Iraqi Defense Minister Hashem al Shebli said Saturday according to McClatchy Newspapers that the notorious Abu Ghraib prison is now empty as US officials have recently finished moving the prison's remaining 3,600 prisoners to other US-run detention centers. Some prisoners were released; most were sent to either Camp Cropper near Baghdad International Airport or Camp [...]

Working Text, International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UN General Assembly Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities, August 28, 2006. Read the full working text. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The US Department of Defense announced Saturday that it has transferred to Afghanistan five detainees formerly held as enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay . It is unclear where these detainees are from and why they were selected for transfer. More than 300 detainees have been transferred from Guantanamo to other countries since the US government [...]

Lisl Brunner : "The Casa Rosada, which houses the offices of the President of Argentina, has a pristinely pink façade: the yellowish brown hue of its other three sides, however, marks the point at which the project to refurbish the exterior ran out of funds. Commentators say this idiosyncrasy reflects many aspects of Argentina, where [...]

A US journalist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner working in Africa on a National Geographic magazine assignment was charged in a Sudanese court Saturday with espionage, reporting false information and entering the country illegally. Paul Salopek , a staff reporter for the Chicago Tribune , and two Chad nationals – Salopek's driver and his interpreter [...]

State of Loiusiana v. All Property and Casualty Insurance Carriers Authorized and Licensed to Do Business in the State of Louisiana, Supreme Court of Lousiana, August 25, 2006 . Read the full text of the ruling . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock told Australian TV Saturday that he has received assurances from the US government that it will not seek the death penalty in an anticipated new military trial of Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks . Legal proceedings against Hicks were suspended earlier this year after the US Supreme Court ruled in [...]

The Louisiana Supreme Court Friday upheld the constitutionality of two state laws extending the time limit for making insurance claims for damages suffered in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The rulings allow homeowners, renters, drivers with auto insurance and nonfederal flood insurance policyholders to file as late as Sept. 1, 2007 in respect to Katrina and [...]

A UN General Assembly panel late Friday approved by consensus a draft disability rights treaty, clearing the way for its formal adoption by the Assembly at its 61st annual session beginning in September prior to being open to signatures. The draft of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ran into last-minute [...]

At the end of the first US trial of a foreign head of government since that of Panama's Manuel Noriega, a US federal judge in San Francisco Friday sentenced former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko to nine years imprisonment on corruption-related charges. US prosecutors indicted Lazarenko for money laundering, wire fraud, extortion and other crimes [...]