The US Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday approved a bipartisan bill that would allow television coverage of all open US Supreme Court hearings. The Sunshine in the Courtroom Act of 2007 would permit the Supreme Court to televise all open sessions, unless there is a majority vote amongst the justices that coverage in a particular case [...]
Russia has extradited an Uzbek man sought on charges of religious extremism to his native Uzbekistan in defiance of a request by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) , a representative from the Russian advocacy group Civic Assistance said Thursday. The ECHR had formally requested that Russia refrain from deporting Abdugani Kamaliyev until after [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled Thursday that Shirley Phelps-Roper, a member of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church , is entitled to a preliminary injunction preventing the enforcement of a Missouri state statute banning protesters from picketing near funerals while the law is under constitutional review. The appeals court found that [...]
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said Thursday she will work to block a formal signing of the European Union's pre-membership deal with Serbia if the country does not apprehend fugitive former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic and turn him over to The Hague by December 10. The [...]
US House and Senate negotiators agreed Thursday to remove language that would broaden federal hate crimes legislation from a defense reauthorization bill currently being finalized in Congress. In September, the Senate approved an amendment to the 2008 Defense Reauthorization Bill that would have expanded hate crimes laws to cover violent attacks against people based on [...]
A US Army major testified Thursday at a pretrial hearing to determine whether Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan qualifies as an unlawful enemy combatant , describing the circumstances under which Hamdan was taken into custody in Afghanistan in November 2001. If Hamdan, allegedly a driver for Osama bin Laden before his capture and [...]
Alaskan state officials said Wednesday that they are presently building a civil case against oil giant BP for two oil spills in Prudhoe Bay in March and August of 2006. The announcement by the environmental division of the Alaska Department of Law comes less than a week after BP subsidiary BP Exploration Alaska (BPXA) pleaded [...]
Corrupt police and court systems are the most common institutions to demand bribes , according to a report released Thursday by Berlin-based corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) . The TI Global Corruption Barometer 2007 found that globally "25 per cent of respondents who came in contact with the police were asked to pay a bribe." [...]
Riot police and blockades prevented former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and hundreds of supporters from marching Thursday to the home of ousted Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry , who has been under virtual house arrest since Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's November 3 declaration of emergency rule. Sharif and his supporters disbanded peacefully. Meanwhile lawyers [...]
Bolivian President Evo Morales has proposed a national referendum on whether he and the country's nine provincial governors should remain in office in response to accusations that the process of creating a new constitution has been illegitimate. Although the text was approved last week by the Bolivian Constituent Assembly , simultaneous protests in Sucre resulted [...]
