Senator Richard Lugar , chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee , said Sunday that he expects a party-line vote this week to approve the controversial nomination of John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations . Appearing Sunday on CBS News' Face the Nation program, Lugar predicted that the committee will vote Thursday [...]

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi headed to Moscow Sunday to attend ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, despite the absence of a peace treaty formally ending World War II hostilities between Japan and the Soviet Union. Japan and Russia remain at odds over what to do with four islands [...]

Peter W. Rodino Jr. , the former Democratic congressman who lead the House impeachment investigation of President Nixon died Saturday at the age of 95. Rodino was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee when it held impeachment hearings in 1974 and voted in favor of Nixon's impeachment. Rodino also authored several Judiciary Committee reports upon [...]

US District Judge Michael Moore has ruled that federal agents who seized Elian Gonzalez during a 2000 raid did not use excessive force by firing tear gas during the raid. In his opinion , issued Friday, Moore said that a group of demonstrators and bystanders who were injured during the raid cannot collect damages from [...]

Former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev may soon face new charges over their handling of the oil company's affairs, according to a report Friday in the Russian newspaper Izvestia. Russian investigators are looking into allegations that Yukos' top executives and shareholders misappropriated $11 billion in assets by selling oil from [...]

The incoming Iraqi minister for human rights designated by Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari rejected the post Sunday shortly after it and five other late Iraqi cabinet appointments were approved by Iraq's National Assembly. Hashim al-Shible, former Justice Minister in Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's government and a member of the Sunni community that largely [...]

Dalrymple v. US, United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, US District Judge Michael Moore, May 6, 2005 . Read the findings of fact and conclusions of law . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

A leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood announced Saturday through his lawyer that he would run as a candidate against Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak in upcoming elections, although his party has not formally endorsed his candidacy. Essam el-Erian was arrested this week along with some 200 others during anti-government protests in Cairo . A Mubarak-sanctioned [...]

Second Periodic Report of the United States of America to the UN Committee Against Torture, US State Department, May 6, 2005. Excerpt: …global terrorism has fundamentally altered our world. In fighting terrorism, the U.S. remains committed to respecting the rule of law, including the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and international treaty obligations, including the Torture [...]

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari told reporters Saturday in Baghdad that the vacant posts in his Cabinet sworn in last week – five ministers and one deputy prime minister – have now been filled, and that the nominess had been approved by President Jalal Talabani and the country's two vice-presidents. The appointments would appear to [...]