Prosecutors in the French Caribbean island of Martinique have initiated a manslaughter investigation against West Caribbean Airways . The investigation will target the airline's increasingly controversial safety record to determine if WCA was at fault for the crash on Tuesday which killed 160 people . The plane reported engine troubles and then suddenly crashed in [...]
Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen reported Thursday that senior leaders in the Tamil Tigers have agreed to attend peace talks to be held with representatives of the Sri Lankan government . The date and location of the talks has yet to be decided, but the meeting will be the first between the two sides [...]
The Illinois Supreme Court reversed a $1 billion judgment against State Farm Thursday, ruling that a class action should not have been certified in the case. In 1999, State Farm was held liable for using sub-standard parts in repairing policyholders' damaged vehicles. The state Supreme Court held that, due to differences in the plaintiffs' insurance [...]
Japan announced plans Thursday to revise the so-called G-4 plan for expansion of the UN Security Council after the African Union rejected their previous proposal . The new plan will be presented to the UN in September and is expected to add another non-permanent seat for an African country. The original plan added six permanent [...]
Chief Justice Evan Gicheru of the Kenyan Court of Justice is scheduled to decide Thursday whether three separate court cases filed by three different opposition groups of the Kenyan Parliament should be consolidated into one case and heard by the nation's highest court. The suits seek to enjoin Kenyan Attorney General Amos Wako from publishing [...]
The Nigerian Senate has passed a resolution calling for the executive to abolish a pact made with the United States that said neither country will turn over suspected war criminals to the Hague's International Criminal Court (ICC) , which Washington opposes. The two countries signed the agreement in June 2003 under Article 98 of the [...]
A majority of jurors in a Republic of Congo court have acquitted 15 senior level military and police officials accused of orchestrating the 1999 disappearance of over 300 refugees returning from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Congolese city Brazzaville. Families of the victims brought civil and criminal charges against the officials, but [...]
In a Slate article published Wednesday, legal ethicists Stephen Gillers, David Luban and Steven Lubet claim that the White House violated the law when it interviewed Judge John Roberts this spring for the US Supreme Court while he was considering a challenge to US military tribunals in his capacity as a federal appeals court judge. [...]
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe introduced Thursday a highly controversial constitutional reform bill to the Zimbabwean Parliament . The constitutional amendment bill contains proposed changes to the Zimbabwean Constitution that leaders in the MDC Opposition Party have criticized as little more than a naked power grab by Mugabe. The provisions include the reintroduction of the currently [...]
Lawyers representing the family of Brazilian citizen Jean Charles de Menezes, mistakenly killed by police who thought they were pursuing a suspect in the July 21 London bombing , have accused Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair of trying to block an independent inquiry into the shooting. The lawyers said Thursday that Blair wrote to [...]
