Banned Egyptian opposition group the Muslim Brotherhood announced Wednesday that it plans to boycott next week's referendum on controversial constitutional amendments proposed last year by President Hosni Mubarak and recently approved by lawmakers. The Brotherhood, while illegal in Egypt, currently holds 88 seats in the Egyptian Parliament ; Brotherhood members were responsible for the majority [...]
Former Vice President Al Gore testified before US congressional committees Wednesday that global warming is "a crisis that threatens the survival of our civilization and the habitability of the Earth." In his opening statement to a joint session of the House committees on Energy and Commerce and Science and Technology , Gore reviewed new evidence [...]
The Sex Professionals of Canada (SPOC) announced Wednesday they will initiate an application with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice alleging that three Canadian criminal offenses are unconstitutional under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms . Prostitution is legal in Canada, but the advocacy group argues that the combined effect of three provisions – [...]
Two independent UN rights experts voiced concern Wednesday over Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's recent suspension of Pakistan Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry for "misuse of office" and ensuing protests across the country. In a joint statement , UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers Leandro Despouy and the Secretary-General's Special Representative on the [...]
Serge Brammertz , the deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court who is leading the UN's independent investigation into the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri told the UN Security Council Wednesday that he has made progress in finding the motive behind Hariri's assassination, but also requested an additional year to continue [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Wednesday denied a petition for review of a 2004 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) order preempting state regulation over Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, such as Vonage and other Internet phone companies. Several state regulatory commissions had challenged the order as arbitrary and capricious. In [...]
The Canadian government opened an official inquiry Wednesday into allegations by three Canadian citizens that Canadian security forces played a role in their arrest and alleged torture in Syria between 2001 and 2004. Kuwaiti-born Ahmed Al Maati, Syrian-born Abdullah Almalki and Iraqi-born Muayyed Nureddin each claim they were detained and tortured by Syrian military intelligence [...]
The Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal on Wednesday overturned a $1.58 billion 2005 jury verdict awarded to billionaire financier and Revlon chairman Ron Perelman , finding that the plaintiffs failed to prove compensatory damages. Coleman Parent Holdings, Inc., of which Perelman held a controlling interest, sued Morgan Stanley after Morgan Stanley advised Coleman on [...]
A Nigerian senate committee indicted President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar Wednesday on corruption charges for diverting public money to private interests. In February, a senate panel indicted Abubakar on corruption charges for the alleged diversion of $145 million dollars of public money belonging to the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) to his [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in the case of Roper v. Weaver , 06-313, a case in which the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit overturned a capital sentence on the grounds that the prosecutor's penalty phase closing argument was "unfairly inflammatory." During the penalty phase of the trial, the [...]
