A group of 111 opposition politicians, rights activists, aid workers and journalists went on trial Tuesday in Ethiopia on charges of treason, inciting violence and attempting to commit genocide, despite calls from human rights groups for their release. If convicted, the defendants could receive the death penalty. The trial began Tuesday with the prosecution promising [...]

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has launched a judicial inquiry into the 1985 Air India terrorist bombing that killed 329 people, most of them Canadians, on a flight over the North Atlantic. The bombing was the largest single modern terror attack before September 11, 2001, and resulted in the longest and most expensive trial in [...]

2005 Wiretap Report, Administrative Office of the United States Courts, May 1, 2006 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran, International Atomic Energy Agency, April 28, 2006 . Excerpt: All the nuclear material declared by Iran to the Agency is accounted for. Apart fiom the small quantities previously reported to the Board, the Agency has found no other undeclared nuclear material in Iran. [...]

Projet de loi relatif à l'immigration et à l'intégration . Excerpt from the "Exposé des motifs", by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy: L'immigration demeure aujourd'hui sans rapport avec les capacités d'accueil de la France et ses besoins économiques. L'immigration à des fins professionnelles, qui représente à peine 7 % des flux doit être encouragée car [...]

Leading Tuesday's international brief, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has resigned his position, removing the last legal hurdle to the formation of a new Italian government under Prime Minister-elect Romano Prodi . Berlusconi has been asked to stay in the government by Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi until a smooth transition can be arranged. Prodi [...]

The Administrative Court of Thailand said Tuesday that it will probably release a decision in mid-May on whether the country's April 2 general election should be annulled. Considering its overlapping jurisdiction with two other Thai courts, including the Constitutional Court of Thailand which agreed Monday to consider a petition to void the election , it [...]

US courts approved 1,773 requests for wiretaps last year in state and federal investigations, a four percent increase from the prior year, according to the 2005 Wiretap Report released Monday by the Administrative Office of the US Courts . In state courts, wiretap applications grew by 17 percent to 1,148 requests with New York (391), [...]

The US has urged Nigeria against amending its constitution to allow current President Olusegun Obasanjo to run for a third term in office. In an unusual statement, the US Embassy in Abujah said the US "respects the right of any country to amend its constitution through democratic, transparent and legal means" but suggested that term [...]

The trial for former Alabama Governor Donald Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy begins Tuesday as the pair face federal bribery and racketeering charges . Siegelman is accused of accepting bribes from contractors to award state work, and Scrushy allegedly paid $500,000 to pay off Siegelman's 1999 campaigning debts in exchange for Scrushy being [...]