A French court Monday froze bank accounts belonging to several Russian state organizations including the Central Bank of Russia, the Russian Finance Ministry , the presidential administration's foreign property arm, the Russian Energy Ministry , state arms monopoly Rosoboronexport, and the government news service RIA Novosti . The accounts were held by a French division [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday denied without comment a petition for certiorari filed in Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs v. von Eschenbach (07-444) , a case challenging the constitutionality of the government's ability to deny terminally ill patients access to medications that have yet to receive full regulatory approval. The Abigail [...]

A report issued Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) criticized efforts by the Bush administration to prepare for a potential bird flu pandemic by relying on a law enforcement/national security approach rather than a public health approach. The report, authored by three professors, cautioned that the administration's current pandemic response plans could threaten [...]

New International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz does not plan to amend his predecessor's tough stance on Serbian cooperation, Reuters reported an ICTY spokeswoman as saying Monday. Former chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte long criticized Serbia for its seeming reluctance to cooperate with the ICTY; last October, she said [...]

French prosecutors Monday urged a criminal court in Creteil, a suburb of Paris, to convert the sentences of six French aid workers convicted and sentenced in Chad for their role in the attempted airlift of 103 supposed Darfur orphans to France from eight years of hard labor to eight years in prison. The workers, affiliated [...]

A former defense lawyer for German Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison Monday after being convicted of incitement and insulting the court during Zundel's original trial in 2005. Throughout Zundel's trial, Sylvia Stolz repeatedly denied the Holocaust, described Jews as "enemy people," distributed a legal document that concluded with the words [...]

The European Commission (EC) Monday announced formal investigations into two new allegations that Microsoft has abused its dominant market position regarding a range of Internet and operating system software. The EC will look into charges that Microsoft violated Article 82 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community, which covers market sharing and antitrust law. The [...]

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the US military have installed a video teleconferencing system at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan to allow detainees held at the base to speak with loved ones, the ICRC said Monday. The system is available to all detainees at the Bagram facility, some of whom have not [...]

Lawyers and activists from 38 Asian Pacific countries meeting Monday at the Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Environmental Justice and Enforcement in Bangkok, Thailand, criticized lax enforcement of environmental laws throughout Asia, saying that governments have ignored enforcement in favor of promoting economic development. Attending environmental lawyers also blamed corruption and ignorance for hampering anti-pollution efforts, [...]

Two Russian offices of the British Council in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg resumed operations Monday, defying a shutdown order from the Russian government. Russian authorities say that the Council has violated Russian tax laws; the Council, a non-departmental public body that promotes UK culture abroad, has insisted that it is an arm of the British [...]