A British High Court judge has warned that forcible returns of failed asylum seekers to Iraq could be unlawful. While not blocking removals during the urgent judicial review application brought by a Kurdish Iraqi, Justice Lawrence Collins said it was "improper" to enforce removals of people who may be protected and that removal is not [...]
US District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania John R. Padova ruled Friday that the US Department of Defense does not have the authority to dissolve a Pennsylvania National Guard division without approval of Governor Ed Rendell . The judge held that the DOD's recommendation to deactivate the 111th Fighter Wing of the Pennsylvania [...]
Sexual Harassment & Violence at the Military Service Academies Report, United States Department of Defense, August 25, 2005 . Excerpt: Both the Naval and the Military Academies have made progress in addressing these issues over the last several years. The Academies need resources and support from the Services, DoD, and Congress to ensure success. The [...]
Syria is ready to assist the UN investigation into the February assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri , a Syrian foreign ministry official told AFP Friday. Lebanese news reports said that German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis would meet "a Syrian representative" in Geneva within 24 hours, citing a UN official in New York. Syria [...]
Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani announced Friday that Iran is not concerned about possible UN Security Council action on its continued uranium enrichment activities but said that the nation planned to present new ideas aimed at reducing suspicions about its nuclear agenda. Larijani said that Iran hoped to release a new plan for broadening [...]
Four California Republican lawmakers have announced that they will introduce legislation which would give California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger the ability to declare a state of emergency along the border with Mexico. Current California law allows the governor to declare emergencies for war, epidemics, natural disasters, and "local emergencies." Assemblymen Mark Wyland and Ray Haynes , [...]
Jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has ended his four-day hunger strike , his lawyer announced Friday. Khodorkovsky began the protest after his business partner and co-defendant Platon Lebedev was placed in solitary confinement for refusing to take a required daily walk, though Russian prison officials denied reports of the hunger strike. Lebedev has been [...]
Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge James L. Ryan issued an order Thursday allowing corrections officials to forcibly feed and hydrate John Allen Muhammad , who received the death penalty for a murder during the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks , if he did not voluntarily end his hunger strike. Muhammad, currently awaiting trial for six more [...]
DNA evidence has confirmed that remains exhumed from a suburban Chicago cemetery in June are those of Emmett Till , a 14-year-old African American boy slain in Mississippi in 1955. The exhumation was the final step in the US Department of Justice investigation into the murder. Accused of whistling at, or openly flirting with, a [...]
Lawyers for Osman Hussein , apprehended in Rome as a suspect in the failed July 21 London bombing attacks , Friday challenged an Italian court's approval of his extradition to Britain . According to his lawyer, Antonietta Sonnessa, it would be impossible for the suspect to get a fair trial in Britain given the mood [...]
