The Guatemalan Congress voted to restore the death penalty Tuesday, passing a bill that ends a six-year moratorium on executions imposed by the Constitutional Court in 2002. Under the new law, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom will have to decide whether to grant clemency to the 24 inmates currently on death row or to order their [...]
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Office of Administration, US District Court for the District of Columbia, February 11, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
Daryl Kimball : "Defense Minister Ivanov's address at the Berlin security conference reflects Russia's frustration with the current US-Russian impasse on key strategic weapons issues and the Bush administration's resistance to certain bilateral strategic arms agreements. Ivanov's comments do not really break any new ground. Rather, he simply appears to be reiterating Russia's current positions [...]
US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Tuesday defended the use of harsh physical interrogation techniques, saying in an interview with Law in Action on BBC Radio 4 that they may be justified to deter an immediate threat. Scalia argued that "so-called torture" may not necessarily be prohibited by the US constitution, as he said the [...]
US Senate Democrats announced their continued support Tuesday for a US Sentencing Commission decision to give retroactive effect to sentencing guidelines that would narrow the disparity between sentences for offenses involving powder and crack cocaine, rejecting Department of Justice arguments against the retroactivity because the courts could be overwhelmed with inmates appealing their sentences. The [...]
Shi'ite and Sunni lawmakers walked out of Iraq's parliament Tuesday, prompting speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani to threaten to disband the legislature. The walkout was sparked by divisions between Kurdish and other lawmakers over what percentage of the national income should be reserved for the Kurdish semi-autonomous region. The walkout blocked a vote on the $48 billion [...]
China, Russia and Canada are the main violators of US copyright law, according to report issued Monday by a US-based industry group. The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), a consortium of seven trade associations representing 1,900 US companies producing and distributing copyrighted materials, found that the number of violations had increased over the past year [...]
The US Senate voted 69-29 Tuesday in favor of a cloture motion limiting further debate on a bill which would provide immunity for telecommunications companies from lawsuits related to their participation in the NSA warrantless surveillance program . Congress has mulled the controversial issue of telecom immunity while working on long-term legislation to "modernize" the [...]
The Wayne County Employees' Retirement System (WCERS) on Monday filed a complaint in the Delaware Court of Chancery challenging the decision of the Yahoo! board of directors to repudiate an unsolicited takeover offer made February 1 by Microsoft for the Internet giant. Microsoft's takeover bid , which offers $31 per share of Yahoo! stock and [...]
Rwandan defense investigator Leonidas Nshogoza pleaded not guilty Monday before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to charges of contempt and attempted contempt of the ICTR. Nshogoza was arrested in June 2007 for allegedly bribing witnesses, fabricating evidence and "interfering in the administration of justice" during an appeal of the 2004 conviction of former [...]
