The Venezuelan National Assembly on Friday approved by 160-7 a set of proposed amendments to the country's constitution , including reforms that would eliminate presidential term limits and augment the president's emergency powers. The proposed amendments passed a preliminary vote in the Assembly in August; all of the constitutional reforms will be subject to a [...]

Pakistan's Supreme Court Saturday rejected a declaration of emergency rule issued by President Pervez Musharraf earlier in the day after paramilitary troops and police blocked off the Supreme Court building with the judges still inside. Musharraf made the declaration and suspended the constitution as the country anticipated a ruling by the court on whether Musharraf [...]

The Alaska Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Parental Consent Act, a state law requiring parental consent before pregnant teens under the age of 17 can have an abortion, violates the teens' constitutional right to privacy. Writing for the majority in a 3-2 decision, Chief Justice Dana Fabe said:The State's asserted interest in protecting a [...]

Yahoo! General Counsel Michael Callahan apologized to members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Friday for failing to clarify his testimony before the committee regarding Yahoo's involvement in providing information to the Chinese government about Shi Tao , who has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for divulging state secrets abroad. Callahan testified [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Moeen Cheema, professor of Law & Policy at the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Lahore, Pakistan, says that President Pervez Musharaff's declaration of emergency rule is in effect martial law, imposed to crack down on a dissenting judiciary that was about to rule against Musharraf in a critical election case… According [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Syed Umair Javed of the Department of Law & Policy, Lahore University of Management Sciences, in Lahore, Pakistan, says that General Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule is an illegal, ultra-constitutional and desperate attempt to hold on to power by unconstitutionally clipping the power of Pakistan's judiciary… Pakistan's military ruler, General [...]

US senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Friday that they would support the nomination of Michael Mukasey as US attorney general, according to preliminary reports. Their endorsements in combination with those of GOP colleagues would likely give Mukasey the ten votes that he needs for his nomination to pass the Senate Judiciary [...]

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior administration officials must testify about whether they shared classified national defense information with two American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobbyists, a federal judge ruled Friday. Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, indicted in 2005 under the 1917 Espionage Act for allegedly conspiring to receive and disclose [...]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Friday asked the US Supreme Court to review a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York vacating an FCC determination that Fox Television broadcasts violated the FCC's indecency and profanity prohibitions. The appeals court ruled that the FCC's "fleeting expletives" standard breached the [...]

The UN Human Rights Committee expressed concern Friday over continuing human rights violations in Algeria. In its 2007 report on the North African country, the Committee flagged massacres, torture, rape and disappearances, as well as religious and political oppression. It concluded that the violence was a product of both armed groups and government security forces, [...]