A Bosnian court created to ease the caseload of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia opened its first trial Wednesday against war crimes suspect Boban Simsic, a member of a Serb paramilitary group that served under Milan Lukic . Simsic surrendered to EU peacekeepers in January, and tribunal President Medizda Kresco called the [...]
Two men implicated in the growing scandal surrounding Texas Republican campaign groups associated with US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay have been charged with two additional felonies for violations in the 2002 election. Americans for a Republican Majority head Jim Ellis and John Colyandro, former executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority , were [...]
The Grand Bench (en banc panel) of the Supreme Court of Japan ruled Wednesday that a clause of the country's Public Offices Election Law restricting the voting rights of Japanese nationals living abroad is unconstitutional. The court determined that the legislature was negligent in passing the mesaure and ordered the Japanese government to pay 60,000 [...]
US Chief Justice nominee John Roberts wrapped up a third day of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday marked by more jousting with Democratic senators and strong support from Republicans. As time went on, it appeared increasingly likely that Roberts would be approved by the Committee and confirmed by the full Senate in [...]
Delta Airlines and Northwest Airlines , the third and fourth largest US air carriers, both filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday. The filings highlighted the financial distress of the airline industry, particularly after spiking oil prices in Hurricane Katrina's wake, and the two airlines are expected to use bankruptcy protection to cut labor and [...]
In Wednesday's environmental law news, Pennsylvania has joined 14 other states suing the US Department of Energy (DOE) , alleging that the agency is 6 to 13 years behind schedule in updating efficiency standards for some household and commercial appliance categories and has failed to issue any new efficiency standards at all since January 2001. [...]
A US lumber industry trade group has challenged the constitutionality of the dispute settlement system under the North American Free Trade Agreement , arguing that the system violates due process. The Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports filed the lawsuit Tuesday after an independent panel under NAFTA had previously struck down US tariffs on Canadian lumber [...]
The Australian government has backed away from proposals to strip citizenship from those convicted of terrorism offenses, instead suggesting that it may be more effective to monitor them. Australian Prime Minister John Howard originally supported removing citizenship of those breaking proposed anti-terror laws. Citizenship Minister John Cobb said, however, that those stripped of citizenship would [...]
Former Afghan mujahideen Abdul Rabb Rasoul Sayyaf said Wednesday that he supported an inquiry into abuses committed by fighters during the civil war in Afghanistan in the 1990s, but he rejected calls to bar those implicated from parliamentary elections. Sayyaf, a member of the Ittihad-i-Islami faction, has been accused of war crimes during that time [...]
AP is reporting that the Massachusetts state legislature has rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have banned gay marriage but allowed civil unions. Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage when the state's Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2003 that same-sex couples are entitled to wed. Massachusetts law requires that a [...]
