The US Department of Justice (DOJ) Wednesday announced the indictment of 50 leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) , the country’s largest guerilla group, on narcotics and other charges. Noting that FARC produces half of the cocaine in the world and 60 percent of the US supply, the indictment accuses FARC of [...]

Three Samsung executives agreed to plead guilty Wednesday for conspiring to drive up the prices in the market for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips. The three South Koreans will serve jail sentences between seven and eight months and pay fines of $250,000. The pleas await approval from a federal judge in San Francisco. The [...]

Prosecutors argued in front of the Texas Third Court of Appeals Wednesday for reinstatement of criminal conspiracy charges dropped against indicted US Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) . In December 2005, Senior District Judge Pat Priest ruled that the former majority leader could not be tried for conspiracy to violate the state election code for his [...]

Report of the UN Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 6 of Resolution 1644 (2005) , March 21, 2006. Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here .

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday on whether a federal immigration law authorizing deportation can be applied to illegal immigrants who entered the country before its enactment. The case, Fernandez-Vargas v. Gonzales , 04-1376, involves Mexican immigrant Humberto Fernandez-Vargas, who entered the US in the 1970s and after several deportations lived in the [...]

A federal appeals court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case that will determine the constitutional scope of the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) as it applies to over 300 Guantanamo Bay detainees who have sought habeas corpus review to challenge their detentions. The DTA, signed by President Bush at the end of December, includes terms [...]

AP is reporting that a military jury has sentenced US Army Sgt. Michael J. Smith to six months in prison for abusing detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison by using his unmuzzled dogs to intimidate inmates. Smith was convicted Tuesday on two counts of maltreatment of detainees, conspiring to make a contest of making detainees [...]

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed Wednesday that the US Defense Department is considering a formal written rule that would ban statements made during torture from any proceeding before US military commissions . The Wall St. Journal reported early Wednesday that the rule had already been approved and would be issued later this week, but Bryan Whitman [...]

The Law Lords , the judicial panel of the UK House of Lords that is Britain's highest court, ruled 5-0 Wednesday in favor of a high school's decision to ban a student from wearing a Muslim jilbab , a long garment that covers the entire body other than the face and hands. Student Shabina Begum [...]

Human rights activists around the world were subject to murder, assaults, imprisonment and other forms of repression in 2005 according to a joint report issued Wednesday by the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Geneva-based World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) . The study revealed more than 1,100 reported cases of repression against [...]