The US House of Representatives passed two key bills late Friday in a blitz of legislative activity before its scheduled summer adjournment. A measure described by House Majority Leader John Boehner (D-OH) as representing "the most sweeping changes to America's pension laws in more than 30 years" passed 279-131 . The 900-page bill, designed to [...]

A spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday that US President George W. Bush has offered Blair a brief apology for apparent US failure to follow proper UK aviation safety procedures in a recent transshipment of American "smart bombs" to Israel via Prestwick International Airport in Glasgow, Scotland. The apology came in talks [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Michael Kelly of Creighton University School of Law says that Article 51 of the UN Charter is probably broad enough to cover Israel's actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon following the kidnappings of its soldiers but would not have excused a pre-emptive strike… It has been suggested that an overly punitive form of [...]

Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties Under Article 40 of the Covenant, UN Human Rights Committee, July 28, 2006 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The US DC Circuit Court of Appeals Friday blocked the US Department of Justice from reviewing the contents of files seized from the congressional office of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) until Jefferson has an opportunity to review them himself to determine which might fall under the legislative privilege defined in the US Constitution's so-called Speech [...]

A federal appeals court Friday affirmed the securities fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence handed down for former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers . Ebbers appealed the 2005 district court determinations, saying the prosecution unfairly blocked three former WorldCom employees from testifying on Ebbers' behalf because, at the time, they were the subject of a criminal [...]

The Spanish government on Friday unveiled the anticipated "Law for the Recovery of the Historical Memory," legislation aimed at healing the wounds of Gen. Francisco Franco's authoritarian regime that ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975 following a bitter three-year civil war. The bill appropriates $25 million to compensate victims of the Franco era for land [...]

Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika announced Friday that a criminal investigation has been opened into the June abduction and murder of four Russian embassy employees in Iraq. In a statement, the Prosecutor General's office said the perpetrators will be charged with "murder involving hostage-taking by a group of people acting in concert" and "hostage-taking for [...]

A Turkish court on Friday dismissed a lawsuit seeking compensation from novelist Orhan Pamuk , who was sued by six nationalists after he made allegedly unfavorable remarks to a Swiss magazine about Turkey's stance on the mass killing of Armenians during World War II. The lawsuit demanded 6,000 Turkish Lira (US $4,500) from Pamuk to [...]

A US Army soldier has said that the deaths of three Iraqi detainees in Samarra on May 9 were deliberate murders covered-up by his squad of the Third Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division , according to Friday's New York Times. The Times obtained a sworn statement by Sgt. Lemuel Lemus given June [...]