The Catholic Diocese of San Diego filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday putting a stop to an upcoming sex abuse trial and becoming the largest US diocese to file for bankruptcy thus far. The diocese had been engaged in settlement talks with plaintiffs' attorneys in the lawsuits over clergy abuse , however, after those [...]
The US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Tuesday that it has no jurisdiction to block the Iraqi death sentence for former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan . Ramadan was convicted by the Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT) in November and originally sentenced to life in prison. The IHT Appeals Chamber later deemed [...]
Authorities in the volatile Chechnya region of Russia commonly use electrical shocks, forced confessions, and other forms of torture, said Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg Tuesday after visiting a prison in Chechnya's regional capital, Grozny. Hammarberg accused acting Chechnyan President Ramzan Kadyrov , a former rebel leader who now serves as [...]
A senate panel in Nigeria Tuesday indicted Vice President Atiku Abubakar on corruption charges stemming from the alleged diversion of $145 million dollars of public money to private interests, as well as allegations of receiving more than $4.6 million dollars in bribes. Abubakar has left the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) and is now the [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) Tuesday called on US President George W. Bush in a public letter to account for so-called "ghost prisoners" whose whereabouts and identities have been kept secret since September when Bush acknowledged the existence of secret prisons operated by the the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) outside the US where high-value terror [...]
California Family Bioethics Council v. California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Court of Appeal for the State of California First Appellate Division, February 27, 2006 . Read the full text of the ruling . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
Canada's House of Commons Tuesday voted against extending two provisions of the country's Anti-Terrorism Act that are set to expire March 1. The controversial provisions include a preventive arrest clause that allows police to arrest suspects without warrant for 72 hours and an investigative hearing clause that allows judges to force individuals to testify in [...]
Charges have been brought against former interim president of Liberia Gyude Bryant for embezzling $1.3 million during his tenure from October 2003 until January 2006, according to a Liberia government statement Tuesday. The indictment was based on an audit conducted by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) , which monitored the interim government [...]
US District Judge Robert G. Doumar of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Tuesday denied a motion to dismiss filed by the government of Sudan in a lawsuit brought by families of sailors killed in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole . Doumar said the Death on the High Seas [...]
US District Court for the District of Columbia Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson Tuesday sentenced former US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Dr. Lester M. Crawford to three years supervised probation and imposed about $90,000 in fines. Crawford had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of conflict of interest and false writing in October 2006. [...]
