceived enforcement initiative," Operation Scheduled Departure was a five-city pilot program that would allow immigrants with outstanding orders of removal to report to ICE to make arrangements to voluntarily leave the [...]
Inventor Judas Klausner filed a patent infringement suit Tuesday against nine companies, including Google, Inc., Verizon Communications, and LG Electronics , alleging that they infringe on his visual voicemail technology patent. The technology involves providing a visual list of voicemail through which a user can view and retrieve individual messages. In anticipation of Klausner's attack, [...]
