Two US soldiers will face court-martial proceedings for striking two detainees in their custody at Forward Operating Base Ripley in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province, the US military said Thursday. Army Sgt. Kevin D. Myricks and Army Spc. James R. Hayes face multiple charges including conspiracy to maltreat, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees and assault consummated [...]

The European Parliament approved a legislative package Thursday which will allow safety-testing for thousands of chemicals used in everyday products. The Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals Act (REACH) calls for the registration of approximately 30,000 chemicals produced or imported in the European Union. Authorization would be required for use of those chemicals causing high [...]

Lawyers in Bangladesh Thursday entered their second day of a boycott on the court system to protest the suicide bombings which killed two judges earlier this week, as police increased efforts to find individuals suspected to have been involved in the attacks. Militants have been targeting courthouses , judges and other legal professionals over the [...]

Leading Thursday's international brief, Senior government ministers from South Africa and Zimbabwe met Thursday to sign an official agreement strengthening ties between the nations' intelligence, defense, and police services. The agreement creates a joint commission to deal with national defense, promotes the cooperation between the two nations' police forces, and addresses issues of cross-border concern [...]

A UN human rights official has called for an investigation into the killings of two defense lawyers representing co-defendants of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein . The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston said an independent investigation was needed because the murders had major implications for the Saddam Hussein trial [...]

Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Thursday that reports of abuse of detainees by Iraqi security forces were exaggerated. Jabr said that only five people discovered at a prison in an Interior Ministry building were malnourished, and that many of those detained were suspected terrorists. Jabr said an investigation had begun into allegations of torture. [...]

A court created by Sudan to try war-crimes suspects for atrocities committed in the Darfur region of the country has sentenced two soldiers to death for the killing of a Sudanese citizen. The court issued the sentences, the first since it was established, on Wednesday. The two soldiers were convicted of torturing and killing the [...]

An American businessman has been charged with paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to US authorities in charge of the reconstruction in Iraq to obtain millions in contracts, the New York Times reported Thursday. According to the criminal complaint, which was unsealed Wednesday, Philip H. Bloom used bribes to win $3.5 million in [...]

US District Judge Rosemary Collyer on Wednesday held Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus in contempt after he failed to reveal confidential sources from a story he reported about an investigation into nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee . Lee is seeking the identities of Pincus' sources and the sources of four other reporters in a civil [...]

Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, Inc., et al. v. Jeremiah M. Nixon, Attorney General of Missouri, United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, November 16, 2006 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.