A high-ranking Canadian MP likely to be named to a Cabinet position in the new Conservative party government of Prime Minister-elect Stephen Harper said Wednesday that the party would honor its campaign pledge to arm Canadian border guards after an incident in British Columbia on Tuesday, when some unarmed guards with the Canadian Border Services [...]

President Bush Wednesday met with a group of former law clerks to Judge Samuel Alito , describing them as people with a "wide range of political views", all of whom support Alito's nomination to the US Supreme Court. Addressing the press afterwards, Bush said: … he has the strong support of all 54 of his [...]

UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke was pressured by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to ban two Islamic parties in Great Britain after the July 2005 London bombings , according to civil service e-mails leaked to a British magazine. The e-mails indicate that Blair wanted to ban the radical Islamic party Hizb-ut-Tahrir and an affiliated party, [...]

A federal judge has said that the government must turn over documents detailing what the US knew before the Sept. 11 attacks to defense lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui , in an order made public on Wednesday. In 2005, Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in connection with the attacks. The sentencing phase will begin next [...]

The Supreme Court of Japan Thursday rejected an appeal by six smokers who sued the Japanese government and a cigarette maker for illnesses they claim were caused by their smoking habits over a 33- to 50-year period. Japan's high court affirmed a 2003 lower court ruling that acknowledged smoking was hazardous to an individual's health [...]

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and members of his Fatah party Cabinet submitted their resignations Thursday after initial results from Wednesday's Palestinian parliamentary elections – the first in ten years – appeared to give the militant Hamas movement a majority of seats in the 132-member Palestinian Legislative Council . Official results will be announced [...]

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) , ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to clarify the steps being taken to protect the privacy of American citizens after a Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoena for information about internet searches from Google and other Internet search engines was made public. In [...]

Ugandan High Court Justice John Bosco Katutsi has denied a defense motion to dismiss treason charges against opposition leader Kizza Besigye on the grounds of vagueness. Defense lawyers had argued that the charges, alleging Besigye's involvement in a plot to overthrow the government, failed to identify the ringleader and offered no details of the alleged [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Susan Herman of Brooklyn Law School says that reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act is up for debate again in Congress just as revelations about the NSA domestic surveillance program remind us why executive power needs to be kept in check… The acronym USA PATRIOT turns out to be an apt name [...]

Kyrgyz Prime Minister Felix Kulov has appealed to the Kyrgyzstan Parliament to grant him control of parts of the Interior Ministry that govern the nation's police agencies. Kulov alleges that a recent crime wave, including the murders of three members of parliament, is due to ineffective law enforcement by the courts, prosecutors, and the state [...]