Ali Khan : "Making a sensible reversal, the Bush Administration has decided to negotiate with Syria and Iran, the two Muslim nations of the so-called Axis of Evil. (The US is already talking to North Korea, the third nation of the Axis). This policy reversal is in line with the letter and spirit of the [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Jonathan Hafetz, Counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, says that recent court rulings in the US (Boumediene) and Canada (Charkaoui) on the interpretation of laws governing the detention of terror suspects exemplify contrasting approaches to the balancing of rights and national security concerns [...]

The White House said Tuesday that President Bush will veto a new anti-terror bill if it contains a provision which would allow Transportation Security Administration airport screeners to unionize. While other federal employees already have similar union abilities, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said that allowing screeners to do so is against the best interest [...]

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 [...]