Leading Wednesday's international brief, the Nepal Supreme Court issued a ruling Wednesday suspending the new Code of Conduct law that governs the behavior of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Nepal. Justice Parmananda Jha issued the stay in light of a petition filed Monday by nine Nepalese NGOs. The NGOs, as well as other international NGOs , [...]

Canada's federal government announced Wednesday that it is offering more than $2 billion in compensation to more than 80,000 surviving former First Nations students who may have suffered abuse in native residential schools where they were displaced from their tribes and families and educated by religious orders for assimilation into white society. Canadian Deputy Prime [...]

The Russian Duma , the lower house of parliament, has approved a bill that would greatly increase state control over non-governmental organizations (NGOs) by requiring them to register with a state commission. The law, passed Wednesday by 370 deputies, demands that all informal and foreign groups must register as independent Russian legal entities. NGOs must [...]

The National Assembly , the lower house of the French parliament, began debate Wednesday on a new anti-terror law said to have been partly prompted by the July 7 London bombings and the apparent spread of Islamist terrorism to Western Europe. The new law, introduced last month by Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy and approved by [...]

Italian Justice Minister Roberto Castelli has cast doubt on the motivations behind a Milan prosecutor's request for the extradition of 22 CIA agents accused of participating in the kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in 2003 . Castelli suggested Tuesday that prosecutor Armando Spataro was a leftist animated by "anti-Americanism". Castelli is conducting an investigation into [...]

Wire services are reporting that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has been indicted on tax evasion and corruption charges, and has been put under house arrest pending trial. 9:59 AM ET – The charges stem from an investigation into secret offshore back accounts under false names set up by Pinochet that were found to hold [...]

The European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) reported Wednesday that Roma minorities, also known as Gypsies, are the ethnic group most susceptible to racism in the European Union . As the EU expands into Central Europe, the Roma population in new member states face discrimination in employment, housing, and education as well as [...]

The US Department of Justice Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the state of Missouri, alleging that contrary to federal law it had failed to take steps to remove the names of deceased and otherwise ineligible voters from its electoral rolls. The DOJ suit claims the biggest problem is in Reynolds County, a small county with [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Stephen Vladeck of the University of Miami School of Law says that the US government's move to charge alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla and potentially moot his pending appeal to the US Supreme Court against his status as uncharged enemy combatant may leave intact the problematic Fourth Circuit ruling broadly endorsing the [...]

Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, November 20, 2005 . Read the full text of the document .