John Kamm "The detention of Hu Jia on December 27, 2007 for "incitement to subversion" is the most important move against the small but increasingly defiant community of human rights defenders and dissidents in China in recent months. We do not know the specifics of what he is suspected of, and are unlikely to know [...]
State of California v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, January 2, 2008 . Read the full text of the petition. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
US Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Wednesday that the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the CIA's destruction of videotapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects . The decision to launch a criminal probe follows the joint DOJ-CIA preliminary inquiry conducted by the DOJ National Security Division and the CIA’s Office of Inspector [...]
California filed a lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday challenging the agency's decision to deny the state's request for a waiver that would have allowed it and 16 other states following its lead to impose stricter greenhouse gas emissions standards on cars and light trucks. California's Air Resources Board adopted the greenhouse [...]
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said Wednesday in a televised address that he was setting up a special commission to investigate widespread violence that broke out in the wake of last week's assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto . Looting, burning and general vandalism led to the deaths of at least 47 people nationwide. Musharraf [...]
Jakarta lawyers for TIME magazine are ready to file their appeal of a defamation judgment by the Supreme Court of Indonesia awarding $106 million in damages to former Indonesian President Haji Mohammad Suharto , a lawyer told the The Age Wednesday. Suharto sued TIME over a 1999 article that said Suharto had hidden billions of [...]
The CIA obstructed the investigations of the 9/11 Commission by withholding videotapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects even though commission leaders had lawfully and repeatedly asked for information that would clearly be contained in the tapes, commission chairman Thomas Kean and vice-chairman Lee Hamilton wrote in an op-ed in Wednesday's New York Times. In [...]
New Hampshire became the fourth state in the United States to recognize same-sex civil unions Tuesday when its civil unions law took effect. The law allows same-sex couples to enter into civil unions with the "same rights, responsibilities, and obligations as married couples." New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch signed the legislation in May 2007. The [...]
US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts used his 2007 year-end report on the federal judiciary to urge Congress to increase the salaries of federal judges and to increase communication between all branches of government. In the report released Tuesday, Roberts repeated his call for judicial pay raises , saying Congress should act on legislation [...]
The Iraqi government sent a draft bill to the speaker of Iraq's parliament Tuesday which could allow for the pardon and release of around 5,000 detainees currently held in Iraqi prisons. The bill, approved by the Iraqi cabinet last week, would exclude prisoners held in US custody and others who are imprisoned for a number [...]
