JURIST Guest Columnist Dr. Laurent Pech, Jean Monnet Lecturer in European Union Law at the National University of Ireland, Galway, says that the controversy over ratification of the European Union's Lisbon Treaty is somewhat strange as the Treaty represents no radical alteration of the current "constitutional" relationship between the EU and its member states… With [...]

Khasan Yandiyev, deputy head of the Supreme Court in Russia's Ingushetia province was shot dead Sunday while changing a car tire near the town of Karabulak, according to a regional interior ministry spokesman quoted by Russian media. His killers have not yet been identified. Local media said Yandiyev had chaired trials of both corrupt officials [...]

Internecine conflict among factions of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda has killed a rebel commander wanted by International Criminal Court prosecutors, according to sources speaking to Reuters Sunday. Okot Odhiambo had been charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes associated with the LRA attacks on Ugandan refugee camps in 2003 and [...]

Former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim will return to political life Monday as the leader of opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat, marking the expiration of his 10-year ban from public office arising from corruption and now-overturned sodomy convictions . In the country's March 8 elections , the recently formed coalition won a third of the [...]

Zimbabwe's High Court Sunday ordered the country’s Electoral Commission to refrain from recounting the results of the combined March 29 elections until the presidential poll results are announced. Zimbabwean opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) sought to enjoin the Electoral Commission following the official announcement that a recount in 23 out of 210 constituencies [...]

A Pakistani rights group Sunday urged Pakistan's new government to immediately release dozens of people its security agencies have secretly detained as part of President Pervez Musharraf's cooperation with the US in its "war on terror" . Defense of Human Rights and other critics of Musharraf claim his administration has detained dozens of militant suspects [...]

Several top military officials in the Philippines on Sunday called for Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to pardon the nine officers sentenced this week for their role in a failed 2003 coup . General Hermogenes Esperon, head of the armed forces and Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said they recommended pardoning the officers, stressing the importance [...]

Nine Tibetan monks have been arrested by Chinese authorities in connection with the March bombing of a government building as part of recent protests against Chinese rule in Tibet . China's Xinhua news agency reported Saturday that the Buddhist monks have confessed to the bombing. Also Saturday, Chinese President Hu Jintao said that the ongoing [...]

The Communist Party of Nepal – Maoists (CPN-M) has won 27 constituencies where vote counting has been completed in the election for Nepal's Constituent Assembly, election officials said Saturday. The 601 member assembly will be in charge of drafting a new constitution , which is seen as marking the end of the country's 240-year-old monarchy. [...]

Indonesian Internet providers said Friday that they will remove a ban on file-sharing websites including YouTube, Google Video, and MySpace , which was put in place to prevent the transmission of a controversial anti-Islamic film created by far-right Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders . Due to complaints from Web users, the Internet providers have said that [...]