Lawyers for Omar Khadr , an 18-year old Canadian citizen and Guantanamo Bay detainee, said Wednesday that their client had been tortured and abused by US interrogators. Khadr is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a US medic while he was alledgedly fighting with the Taliban, planting mines in the way of US convoys, [...]

UK lawmakers Wednesday backed a government bill to put the new EU constitution to a national referendum. The European Union Bill will now go to a House of Commons committee for further study. While signed last November, the European constitution must still be ratified by all member states before taking effect. The new constitution would [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced late Wednesday that the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has been postponed again until Monday, February 14. Milosevic is still recovering from a bout of influenza that had caused a previous delay and complained of a temperature during Wednesday's hearing. His trial, which [...]

The French National Assembly voted Wednesday in favor of a proposal that will allow private sector employees to work up to 48 hours a week, despite last weekend's demonstration by 300,000 French workers in protest of the work week bill . The bill will now go before the French Senate , which must approve it [...]

In Wednesday's environmental law news, USDA Secretary Mike Johanns has announced that he is delaying the effective date for the lifting of the ban on beef and cattle imports from Canada. The ban was scheduled to be lifted on March 7. Johanns met with Canadian Agriculture Minister Andrew Mitchell, and they also issued a joint [...]

Swedish media published Wednesday the names of over 500 Swedes missing or killed in the tsunami disaster after the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court ruled that the release of the names would not cause people any harm. Swedish police had said that that in withholding identities they were trying to protect homes of missing families, but [...]

The US Senate voted 60-39 Wednesday to table an amendment to the draft Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 . The bill calls for the shifting of most class action lawsuits to federal courts and the amendment considered and defeated Wednesday would have created an exception for cases brought by state attorneys general. Ignoring a [...]

The Iraqi Special Tribunal will begin holding trials of some of the top lieutenants of Saddam Hussein's regime "in weeks," according to a Western legal expert involved in the process speaking in Baghdad on Wednesday. Iraqi judges have been holding investigative pre-trial hearings and are reportedly ready to turn over their dossiers to the five-judge [...]

Commissioners from the federal Election Assistance Commission told the US House Committee on House Administration Wednesday that the use of provisional ballots in the 2004 election allowed more people to vote, with 68 percent of the provisional ballots cast on Election Day being counted toward the final vote. The EAC testimony came as part of [...]

Leading Wednesday's corporations and securities law news, the SEC has announced that three Bank of America Corp. brokerage units have agreed to pay $375 million to settle market timing charges. The SEC charged the three units with entering into improper and undisclosed agreements which allowed larger investors to engage in market timing and late trading [...]