The US Senate Wednesday began a heated debate over the confirmation of US Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito , but Senate Democrats gave no hint of a potential filibuster to block his nomination. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) opened the floor debate by saying Alito deserves to become a Supreme Court Justice and [...]

A jailed Venezuelan terrorist Wednesday appealed to the European Court of Human Rights , arguing that the eight years he spent in solitary confinement in a French prison was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights . Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, otherwise known as "Carlos the Jackal" for his part in deadly bombings, hostage [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the US government for denying Swiss Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan entry into the United States under the ideological exclusion provision of the USA Patriot Act. Ramadan was unable to accept a teaching invitation at the University of Notre Dame in 2004 after his visa [...]

Microsoft announced Wednesday that it will comply with a European Union antitrust ruling by licensing its Windows source code in order to allow competitors to develop products compatible with Windows. In March 2004, the European Commission found Microsoft in violation of EU antitrust laws , and ordered the company to offer a version of Windows [...]

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on Wednesday adopted a resolution condemning the human rights situation in Chechnya , citing numerous cases of murder, disappearances, torture, and other human rights abuses . A report accompanying the resolution blames the abuses mostly on the Russian government , Chechen rebels, and the "Kadyrovtsy" forces operating [...]

A British appeals court on Wednesday upheld a lower court's order that the Daily Telegraph pay damages and legal costs to British MP George Galloway after it found the newspaper had libeled Galloway by alleging that he took money from former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein under the now-defunct UN Oil-for-Food program . The appeals court [...]

Lucia Pinochet Hiriart, the eldest daughter of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was detained Wednesday at Dulles International Airport in Washington DC, according to a spokesperson from the Chilean government. Earlier this week, prosecutors in Chile brought tax evasion charges against her and other members of the Pinochet family . Hiriart allegedly owes more than [...]

Two US agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Transportation Security Administration , have agreed to pay the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) $200,000 in attorneys fees to settle a case brought by the civil rights organization in 2003 challenging the government's no-fly list and requesting the disclosure of records . More than 300 [...]

Defense attorneys for admitted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui on Tuesday notified the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia of their plans to call expert witnesses to support their argument that Moussaoui should be spared from the death penalty because he suffers from severe mental illness. In the notice , defense attorneys said they [...]

Efforts to reach an agreement on a long-term renewal of the USA Patriot Act appear stalled as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner , the House's chief negotiator, has said his chamber is finished negotiating. Sixteen key provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire at the end of last year. Members of [...]