The German cabinet on Monday approved legal conditions that the government will impose on banks that receive financial assistance through the German financial rescue bill . The rescue bill , signed into law on October 17, will provide up to 400 billion euros to stabilize and revive the market through loan guarantees, up to 80 [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday appointed a special master to investigate and oversee a water rights case brought by Montana against Wyoming and North Dakota. Montana officials argued in February 2007 filings that Wyoming officials breached the 1950 Yellowstone River Compact by failing to keep consumption of water from the Tongue and Powder rivers [...]

Malcolm Nance : "On Friday the Department of Defense released news of a revision to the 2005 DoD directive regarding the interrogation of prisoners by a wide range of non-DoD agencies and persons. This recent change, promulgated by Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England on October 9, represents what appears to be a sudden outbreak [...]

Bennett H. Klein : "The Kerrigan decision is significant as being the third judicial opinion in the country to rule that the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage violates state constitutional provisions. After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's 2003 Goodridge decision, there was almost a five year gap between the time that California in May [...]

Joel Reynolds : "In early October, NRDC argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that executive agencies cannot trump the factual findings of federal district courts and that the district court in our case properly balanced the real harms to whales and other marine mammals from sonar against the alleged harms to the U.S. Navy's training. [...]

A Bulgarian court on Monday began criminal proceedings against nine people accused of embezzling millions of dollars from European Union (EU) aid funds. The defendants are accused of stealing 14 million leva ($9.6 million) from funds made available to Bulgaria by the EU as part of the Special Accession Program for Agricultural and Rural Development [...]

US military and civilian prosecutors have petitioned to have the prison term for Salim Ahmed Hamdan reconsidered, arguing that the Guantanamo military commission which heard his case improperly gave him credit for time spent in custody, according to documents released to the Wall Street Journal last week. Hamdan was sentenced to five and a half [...]

The High Criminal Court in Istanbul, Turkey, on Monday began the trial of 86 defendants accused of attempting to destabilize and overthrow the country's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) . The accused are said to belong to the secular Ergenekon group, believed responsible for bombing the headquarters of the newspaper Cumhuriyet , assassinating Turkish-Armenian [...]

Spanish prosecutors Monday challenged a probe launched by Judge Baltasar Garzon into the disappearances of tens of thousands of people from the beginning of the Spanish Civil War through the early years of Francisco Franco's dictatorship , asserting that any wartime disappearances and executions are covered by Spain's 1977 amnesty law, passed to aid Spain [...]

The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Sunday issued a new policy paper liberalizing the country's land use laws in an effort to decrease rural poverty and increase the country's agricultural capacity. The CPC announced its approval of the Decision on Major Issues Concerning the Advancement of Rural Reform and Development last week. The [...]