Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr. has launched a probe into the state's indigent defense system in response to funding and availability problems for public defenders, especially in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina , which has sharply decreased the number of traffic fines from which the program primarily derives its funding. Foti issued subpoenas [...]

A series of internal Canadian government memos newly declassified under the Canadian Access to Information Act has increased speculation that the US Central Intelligence Agency has flown terror suspects through Canada as part of an extraordinary rendition program transferring them to foreign prisons. One note stamped "secret" says that over 70 flights allegedly tied to [...]

A US federal judge has refused to grant an immediate injunction against Research in Motion , which would have shut down the company's BlackBerry wireless service in the United States. In 2003, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that RIM violated a patent held by NTP, Inc. and NTP had [...]

Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, Jordan's UN ambassador and advisor to the secretary-general on the sexual exploitation and abuse in United Nations peacekeeping operations, has told the UN Security Council that it could be three or four more years before the "unacceptably high" number of sexual abuse charges against UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic [...]

FBI memos released Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act action suggest that senior US military officials, up to and including former Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, were aware of and endorsed the use of harsh interrogation techniques against Guantanamo Bay detainees, including putting hoods on prisoners, [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Friday rejected a request by former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for provisional release so that he might receive medical treatment in Russia. In the decision , the ICTY said they did not feel comfortable temporarily releasing Milosevic because they were not satisfied that he would [...]

The United States and British governments knew about illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq over four years ago, an Australian judicial inquiry into the UN oil-for-food program was told Friday. During Friday's hearing , a statement from Michael Wallbanks, manager of the Dubai branch of shipping group P&O Nedlloyd Ltd. , was read. [...]

Defense lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby , former chief of staff for Vice President Cheney, have asked a federal judge to dismiss the case against him, arguing that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was improperly appointed to head the investigation in the CIA leak case . In the motion to dismiss the indictment , Libby's [...]

Leading Friday's international brief, South Korea has announced plans to create a national database containing the genetic profiles of individuals convicted of criminal sexual offenses and a national registry accessible by the public that would list names and addresses of convicted sex offenders. The plan would also limit the ability of convicted sex offenders to [...]

US Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) said Thursday that the Bush administration is ignoring federal law by refusing to extend its investigation into the takeover of operations of six US ports by Dubai Ports World , a state-owned business in the Untied Arab Emirates. The Senate Armed Services Committee heard testimony from several Treasury Department, Homeland [...]