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 [...]

A federal judge on Friday issued an injunction blocking a planned strike by flight attendants for Northwest Airlines . Urged to intervene by both the airline and the US Department of Justice (DOJ), US District Judge Victor Marrero set a Wednesday deadline for parties to determine whether continued talks on a disputed pay cut are [...]

Nepal's Interim Constitution Drafting Committee (ICDC) on Friday presented a draft constitution to government officials and Maoist rebel representatives participating in the negotiations. The interim draft encompassing 172 articles is designed to replace the current constitution until a new representative body is elected and drafts a permanent constitution. The six-person ICDC was formed in July [...]

US District Judge James Brady has issued a preliminary injunction preventing Louisiana state officials from enforcing a recently enacted statute banning the sale of violent video games to minors. Brady ruled that the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) , "are likely to succeed on the [...]

Law enforcement agencies in Kyrgyzstan have been detaining asylum seekers from neighboring Uzbekistan in recent weeks as part of Kyrgyz counterterrorism sweeps, and several asylum seekers have disappeared and have possibly been forcibly returned to Uzbekistan, Human Rights Watch said Friday. HRW expressed concern that four disappeared Uzbek asylum seekers are in danger and urged [...]

A Chinese court of Friday sentenced New York Times researcher Zhao Yan to three years in prison for fraud charges, but also dismissed more serious charges of illegally leaking state secrets. Zhao was convicted of taking $2,500 from a village official. He was initially also charged with providing state secrets to foreigners, and had he [...]

The US State Department has opened an investigation into whether Israel used cluster munitions in Lebanon during the most recent Middle East conflict in violation of several US-Israel agreements restricting the use of the weapons, the New York Times reported Friday. Last month, advocacy group Human Rights Watch accused Israel of using cluster grenades in [...]