The US Defense Department has decided to omit references to common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions , which bans "cruel treatment and torture" and "humiliating and degrading treatment" of detainees, from the new Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation and accompanying directives, an anonymous military official told the Los Angeles Times. The decision to [...]

Ali Khan : "By substituting the language of respectful negotiation for that of threats, the Bush administration is on the right track in dealing with Iran over nuclear power issues. The policy reverses the neo-conservative fantasies of defeating Iran in the battlefield. Sobered by ceaseless killings in Iraq, the Bush administration has learned a bitter [...]

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said Monday that there may be more arrests in the terror investigation that led Friday to the detention and charging of 12 men and five youths suspected of being members of a terrorist cell that planned to attack targets in southern Ontario and Toronto, including – according to Monday's [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a company cannot bring a claim under s.1962(c) of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) alleging that a competitor fraudulently failed to collect sales tax on its products. In Anza v. Ideal Steal Supply Corp. , Ideal sued National Steel Supply (owned by the Anza [...]

A Chinese court has overturned a 2004 decision by the country's patent review board allowing Chinese drug companies to sell counterfeit versions of the Pfizer drug Viagra , upholding Pfizer's patent and signaling China's intent to crack down on intellectual property rights violations, an official at the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court confirmed Monday. [...]

Nepal officials on Sunday released three former ministers in the cabinet of the recently-dissolved royal government after the country's Supreme Court ruled that it could find no evidence for their continued detention. Former home minister Ramesh Nath Pandev, former foreign minister Nichhya Sumshere Rana and former state information and communications minister Srish Sumshere Rana were [...]

Defense lawyers in the Saddam Hussein trial resumed their case Monday after chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman said that four defense witnesses accused of perjury last week had been arrested and could therefore not attend Monday's session. Hussein's defense team last week accused the prosecution of trying to bribe one defense witness to testify against Hussein, [...]

The number of Guantanamo Bay detainees on hunger strike decreased from 89 to 18 over the weekend, US military officials said Sunday. The number of detainees on hunger strike suddenly jumped from three to 75 early last week, with an additional 14 joining the hunger strike late in the week. Detainees appear to have begun [...]

The Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT) – formerly known as the Iraqi Special Tribunal – has approved the disinterment of bodies buried in mass graves southwest of Baghdad, where forensic experts worked over the weekend to unearth alleged victims of a suppressed 1991 Shiite uprising encouraged by the US that occurred in the aftermath of the [...]

The American Bar Association Board of Governors voted unanimously Saturday to launch an inquiry into President Bush's frequent use of signing statements to bypass new laws because of his interpretation of presidential and executive powers under the US Constitution. The President has used such statements some 750 times since taking office in 2001. In January [...]