JURIST Guest Columnist Benjamin Davis of the University of Toledo College of Law says that President Bush's acknowledgement that high-level terror detainees have been held in secret CIA prisons should be the beginning of a cleansing process in which leaders of the American executive, legislature, and judicial branches of government and the American people as [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Leonard Baynes of the St. John's University School of Law says that to remedy racially-stereotyped reporting of events such as the 2005 Katrina disaster, the Federal Communications Commission should implement policies to increase the number of minorities who own and are employed by broadcast stations… During Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, viewers saw pictures [...]
President Bush's recent acknowledgement of secret CIA prisons for important terror detainees was motivated by the personal urgings of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to release all British prisoners, and from pleas to close the sites from other US allies, along with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who suggested to Bush that the secret [...]
Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage personally admitted to leaking the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson during a phone interview on Thursday. Armitage apologized for the leak, which he maintains was unintentional. Armitage said the admission came during interviews with reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Nowak, when asked why Mr. Wilson, an [...]
Iraq's parliament adjourned abruptly Thursday following a heated debate about a draft law that would divide the country into autonomous regions. Sunnis oppose the plan because it would leave them without access to Iraq's oil as most Sunnis live in the central and western provinces of the country where oil resources are limited. Still, Shiite [...]
Four human rights experts appointed by the United Nations are heading to the Middle East to investigate possible abuses during the recent Mideast conflict between Israel and Lebanon. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Representative on the human rights of internally displaced persons Walter Kälin, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on [...]
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Thursday urged members of the Canadian Senate's Special Committee on Senate Reform to support legislation that would limit terms in the country's unelected Senate to eight years. Currently, senators appointed on a regional basis can retain their seats until the age of 75. Harper's appearance marked the first time a [...]
A bill designed to put the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program on a sound legal footing failed to make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday. Sponsored by committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) , the legislation would have increased the secret warrant time limit from three to seven days, required progress reports from the [...]
A Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote on whether to confirm the nomination of John Bolton as permanent US ambassador to the United Nations was postponed Thursday after Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) called for more information from Bolton. Senate Committee chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN) has not said when a rescheduled vote will take place. Democrats have [...]
Defense lawyer Badih Aref Izzat, representing a co-defendant in Saddam Hussein's trial , announced Thursday that his assistant had been found murdered in Baghdad. Abdel Monem Yassin Hussein is said to have been kidnapped on August 29 and was found five days later in a hospital morgue with three gunshot wounds. Izzat is defending intelligence [...]
