With a federal appeals court giving the green light earlier this month, the US is looking to quickly restart military tribunals for declared "enemy combatants" being held at Guantanamo . Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said that the trials will resume "as soon as possible", even though other appeals of the general issue to the [...]

Jury selection began today for the competency trial of Daryl Atkins, the plaintiff in the 2002 Supreme Court case Atkins v. Virginia that abolished the death penalty for the severely mentally retarded by a 6-3 decision . Atkins has been convicted of murder and sentenced to death; the issue now is whether Atkins is disabled [...]

Prime Minister Tony Blair apologized on Monday for the shooting last Friday of a Brazilian man mistaken for a terrorist , while relatives of the man are considering legal action . Brazilian citizen Jean Charles de Menezes was killed by police that suspected him of being another bomber. The Metropolitan Police in London also released [...]

Indiana National Guard soldier Corporal Dustin Berg has pleaded guilty to negligent homicide in the fatal shooting of an Iraqi police officer. He is accused of killing Hussein Kamel Hadi Dawood Al-Dubeidi near Baghdad in December 2003 and then shooting himself. Berg, who received a Purple Heart for his injuries, initially said the Iraqi police [...]

Raed Jouhi, head of the Iraqi Special Tribunal , told a Saudi newspaper on Monday that the indictment against Saddam Hussein would be finished within two days, and that the trial would begin in about a month. He also said many of Saddam's former aides, facing prosecutions of their own, were cooperative in the pre-trial [...]

Sunni Arabs ended their boycott of the Iraqi constitution committee on Monday, rejoining the process after walking out last Wednesday to protest the July 19 assassinations of two Sunni committee members and a committee advisor in Baghdad. Their protest included demands for an international investigation into the killings, better security, and and an increased role [...]

With the US, Russia, and China announcing opposition to their plan , Japan and Germany have now approached smaller nations and possibly opened their pocketbooks in an attempt to win support for the so-called "G-4 Plan" for expansion of the UN Security Council, according to envoys from Afghanistan and Kazakhstan. Japan allegedly offered to increase [...]

A Saudi court on Monday upheld the six to nine year prison sentences for three campaigners who advocated democratic reforms in Saudi Arabia. Ali Ghothami, a lawyer representing Matruk al-Faleh, Abdullah al-Hamed and Ali Dumaini, said he was told by a Riyadh judge that the court had denied all of the appeals to their May [...]

Opposition lawmakers in the Philippines filed an impeachment complaint Monday against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo , accusing her of election fraud and other allegations. The impeachment does not come as a surprise after 50 opposition lawmakers last week expressed support for an impeachment . The filing against Arroyo claims she "stole, cheated and lied" in [...]

London police Sunday said they had arrested a third suspect in connection with the recent bombings that took place in the city's transit system. The arrest took place late Saturday "on suspicion of the commission, investigation or preparation of acts of terrorism" in the same south London area where two previous arrests were made and [...]