The Chinese parliament will consider amending a law allowing the state to send criminal suspects to labor camps without a trial during the National People's Congress (NPC) scheduled for next week, the China Daily reported Thursday. The system, called "re-education through labor," or "laojiao" , currently allows the police to send those suspected of committing [...]

The US military on Thursday formally referred the charges against David Hicks to a military commission. Under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Manual for Military Commissions (MMC) , Hicks, an Australian citizen, will face arraignment within 30 days after he is served with the charges, and the military commission will be assembled [...]

Former US Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) reported to prison Thursday morning to begin serving his 30-month sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution , a minimum-security prison in Morgantown, West Virginia. The district judge who presided over Ney's sentencing hearing rejected Ney's claim that his alcohol dependency clouded his judgment, finding that it didn't fully explain [...]

A 2000 decision by the Canadian Parliament to deny retroactive survivor pension benefits to persons in same-sex relationships was unconstitutional discrimination under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms , the Supreme Court of Canada held in a ruling Thursday. Parliament passed legislation in 2000 to recognize the legal rights of same-sex couples, but decided [...]

Former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj pleaded not guilty Thursday before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to 37 counts of war crimes, including murder, persecution, and rape. Haradinaj, whose trial is scheduled to begin Monday , was a senior commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army , the ethnic Albanian guerrilla force [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour Wednesday criticized a US federal appeals court ruling supporting Congressional legislation denying "enemy combatants" the right to challenge their detentions in federal court. In a press conference Wednesday, Arbour expressed concern at "insufficient judicial supervision," saying: I hope we will see the American judicial system rise to [...]

US Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and 78 other House of Representatives members introduced a bill Wednesday that would crack down on gasoline price gouging by instituting harsh criminal and civil penalties on oil and gas corporations and on individuals. The bill would permit the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate alleged price gouging in the [...]

An Oklahoma State House of Representatives committee approved a strict immigration bill on Wednesday for a full vote in the Oklahoma House. The Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007 seeks to prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining state identification, and would require all state and local agencies to verify citizenship status of applicants before [...]

Attorneys for US Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) on Wednesday requested the return of the materials seized from the congressman's office during an 18-hour raid in May 2006 by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) as part of an investigation into bribery allegations. Jefferson's defense team has argued that the search violated constitutional separation of powers [...]

An Egyptian judge on Wednesday upheld a prosecutor's decision to freeze the assets of 29 financiers for the Muslim Brotherhood . The Brotherhood is the largest Islamic group in Egypt and, while it is considered to be illegal, the group currently holds 88 seats in the Egyptian Parliament and is believed to have tens of [...]