The US Supreme Court on Friday granted certiorari in six cases , including Kennedy v. Louisiana (07-343) , in which the Supreme Court will consider whether a death sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment when imposed for a crime in which the victim was not killed. Patrick Kennedy was sentenced to death in Louisiana for [...]
Convicted terrorism conspirator Jose Padilla Friday filed suit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California against University of California Berkeley law professor John Yoo , the author of controversial US government memos arguing that detained enemy combatants could be denied Geneva Conventions protections against torture. The suit alleges that Yoo's memos, [...]
About 60 members of the 100-member Ecuadorian Congress met at a hotel in Quito Thursday despite being suspended by the special Constitutional Assembly in late November. Head of Congress Jorge Cevallos had said when the Congress disbanded in November that legislators were merely going on their normal recess and would return as scheduled in January. [...]
Lawyers for an Oklahoma man filed a taxpayer lawsuit Thursday seeking to overturn a state immigration law as an alleged violation of the state constitution. The Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007 denies illegal immigrants state identification and requires all Oklahoma government agencies to verify immigrants' citizenship before conferring benefits. The suit, which [...]
The Communist Party of China Thursday issued a list of "10 taboos" for public officials as part of the government's attempt to fight corruption ahead of a reshuffling of provincial leadership posts later this month. The rules focus on preventing bribes, favors, negative campaigning, and intimidation. The government will assign groups of inspectors throughout the [...]
Opposition activists in Myanmar called for the release of pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi Friday as the nation observed its independence day. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NDL) issued a statement also demanding the release of Buddhist monks detained during last year's anti-government protests and other political prisoners at a NDL meeting attended [...]
The Turkish Grand National Assembly passed a bill Thursday that prohibits smoking in government buildings, offices, bars and restaurants, and imposes stiff penalties for noncompliance. People caught smoking in designated non-smoking areas could be fined 50 Turkish lira, while companies that advertise or distribute tobacco could be fined 250,000 lira. The bill passed with strong [...]
The CIA made plans to destroy videotapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects as early as 2003, according to correspondence made public by US Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) Thursday. In a February 2003 letter from Harman to the CIA general counsel, Harman referenced a congressional briefing where she was informed of the existence of a [...]
The US has rejected a Japanese request that any fuel provided to US ships as part of Japan's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean not be used henceforth for military or humanitarian relief operations in Afghanistan, sources told Kyodo News Thursday. The US has said that recent amendments to Japan's anti-terror bill requiring US forces [...]
China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) Thursday announced plans to phase out gunshot executions of condemned prisoners and instead switch to lethal injections . Court vice-president Jiang Xingchang said that lethal injection was a more humane execution method already used by half of China's intermediate courts. He said that the SPC will work to train court [...]
