Anti-abortion protestors took to the streets in Lisbon, Portugal Sunday in advance of a referendum vote scheduled for February 11 in which voters will decide whether to ease restrictions imposed by the current Portuguese abortion law . The Portuguese Parliament approved the national referendum in October after the ruling Socialist Party proposed the idea in [...]

Lawyers for Nicolo Pollari, the former head of the Italian Intelligence and Security Services (SISMI) , moved Monday to stop Pollari's trial on charges that he was involved in the alleged 2003 CIA kidnapping and rendition of Egyptian cleric Moustafa Hassan Nasr . Pollari's lawyers argued at the preliminary hearing that the evidence proving his [...]

Libya is willing to release of five Bulgarian nurses convicted of infecting over 400 Libyan patients, primarily children in exchange for compensation, Seif al-Islam, the son of Libyan leader Colonel Muhamar Gaddafi , told the Bulgarian newspaper 24 Hours Monday. Seif al-Islam said the plan – designed to satisfy the parents of those affected as [...]

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered all branches of the military to minimize their use of "stop loss" tactics to keep soldiers on active duty beyond their service contracts, notwithstanding a series of court rulings upholding the controversial practice. The "stop loss" policy , long criticized as a "backdoor draft," allows each branch of [...]

The government of Norway has proposed new legislation that would allow embryonic stem cell research to potentially find cures for various diseases. Norwegian Minister of Health and Care Services Silvia Brustad said late last week that the government hoped researchers could use the stem cells to find potential cures for AIDS, cancer, heart disease, and [...]

Bowers v. City of Philadelphia, US District Judge R. Barclay Surrick, US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, January 25, 2007 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Ali Hassan al-Majid , the cousin of Saddam Hussein also known to the Western media as "Chemical Ali," unapologetically admitted in court Sunday that he gave orders for the destruction of dozens Kurdish villages and the relocation of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s. The prosecution in the ongoing genocide trial currently underway before the [...]

An Italian draft law published Friday proposing prison sentences for race-based hate crimes but not making Holocaust denial an explicit crime in itself may complicate a German-initiated move to criminalize such Holocaust denial throughout the European Union. The Italian law, written by Justice Minister Clemente Mastella , would punish inciting racial hatred with up to [...]

Civil rights groups have been pushing Democratic lawmakers to reconsider a bill banning racial profiling by any government entity since an airline's decision to remove a group of imams from a flight in November. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the US House Judiciary Committee, and Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), who first championed the bill [...]

An Israeli parliamentary subcommittee approved day an amendment Saturday that would require Knesset members to cast open rather than secret ballots in presidential elections. The "Peres law," so called because it would greatly favor presidential candidate Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres' chances of winning, was passed by a 7-5 margin. It now must receive a [...]