Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora Wednesday sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asking the UN to establish a tribunal to investigate the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri . The anti-Syrian majority in the Lebanon parliament sent the UN a similar petition last week over the objections of the country's pro-Syria opposition. [...]
A US military Special Operations Command company will be investigated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) for using "excessive force" during a March 4 incident in Afghanistan, an anonymous defense official told AP Wednesday. A US military commander referred the case to the NCIS after his own investigation revealed that the Marines may have [...]
Cuban President Fidel Castro issued a statement Tuesday condemning a US district court ruling freeing an anti-Castro militant on bail prior to his May 11 trial on charges that he lied in his attempt to become a US citizen. Luis Posada Carriles is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela for allegedly plotting the 1976 bombing of [...]
John M. "Mike" McConnell , who succeeded John Negroponte as US Director of National Intelligence in February, is reportedly circulating proposed amendments to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to respond to FISA's perceived inflexibility and inability to respond to the threat of terrorism. The proposed amendments, released ahead of a Senate Intelligence Committee [...]
Six Egyptian human rights organizations issued a report Tuesday alleging that only five percent of Egyptian citizens participated in last month's constitutional referendum , far lower than the 27 percent voting rate announced by Egyptian Justice Minister Mamdouh Marei, and that the vote was marred by fraud. Seventy-six percent of those casting ballots voted in [...]
Claims of clergy sex abuse levied against the US Roman Catholic Church decreased for the second year in a row and recent cases involving claimants under age 18 have dropped significantly, according to an annual report released Wednesday by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops . The survey, compiled by the Center for Applied Research [...]
The Washington State House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a domestic partnership bill (SB 5336) by a vote of 63-35 that grants same-sex couples hospital visitation rights, inheritance rights when there is no will, and the power to authorize medical procedures, such as organ donation and autopsies. Although the legislation stops short of allowing same-sex [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that amidst the political furor over the role of US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in the firings of US Attorneys we should also remember his involvement in the development of US policy denying Geneva Conventions protection to prisoners and authorizing "coercive interrogation" [...]
Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley signed off on legislation Tuesday that will award Maryland's ten votes in the US Electoral College to the national popular vote winner in presidential elections, instead of the recipient of the most votes in Maryland. The legislation will only take effect, however, if a majority of the states representing the total [...]
Former US Green Beret Jonathan 'Jack' Idema , the last of three US citizens jailed in 2004 on charges of running a private jail and torturing eight Afghan men, will reportedly be released from an Afghan prison soon. Idema, US journalist Edward Caraballo , and ex-servicemen Brent Bennett entered Afghanistan on a freelance terrorist hunt [...]
