Representatives of over 100 governments will meet Monday at the Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions to finalize a treaty banning the use, manufacture, and stockpiling of cluster bombs . Opponents of the ordnance, including some military officers, believe them to be inaccurate weapons designed to spread damage indiscriminately. An estimated 10-40% of the munitions [...]
An Afghan appeals court heard testimony Sunday from journalism student Sayad Parwaz Kambaksh , who was sentenced to death in January for distributing papers questioning gender roles under Islam. Kambaksh denied the accusations in front of a three-judge panel Sunday, saying they were made by Balkh University professors and students with “private hostilities” against him. [...]
Hans von Spakovsky, nominated by President Bush to serve on the six-member US Federal Election Commission (FEC) , withdrew his name from consideration for the appointment Friday. The withdrawal ends a two-and-a-half-year stalemate between the administration and Senate Democrats. The former Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights was named to the FEC [...]
US military defense lawyers filed a motion Friday to dismiss charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed , the alleged director of the Sept. 11 attacks , and his four co-conspirators. The motion alleges that the charges were unduly influenced by "overreaching" on the part of US Air Force Reserve Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann , who was [...]
The Texas Border Coalition , a group of Texan officials and business owners, filed a class action lawsuit Friday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to enjoin the Department of Homeland Security from constructing a fence on the US-Mexico border. The lawsuit claims that government officials disobeyed a clause in the [...]
Pakistani lawyers announced plans Saturday to hold large protests in June unless the new government fulfills a pledge to reinstate Supreme Court judges ousted last year by President Pervez Musharraf. Aitzaz Ahsan , President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, told reporters in Lahore that lawyers would hold a "long march" from city to city [...]
The US plans to build a new military detention facility in Afghanistan as a replacement for its current make-shift prison at Bagram Air Base , the New York Times reported Saturday. The $60-million-dollar, 40-acre facility will have the capacity to hold as many as 1,100 prisoners, and is intended to provide more humane living conditions [...]
Amnesty International welcomed Saturday the recently-announced public inquiry into the death of Baha Mousa , an Iraqi hotel receptionist who died in British military custody in 2003. The organization called the inquiry "long overdue" but expressed concern that the investigation could lack impartiality if governed by a 2005 UK law allowing the Secretary of State [...]
A French court released a bank account belonging to Russian news agency RIA Novosti Friday. The account was frozen in January , along with other accounts belonging to several Russian state organizations. The court ruled that the state news agency was a separate entity from the Russian government and should not be liable for state [...]
Jeffery J. Ventrella : "The California Supreme Court in an innocuously titled 4-3 split decision, In re Marriage Cases, sets forth an anything but innocuous ruling that imposes same-sex "marriage" despite a valid contrary expression by the citizens in the 2000 vote – 61% to 39%. Aside from the seismic effect created by the majority's [...]
