US Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. unveiled a plan to overhaul the nation's financial regulatory system and merge key federal administrative agencies in remarks at a press conference in Washington Monday. The executive summary of the Treasury's Blueprint for a Modernized Financial Regulatory Structure described the initiative as presentinga series of "short-term" and "intermediate-term" [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that New Jersey and Delaware have "overlapping authority" to control "extraordinary" construction projects along the Delaware River. The Court's decision came in New Jersey v. Delaware , where the Court revisited the century-old water boundary dispute between the two states. New Jersey filed a lawsuit against Delaware in 2005 [...]

The draft constitution of Myanmar , slated to be put before the country's citizens in a May referendum, contains a provision reserving 25 percent of parliamentary seats for the military, and another provision that will effectively prevent pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from seeking the presidency or a seat in parliament due to her [...]

Ousted Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry , who was released from virtual house arrest last week on the orders of recently-elected Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani , returned to his hometown of Quetta on Monday for the first of a series of trips and speeches to build support for the reinstatement of superior court [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Christina Wells of the University of Missouri School of Law says that while the House version of a bill amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act forces the Bush administration to actually prove that disclosing surveillance information would endanger national security, the Senate version of the legislation insulates the administration from having to [...]

Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina appeared in court Sunday, shortly after being released from hospital care for severe ear and eye conditions, to face charges that she received approximately $440,000 in illegal kickbacks on a power-plant deal while in office between 1996 and 2001. Her appearance before the court has been postponed numerous times [...]

British national Simon Mann , accused of participating in an alleged coup attempt against Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo in 2004, has accused Sir Mark Thatcher of being involved in the plot, Equatorial Guinea Attorney General Jose Olo said Sunday. According to Olo, Mann, whose trial is set to begin in May, made [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Sunday criticized Egypt for arresting over 800 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood , including 148 candidates slated to run in local council elections scheduled for April 8. HRW characterized the arrests as a "shameless attempt to fix the upcoming elections." The Muslim Brotherhood currently holds one-fifth of the seats [...]

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn warned Turkey on Saturday that there would be serious ramifications for its bid to join the European Union if the Constitutional Court of Turkey decides to shut down the ruling Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) . Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya petitioned the court earlier this month to disband the [...]

Zimbabweans voted Saturday in local, senate, assembly and presidential elections amid opposition allegations that the government was rigging the results. President Robert Mugabe was challenged by ruling party defector Simba Makoni and opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai . MDC officials claimed detergent could remove voting ink from ballots and that [...]