Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board Thursday denied the asylum claim of Jeremy Hinzman , the US soldier who deserted his unit before being deployed to Iraq and subsequently fled to Canada, saying that Hinzman did not make a convincing argument that he faced persecution in the US. Hinzman had accused the US of committing war [...]

AP is reporting that a Florida state judge has ruled that Governor Jeb Bush and Florida's social services agency do not have any legal grounds for taking protective custody of Terri Schiavo . 2:56 PM ET – Greer said in his ruling that "The requested intervention … appears to be brought for the purpose of [...]

In Thursday's environmental law brief, a Jakarta Indonesia court has ruled that the travel ban on the six Newmont Mining Co. executives that has been in place since last October is illegal. Despite the ruling, the executives are still being detained in the country as objects of an ongoing criminal case into alleged pollution of [...]

Chile's Supreme Court ruled Thursday that ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet cannot be prosecuted over the killing of his predecessor as Chile's army chief, General Carlos Prats . The ruling reverses a lower court ruling that had stripped Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution in the 1974 car bombing assassination of Prats. The Supreme Court reversed the [...]

ABC WFTS-TV in Tampa is reporting that the Florida Department of Children and Families may have lost an opportunity – perhaps its only opportunity – to take Terri Schiavo into protective custody and restore her feeding tube contrary to a court order. Early Thursday morning around 8 AM the Department appealed Judge George Greer's injunction [...]

The Austrian Justice Ministry has dropped its case against a former Nazi psychiatrist accused of killing children at a Vienna clinic after he was ruled unfit for trial. The government said Wednesday that Heinrich Gross, 89, suffers from dementia and could not stand trial. Gross worked at a children's clinic in Austria where 789 children [...]

Leading Thursday's corporations and securities law news, Adelphia Communications Corp. is reportedly close to settling claims made by the US Department of Justice and the SEC related to the massive accounting and management scandal at the company. Adelphia will pay about $725 million making it one of the largest penalties paid in recent years. The [...]

A French appeals court on Thursday affirmed a 2002 conviction of investor George Soros for insider trading, including a $2.9 million penalty. The court ruled that Soros' 1988 purchase of French bank Societe Generale SA stock with knowledge that the bank might be the object of a takeover bid broke insider trading laws. Soros has [...]

A United Nations report on peacekeeper sex abuse released Thursday has described its military arm as deeply flawed. The report, authored by Prince Zeid al Hussein, Jordan's UN ambassador, was issued as a response to repeated allegations of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers in missions ranging from Bosnia and Kosovo to West Africa and Congo. [...]

Canadian citizens may be subjected to expanded "control measures" such as house arrests currently being developed for use against immigrant terror suspects, Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler has said. The proposed detention rules are meant to expand authorities' options in dealing with immigrants arrested on suspicion of terrorism other than jailing them. However, Cotler said [...]