The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in the consolidated cases of Crawford v. Marion County Election Board , 07-21, and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita , where the Court considered the constitutionality of Indiana's controversial voter identification statute which requires voters to present photo identification as a prerequisite to voting. Supporters of the [...]

Taiwanese prosecutors filed an appeal Wednesday to a decision by the Taiwan High Court last month upholding the acquittal of former Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou on graft charges. Prosecutors hope that the Taiwan Supreme Court will clarify the legality of the Taiwanese system that allows high-ranking public officials access to special funds. Ma was acquitted [...]

A federal judge in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas has ruled that journalists and the public do not have the right to view every part of the execution process under the First Amendment. Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled Monday that, unlike court proceedings, public access to executions is not needed [...]

A Hong Kong court ruled Tuesday that the Chinese special administrative region's Telecommunications Ordinance was unconstitutional because it violates the freedom of expression guaranteed by Hong Kong's Basic Law and Bill of Rights by giving the government too much authority in deciding who will receive broadcasting licenses. The ruling involved local station Citizens' Radio , [...]

The US Army said Tuesday that Army Sgt. 1st Class Trey A. Corrales will be court-martialed on charges of premeditated murder for his alleged role in the killing of an unarmed Iraqi civilian near the Iraqi city of Kirkuk . Corrales was charged in July with the premeditated murder of an unspecified "Iraqi national" on [...]

The US Justice Department has withdrawn its appeal of a federal judge's decision to invalidate a 2005 regulation governing the management of national forests, advocacy groups said Tuesday. The appeal was filed in a lawsuit brought by environmental advocacy groups alleging that the Department of Agriculture created a new rule for the forest planning process [...]

US Magistrate Judge John Facciola Tuesday ordered the White House to report within five business days whether the millions of e-mails from 2003 to 2005 that have been deleted from White House servers in fact exist on back-up tapes. In November, US District Court Judge Henry Kennedy ordered the White House to preserve all of [...]

A class of over forty Georgia inmates filed suit Tuesday in the US District Court for Middle District of Georgia , seeking compensation for alleged widespread physical abuse – including two deaths – and intimidation of prisoners statewide. Twenty-five guards and prison officials are alleged to have committed systematic beatings, later orchestrating a cover-up that [...]

A former Guantanamo Bay detainee convicted in Tunisia of criminal association lost an appeal Tuesday in a Tunis court. Lotfi Lagha , who was transferred to Tunisian custody in June 2007 after five years at Guantanamo Bay, was sentenced to three years in prison in October for associating with a criminal group with the aim [...]

Santosh Giri : "The abolition of Nepal's nearly 240-year-old monarchy and declaration of Nepal as a "federal, democratic, republican state" was made by an overwhelming majority in the interim parliament late last month. 270 members in the 329-member House of Representatives voted on December 27, 2007 in favor of ending the monarchy (3 pro-monarchists cast [...]