Two major Pakistani lawyers' groups are pressing efforts to encourage a boycott of the country's January 8 general elections, Pakistan's Post daily reported Saturday. Joining ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry's call for opposition political parties to boycott the elections , the Supreme Court Bar Association (SBCA) and the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) [...]

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President Bush urged Congress in his weekly radio address Saturday to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in time to replace the temporary Protect America Act , set to expire February 1. That Act currently allows the US government to eavesdrop inside of the US without court approval as long as one end of [...]

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The Pakistani government offered to reinstate all superior court judges sacked under emergency rule except for ousted Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry but the deposed judges rejected the proposal, according to a report in the Pakistani Nation daily Saturday. The Nation said Peshawar High Court Bar Association President Abdul Latif Afridi revealed the failed compromise [...]

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US military judge Col. Peter Brownback has issued a blanket order protecting the identities of prosecution witnesses in the military commission trial of Omar Khadr , the New York Times reported Saturday. The order, originally rendered on October 15, was contained within previously unavailable commission documents that were only recently released by the Pentagon. The [...]

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Three United Nations human rights experts joined together Friday to voice their distress over the effect planned constitutional reforms in Venezuela may have on civil liberties and the rule of law in the country. Ambeyi Ligabo, Special Rapporteur on Freedom of opinion and expression; Hina Jilani, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders; [...]

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