President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines Saturday signed into law a bill abolishing the death penalty. The law repeals the country's 12-year old death penalty and converts all current death penalty sentences into terms of life imprisonment. The Philippines Senate and House of Representatives passed the bill earlier in June. The legislation went directly [...]
A provision in the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act on its way to the US House of Representatives after being passed 96-0 Thursday by the Senate would restore military aid to countries that refuse to sign bilateral immunity agreements – so-called Article 98 agreements – under which they promise not to hand over US personnel [...]
The US Navy announced Friday that it has begun a criminal investigation into how information containing Social Security numbers and other personal data for 28,000 sailors was found on a civilian Web site. Although the information has been removed, the Navy did not identify the Web site or its owner, nor did it explain how [...]
The American Bar Assocation (ABA) and the US Justice Department agreed on Friday that the ABA would pay the goverment $185,000 in fees and costs for violating six provisions of a 1996 court order that settled a 1995 government suit against the association for violations of antitrust law. The suit alleged that the ABA had [...]
Governor M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut said Friday that a tentative agreement has been made between the city of New London and two homeowners who refused to leave their homes for a private development on their land and ultimately took their case all the way to the US Supreme Court. Susette Kelo and Pasquale Cristofaro [...]
The US Second Circuit Court of Appeals declined Friday to order the government to turn over information about the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program in its terrorism financing case against Yassin Aref. Aref asked for greater access to the evidence against him in an attempt to determine if it had been gathered through the [...]
US v. Batiste, et al, United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, June 22, 2006 . Read the full text of the indictment . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
Turkey's Supreme Court on Friday announced that the corruption trial of former Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz has been indefinitely suspended, meaning that the charges against Yilmaz will be dropped if he does not face similar accusations within the next five years. Yilmaz and former Economics Minister Gunes Taner were accused of pre-determining the winner of [...]
Canada authorities confirmed Friday that they had asked Germany to detain Iranian prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi if he passed through German territory after attending the inaugural meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, as an observer. Mortazavi is widely suspected of being present in July 2003 when Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi died from [...]
The US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday struck down a US Securities and Exchange Commission rule regulating hedge funds. The rule required hedge fund advisors responsible for at least $30 million in assets to register with the SEC, thus subjecting them to legal scrutiny for potential fraud. In [...]
