UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Monday in a BBC radio interview that the UK has found no evidence that the US transported terror detainees via UK airports, despite a UK newspaper report last week alleging that CIA-owned or operated planes made 210 "ghost flights" to transport terror suspects through nearly 20 different UK facilities. [...]

In a 6-0 vote, the California Supreme Court late Sunday refused to halt the execution of co-founder Crips gang co-founder and convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams . Williams was convicted of killing four people during two 1979 robberies and is due to be executed early on December 13. The Court refused an earlier clemency request [...]

Leading Monday's international brief, Human Rights Watch has called on the UN Security Council to sanction Sudanese President Omar El Bashir and other senior Sudanese government officials for complicity in crimes against humanity. In a new report on the situation in the Darfur region of Sudan, the New York-based monitoring group alleges that the Sudanese [...]

A deadlocked federal jury in a Texas Vioxx case will resume its deliberations Monday after informing US District Judge Eldon Fallon on Saturday that it could not reach a unanimous verdict about whether Merck & Co.’s Vioxx painkiller caused Richard Irvin’s heart attack and subsequent death. Fallon asked the jurors to continue, reminding them of [...]

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday in an interview on Fox News Sunday that would support changing Senate procedures to ban judicial filibusters if Democrats attempt to use the device to block the US Supreme Coourt nomination of Samuel Alito . “Supreme Court justice nominees deserve an up-or-down vote, and it would be absolutely [...]

The Iraqi government announced Sunday that it will enforce strict security measures for Thursday's parliamentary elections, including closing all borders, extending curfews and banning travel across provincial boundaries from Tuesday through Saturday. Meanwhile, US-led coalition forces and the Iraqi government released 238 detainees from Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca Sunday, bringing the number to well [...]

The interim government of Haiti has removed five of its ten Supreme Court judges in what it called an “administrative measure, to improve the efficiency of the court.” Many speculate that the forced retirement of the five is a political response to the presidential candidacy of Dumarsais Simeus , a Haitian-born US millionaire. The Haitian [...]

Jose Padilla v. Commander C.T. Hanft, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, December 9, 2005 . Read the full text of the brief . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said Saturday in a television interview that he will order an investigation into reports that the CIA ran a secret detention facility in Poland. Allegations have been circulating in press reports and human rights group statements for over a month, and were most recently detailed in the Warsaw daily Gazeta [...]

During his weekly radio address Saturday, President George W. Bush urged Congress to limit debate on the bill reauthorizing sections of the Patriot Act and vote soon on the compromise announced by House and Senate Republicans on Thursday. The President lauded the original Act, saying it "allowed federal investigators to pursue terrorists with the same [...]