US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified Wednesday in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the rendition of Canadian citizen Maher Arar was not "handled as it should have been," but stopped short of apologizing to the 37 year-old Syrian-born engineer. Arar was detained in the US in 2002 after flying to New [...]
The US District Court for the District of Alaska Tuesday ordered ConocoPhillips subsidiary Polar Tankers, Inc. to pay $2.5 million in fines after it pleaded guilty to covering up a 2004 oil spill. In January 2004, crew members of the Polar Discovery failed to report that that tanker had leaked oil sludge into the ocean [...]
The US Senate Wednesday confirmed embattled Mississippi Court of Appeals Justice Leslie H. Southwick to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit by a vote of 59-38 , despite broad criticism of the nominee from Democrats and civil rights groups. Southwick, who was unanimously given the highest possible rating of "well qualified" by [...]
Protesters in 12 cities around the world demonstrated against the Myanmar junta Wednesday to commemorate 12 years of detention for Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi . The protests coincided with an increase in international attention on Myanmar following the junta's violent September crackdown against anti-junta demonstrators, and came a day after the United [...]
Microsoft announced Wednesday that it has withdrawn its last two appeals of a European Union antitrust ruling requiring the software giant to share technical information with competitors. The software giant dropped an appeal of the €280.5 million fine imposed on it in July 2006 for antitrust violations and a second appeal of a European Commission [...]
The Canadian government introduced a bill Tuesday that would revive two controversial anti-terrorism provisions of the Anti-terrorism Act that expired earlier this year. The bill, brought forward in the Senate, would force anyone with relevant information on terrorist actions to go before a judge and would allow police to detain any person thought to be [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) Wednesday slammed Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for threatening and intimidating the Supreme Court of Pakistan in the days leading up to the court's decision on petitions challenging Musharraf's bid for re-election as improper due to his dual role as president and army chief. In a statement , HRW said: The Pakistani [...]
The US House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted Tuesday in favor of the Global Online Freedom Act of 2007 , a bill aimed at preventing US Internet companies from turning over users' personal information to governments that would use the data to quash dissent. The bill would create a right for individuals to sue companies [...]
Spanish anti-terror judge Baltasar Garzon issued indictments for 22 people on charges of participating in or collaborating with a terrorist organization that recruits fighters to aid al Qaeda in Iraq, the Spanish National Court said Tuesday. According to prosecutors, those recruited are sent to Egypt to learn Arabic and religion before being sent to Iraq [...]
The highest court in New York state Tuesday narrowly ruled against overturning state precedent holding the state's death penalty law unconstitutional. Urged to create an exception for a man who murdered five people at a Queens Wendy's in May 2000, the New York Court of Appeals upheld by 4-3 its 2004 decision in People v. [...]
