US Marine Sgt. Jermaine A. Nelson was charged Friday with the November 2004 murder of an Iraqi detainee in Fallujah . This is the second time Nelson has been charged with the murder. The original charges against him were initially dropped, but upon review of the case, the military decided to proceed. Nelson faces an [...]

A federal judge Friday dismissed a lawsuit challenging a new Arizona law aimed at preventing employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants . The Legal Arizona Workers Act , enacted in July, gives the Superior Courts of Arizona power to suspend or revoke the business licenses of businesses that intentionally or knowingly employ illegal immigrants. Under [...]

Six French charity workers accused of complicity in an abortive effort by French charity Zoe's Ark to airlift so-called "Darfur orphans" out of Chad to Europe went on a hunger strike in the Chadian capital of N'Djamena Saturday to protest the way the Chadian legal probe into their case has been conducted, according to AFP. [...]

German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and his 16 regional counterparts have consider Scientology "an organization that is not compatible with the constitution", and will work to ban it in Germany, Schäuble said at the end of a two-day ministerial meeting Friday. The German government regards Scientology as a money-making organization, not a faith ; a [...]

UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro has concluded that at least 31 people were killed in a crackdown on anti-government protesters this September, according to UN sources Friday. The total is significantly higher than the figure of 10 originally claimed by the government, later upped to 15. [...]

US Department of Justice lawyers advised the CIA's general counsel in 2003 not to destroy videotapes showing the "harsh interrogations" of high-value terror detainees Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri , according to unnamed officials cited by the New York Times in a report Saturday. Scott W. Muller allegedly raised the option of destroying the [...]

An emerging deal to select a new Lebanese president ran into a roadblock Friday as political factions in Lebanon's parliament failed to agree on mechanisms for changing a problematic constitutional provision. The favored candidate to replace now ex-president Emile Lahoud is Gen. Michel Suleiman , but under the present Lebanese constitution the presidency cannot be [...]

Margaret R. Chambers v. Cassandra B. Ormiston, Supreme Court of Rhode Island, December 7, 2007 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Pakistani Attorney General Malik Qayyum told Geo-TV Friday that emergency rule in Pakistan would be lifted and the country's constitution restored on December 15, one day earlier than the date set last week by President Pervez Musharraf in a televised address after being sworn into office for a third term. Qayyum said that two constitutional [...]

Four of the five UK residents being detained at Guantanamo Bay are scheduled to be released, the BBC reported Friday. Jordanian Jamil el Banna, Libyan Omar Deghayes and Algerian Abdennour Sameur will return to the UK, while Saudi Arabian Shaker Abdur-Raheem Aamer will return to his native country. A fifth detainee, Ethiopian Binyam Mohammed al [...]