New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch signed a bill Thursday allowing same-sex couples to enter into civil unions with the "same rights, responsibilities, and obligations as married couples" beginning in January 2008. Lynch hailed the bill as a continuation of "New Hampshire's longstanding tradition of rejecting discrimination… dates back to the Abolitionist movement." The legislation passed [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled 2-1 Wednesday that the brother of dissident Cyrus Elahi, assassinated in Paris in 1990, can collect on a default judgment he holds against Iran by attaching a $2.8 million judgment obtained by the Iranian Ministry of Defense against California-based Cubic Defense Systems . Dariush Elahi [...]

Hundreds of Italian prison inmates have sent a letter to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano asking him to restore the country's death penalty. More than 300 of the 1,300 prisoners serving life sentences signed the letter, "asking for our life sentence to be changed to a death sentence" because of the lack of any future beyond [...]

Lebanese National Assembly speaker Nabih Berri joined Syria Thursday in condemning the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1757 unilaterally establishing an ad hoc tribunal to investigate and try suspects in the February 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri , saying it infringed Lebanese sovereignty and impeded the reconciliation process in Lebanon. The [...]

A Zambian court held Thursday that former Zambian President Frederick Chiluba must go to trial on charges of corruption, despite questions about his health. Lawyers for Chiluba argued that Chiluba was unable to proceed to trial because of a heart condition, but the court held that it "should proceed with this matter to help all [...]

Hamid Khan, a lawyer for the Pakistan Bar Council , argued before the Supreme Court of Pakistan Thursday that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's March 9 suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry was unconstitutional, alleging that Musharraf failed to consult the cabinet and that it only addressed Chaudhry's suspension on May 19. On Wednesday, senior [...]

Canadian Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr fired all of his American lawyers on Wednesday, days before he is scheduled to appear for arraignment before a US military commission . According to his former Marine Corps lawyer Marine Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, Khadr fired both his Pentagon-appointed lawyer and a group of American law professors who [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) Thursday urged international donors to increase their contributions to the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) , echoing a plea by prosecutor Stephen Rapp who warned Wednesday that the tribunal would be forced to release accused former Liberian President Charles Taylor "if they run out of resources and can't continue [...]

Constitutional gridlock continued in Ukraine on Thursday, as the country's parliament again failed to approve a bill that would set a new date for controversial parliamentary elections. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych finally reached an agreement on Sunday to hold the elections on September 30, giving parliament just two days to [...]

Approximately 30 Chinese demonstrators carrying banners massed outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing Thursday, protesting a April 27 court ruling by the Supreme Court of Japan denying compensation claims made by five Chinese wartime slave laborers. The compensation claims were denied on the grounds that the 1972 Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and [...]