[JURIST] Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich [JURIST news archive] pleaded not guilty Wednesday to amended corruption charges. Blagojevich entered the plea [Chicago Tribune report] in response to eight amended charges [JURIST report], including racketeering, attempted extortion, bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery, and conspiracy to commit extortion. Those additional charges allow [read more]

[JURIST] A court in Myanmar on Wednesday convicted rights activist and US citizen Kyaw Zaw Lwin, also known as Nyi Nyi Aung [Freedom Now profile], on charges of fraud and forgery. Aung was sentenced to three years in prison [AFP report] for forging an identity card, and one year each [read more]

[JURIST] The Supreme People's Court of China [official website, in Chinese] on Tuesday issued new guidelines for limiting capital punishment [Xinhua report] in Chinese courts, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. The guidelines rely on a policy of "justice tempered with mercy" and instruct courts to issue the death [read more]

[JURIST] The acting head of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti [official website] said Tuesday that while conditions are currently stable, the Haitian people must turn in the thousands of prisoners that escaped [JURIST report] when the January 12 earthquake [JURIST news archive] destroyed prisons and jails. Edmond Mulet called [read more]

[JURIST] The Office of Immigration Statistics of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) [official website] released a report [text, PDF] Wednesday estimating that the total number of illegal immigrants [JURIST news archive] living in the US fell to 10.8 million during the year ending in January 2009. The DHS [read more]

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Tuesday that strip searching all incoming inmates does not violate the Fourth Amendment [text] and is necessary to prevent illegal substances from entering prisons. San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey had enacted the policy to strip [read more]

[JURIST] The England and Wales Court of Appeal [official website] on Wednesday ruled [judgment text] that the government must disclose the seven previously withheld paragraphs outlining the alleged torture of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed [JURIST news archives]. In rejecting the government's appeal, the court found that, "publication of [read more]

[JURIST] An Iranian court sentenced [ISNA report, in Persian] one person to death and eight others to prison on Tuesday for their involvement in protests last December. The men were arrested [AFP report] for participating in protests [JURIST report] that interrupted the Shia Muslim celebration of Ashura. The unidentified man [read more]

[JURIST] Nigerian Vice President Goodluck Jonathan [Online Nigeria profile] will assume the role of president after the parliament voted on Tuesday for him to take over for ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua [BBC profile]. Jonathan reluctantly accepted [BBC report] the presidency under the circumstances and asked for the country to pray [read more]