The White House Monday renewed and elaborated its assertion of executive privilege as regards testimony and materials wanted by Congressional investigators in connection with the US Attorney firings controversy . In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) , White House counsel Fred Fielding [...]

New French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in an interview published Sunday by the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche that he will not continue with the tradition of granting mass pardons on Bastille Day, adding that he will not use pardons as a way to reduce overcrowding in the prison system. Sarkozy, who campaigned on a [...]

Thousands of Japanese "war orphans" , children abandoned in China after World War II, have accepted an aid proposal from the Japanese government in exchange for abandoning all compensation claims, government spokesperson Yasuhisa Shiozaki announced Monday. The aid proposal will increase the victims' monthly pension from $178 to $535, and the government will also provide [...]

Indonesian prosecutors filed a civil action against former President Haji Mohammad Suharto Monday, alleging that Suharto embezzled $440 million from the Yayasan Supersemar, a state-funded academic scholarship fund, between 1974 and 1998. The suit, which seeks to recover the $440 million and an additional $1.1 billion in damages, represents the latest effort by the Indonesian [...]

The Chinese Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate jointly published new rules Sunday which broaden the definition of bribery to encompass arrangements where officials do not personally receive money, gifts, or favors and close legal loopholes where family members and other third parties receive the bribe on behalf of government officials. The new [...]

The United Nations observer overseeing the Lockerbie trial, Dr. Hans Koechler, has called for a probe into UK and US handling of the investigation of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over the Scottish village of Lockerbie. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission last week granted an appeal in the case of Abdelbaset Ali [...]

The Israeli cabinet Sunday approved the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to the release at a June 25 summit with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in an effort to show Israel's support for Abbas, a moderate. It is not clear which prisoners will be released or when. Israel is holding [...]

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine signed legislation to cut emissions of greenhouse gases Friday, making New Jersey the third state in the nation to pass such laws to prevent global warming. California and Hawaii have passed similar laws. New Jersey's Global Warming Response Act requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond School of Law says that for the good of the government and the nation Congress and the White House must promptly defuse the constitutional confrontation now brewing over subpoenas for documents about the forced resignations of nine U.S. Attorneys… In late June, President George W. [...]

The Appeals Court of Paris Friday struck down the CNE, contrat nouvelles embauches as a violation of international and basic French labor standards, dealing a setback to efforts by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to open the French labor market. The CNE, a model contract which reduced barriers to hiring and firing in small firms with [...]