The Bush administration on Tuesday indicated it would veto HR 1433 , a bill that would treat the Washington DC as its own Congressional district with voting rights. The policy statement said the bill would be unconstitutional, as the District of Columbia is not a state, and Article 1 , Section 2 of the US [...]
The upper house of the Jordanian parliament on Wednesday approved a bill that imposes stiff fines for journalists who defame any religion protected under the country's constitution – i.e. Islam, Christianity or Judaism – or "offending the prophets" by writing or cartoons. The upper house dropped a controversial provision, approved by the lower house earlier [...]
Ecuador swore in 21 replacement legislators on Tuesday night, thus establishing a quorum for future legislative sessions after the Supreme Electoral Tribunal dismissed 57 of 100 lawmakers in early March. The controversy began when Ecuador's unicameral Congress and President Rafael Correa submitted to the tribunal differing versions of a referendum on amending the constitution . [...]
A Russian judge has ordered imprisoned former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky moved to a detention center in Moscow during an investigation into new embezzlement and money laundering charges , according to one of Khodorkovsky's defense lawyers. The court rejected the demands of prosecutors who wanted to conduct the investigation at the Siberian penal colony in [...]
A House Judiciary Committee panel on Wednesday authorized the committee chairman to subpoena former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, former DOJ Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson , who resigned two weeks ago , and two DOJ aides to testify and provide documents to the committee regarding the [...]
Detainees held in secret prisons operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) throughout the globe were subject to abuse and sleep deprivation, according to a confidential report prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) . In interviews with former detainees, the ICRC reports that it learned that terror suspects were forced [...]
Pakistani Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry is accused of misusing his influence to get his son jobs and promotions, according to details released for the first time Wednesday. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf suspended Chaudhry on March 9, but no details of the charges were made public at that time. According to the charge [...]
US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) Stuart Bowen told the US Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that investigators will be employing stricter standards when dealing with companies performing contract work in Iraq that engage in war profiteering. During the committee hearing , Bowen testified that the "SIGIR will do everything in its power [...]
J. Wells Dixon : "In the last week, the government has released unclassified excerpts of Combatant Status Review Tribunal proceedings for four men who were transferred from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006. These documents are remarkable not only because they reveal confessions to horrible acts of violence — in the cases [...]
British magistrate Timothy Workman ruled Tuesday that Balkan war criminal Milan Spanovic need not return to Croatia to face an international arrest warrant. Workman refused to extradite Spanovic, who was convicted of war crimes in absentia and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1993 stemming from his conduct during Croatia's 1991-1995 independence war . [...]
