The Turkish parliament has re-approved amendments to the country's new European Union oriented penal code, overriding an earlier veto by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer . The new code includes the first major changes to Turkish law in 79 years and is intended to liberalize that law in order to help the nation's chances of joining [...]

Leading Friday's international brief, the UN Security Council discussed the worsening housing crisis in Zimbabwe during Thursday's session, with several members expressing their reluctance to consider the issue. The British and acting US ambassadors to the UN both expressed concern with the fallout from "Operation Restore Order", which has resulted in over 46,000 arrests of [...]

A French court has sentenced Mauritanian Ely Ould Dah to 10 years in prison for torturing military officers abroad. Dah, a high ranking military officer in Mauritania, was sentenced in absentia Friday for torturing military officers in his home country . The trial marks the first time a French court has used the doctrine of [...]

At a parliamentary hearing on relief efforts, Indonesian lawmakers Friday assailed the government's response to the December 26 tsunami , arguing there had been no "significant progress" and demanding a response to claims of corruption. Six months after the disaster, 500,000 people remain homeless and few homes have been rebuilt. Some $162.2 million has disappeared [...]

In the wake of a June 6 state court ruling that upheld the November 2004 election of Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire , the Washington State Republican Party Friday paid the state Democrats $15,000 to cover court costs relating to legal challenges. Democrats had requested $48,000 and said they spent nearly $3.5 million in legal fees, [...]

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi took the remarkable step Friday of demanding in an official statement delivered to summoned US ambassador Mel Sembler that the US government exhibit "full respect" for Italian sovereignty in the wake of a controversy over the alleged 2003 CIA abduction of an Islamic cleric in Milan . Sembler provided assurances [...]

Software giant Microsoft has agreed to pay IBM $775 million to resolve claims stemming from the antitrust lawsuit brought by the US government in the late 1990s. As part of the agreement IBM agreed not to file any other claims for two years. Microsoft which has agreed to pay nearly $4 billion to end antitrust [...]

AP is reporting tha President Bush will not pick a US Supreme Court nominee to replace retiring justice Sandra Day O'Connor before he returns from the G8 summit in Europe July 8, according to the White House.

The UN is planning to send an investigator to Japan next week to look into charges of racism and discrimination against ethnic minority groups in the country, including ethnic Koreans and Chinese, according to a statement by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights released Friday. Senegalese lawyer Doudou Diene, the UN [...]

Retirement letter of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor addressed to President George W. Bush, July 1, 2005 . Read a copy of the letter . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.