A court-martial was ordered Sunday for Alaa "Alex" Mohammad Ali, a dual Iraqi-Canadian citizen working as a translator in Iraq. Accused of having committed aggravated assault in February in connection with the stabbing death of another contractor, he is the first civilian charged by the military since a 2006 amendment to the Uniform Code of [...]

Talks between Pakistani party leaders meeting in London to discuss a parliamentary resolution to restore superior court judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf under his proclamation of emergency last November collapsed Sunday despite last-minute intervention by a US envoy . US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher met separately with Pakistan People's [...]

Blackwater Worldwide is not likely to face criminal charges in connection with a September 16 shooting in Baghdad in which 14 Iraqi civilians were killed, AP reported Saturday, citing a half-dozen individuals closely associated with a US Department of Justice probe. The sources told AP that the investigation was concentrating on three or four individual [...]

US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens suggested to a gathering of lawyers and judges Friday in Tennessee that the Kentucky Derby horse Eight Belles may have been euthanized more humanely than some prisoners. The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported Stevens had been surprised to find out that one of the three drugs authorized for [...]

A US military judge has ruled that US Air Force Reserve Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann , a top Pentagon legal adviser on the Guantanamo military commission trials, is ineligible to participate in the first military commission trial of a detainee because he is too closely associated with the prosecution, the New York Times reported Saturday. [...]

Pakistani ministers and officials scrambled Sunday as a second deadline for restoring judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf in November loomed with little prospect of being met. An aide to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who has pressed hard for the reinstatement , was quoted by AP as saying that an "acceptable solution" would be [...]

The military junta of Myanmar held a national referendum on a draft constitution Saturday despite sharp international criticism for going ahead with the poll after a devastating cyclone last weekend left at least 60,000 people dead or missing. Voting in the hardest-hit areas has been delayed until later this month, but state media encouraged citizens [...]

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori , currently on trial for human rights violations during his three terms in office from 1990-2000, is showing lack of respect for the court and the trial process by his courtroom behavior, Peruvian prosecutors said Friday. Earlier this week Fujimori burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter after hearing military [...]

A committee of Japan's House of Representatives Friday approved a measure easing legal restrictions on placing Japanese military technology in space ahead of a vote of the full House of Representatives expected next week. The House of Councillors is expected to pass the bill as well. Lawmakers say that current rules, established in 1969, hamper [...]

Talks between the leaders of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in London Friday failed to produce an agreement on a draft resolution for reinstating judges ousted by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf last year, but party members pledged to continue negotiations. A panel convened last week pursuant to an initial [...]