US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that the US Department of the Treasury will propose stronger rules in response to the current economic crisis, at a meeting with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Wednesday. Geithner also said that the US should push for global financial reforms when he accompanies US President Barack Obama to [...]

Steve Simpson : "In the case of Citizens United v. FEC, the US Supreme Court confronted the inescapable logic of the campaign finance laws: if the government can ban a broadcast advertisement that is paid for by a corporation, then it can ban movies and even books as well. In fact, during the argument, Justice [...]

FBI director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday that the rise in financial fraud investigations is limiting the ability of the FBI to fight other crimes. Mueller, speaking during the "Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation" hearing , told Congress that since 2003 public corruption cases have increased more than 58 percent. [...]

The Xinhua District Court in China Wednesday accepted the first civil suit seeking damages against a dairy company in connection with the contaminated milk scandal . The lawsuit , which was brought by the family of one of the children who fell ill last year, seeks more than USD $4,500 from the now-bankrupt Sanlu Group [...]

Israel unlawfully and extensively used white phosphorous munitions in their recent Gaza offensive, according to a report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) . The report maintains that while white phosphorous is allowed to be used to obscure ground operations in open areas and against military targets, international law prohibits air-bursting the shells over [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in United States v. Denedo , in which the Court will consider whether a military appellate court has jurisdiction to entertain a petition for a writ of error coram nobis filed by a former service member to review a final court-martial conviction. The case involves a Nigerian [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled 7-2 Wednesday in Puckett v. United States that a defendant's claim that the prosecution breached a plea agreement must be raised at trial in order to be reviewable on appeal, according to the plain-error standard under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure . Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority: [...]

Timothy Spence : "North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is no stranger to ruthlessly muzzling press freedom at home to bury the truth about natural disasters, famine, economic despair and his regime's diplomatic tussles. But the apparent capture of two American journalists on March 17 by North Korean border guards may be more than just a [...]

A substantial increase in the number of immigrants detained by the US over the last decade and the length of their detentions "falls short of international human rights law," according to a report released Wednesday by Amnesty International (AI) . AI reported that the number of immigrants detained by US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [...]

The US Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Tuesday to investigate "abusive credit card practices and bankruptcy" . The hearing, chaired by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) , was held in conjunction with the proposed Consumer Credit Fairness Act (CCFA) , which would disallow bankruptcy claims for consumer credit card debt bearing high interest rates. The [...]