Many European countries were aware that the US Central Intelligence Agency operated secret prisons or used their territory for the transfer of terror suspects, according to a report released Tuesday by a European Parliament committee investigating the CIA's alleged use of European countries for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners. The committee's rapporteur, Italian [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc. , 04-1350, a case involving a fight over a patent on adjustable pedal assemblies for engines. At issue is what constitutes a patent claim that is "obvious" under 35 USC 103(a) . In January 2005 the US Court of Appeals [...]

The National Education Association (NEA) joined three school districts on Tuesday in appealing the dismissal of a lawsuit that challenged the funding of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) . In an appeal filed with the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the NEA and school districts argued that Congress has failed [...]

A three-judge panel of the UK Court of Appeal on Tuesday dismissed an appeal by Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri to overturn his conviction on incitement-to-murder charges . In February, Hamza was convicted of 11 counts for urging his followers to kill Jews and other non-Muslims and using "threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior" [...]

A motion recognizing the people of Quebec as a "nation" within Canada passed the Canadian House of Commons Monday by a vote of 266-16. The motion, introduced last week by Prime Minister Stephen Harper , represents a compromise on an earlier proposal by the Bloc Quebecois that would have defined the territory of Quebec as [...]

Australian state and territory attorneys general demanded action Tuesday in the case of David Hicks , an Australian detainee held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. Upset that the US has failed to charge Hicks under revised military commission rules, the AGs sent Australian Attorney General Phillip Ruddock , their federal counterpart, a photo of Hicks' [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Tuesday reduced the sentence of local Bosnian Serb politician Blagoje Simic from 17 to 15 years, after reversing one of his convictions. Simic was convicted on charges of crimes against humanity in 2003, along with Miroslav Tadic and Simo Zaric, for "persecutions based upon unlawful arrest [...]

The Thai cabinet Tuesday approved a measure to lift martial law in 41 of the country's 76 provinces, including Bangkok, despite a recommendation by coup leader and Army Commander-in-Chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin Monday to retain martial law in the capital city. Thailand has been under a state of martial law since the Thai military seized [...]

A group of United Nations human rights experts on Tuesday urged the Iraqi government to refrain from carrying out the death sentence imposed on Saddam Hussein earlier this month for crimes against humanity committed in the Iraqi town of Dujail . In a statement from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention , the rights [...]

Two Russian prosecutors were convicted Monday of accepting a $10,000 bribe from a construction company in the country's latest example of corruption in the court and police systems. Sergei Kocherov and Ruslan Fedosenko of the district prosecutor's office in Moscow were sentenced to four years in a maximum security prison, while lawyers for the two [...]