Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, now held by the US for over a year at a facility outside Baghdad and due to be tried for war crimes, had his first meeting with members of his Jordanian-based legal defense team Thursday. A meeting last week had been scheduled and then quickly canceled for unknown reasons; on [...]

The chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed Wednesday that giant mortgage lender Fannie Mae, which finances the purchase of one out of every five homes in the US, violated accounting rules in respect of its handling of derivatives and some loan-related transactions between 2001 and 2004. Read the SEC release here. Fannie [...]

A Pentagon spokeperson said Wednesday that 130 US troops from various branches of the service have been charged or punished by the military in connection with the abuse of prisoners at facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. More than 100 are from the Army, responsible for detentions in the two combat theaters – of [...]

In the landmark ruling Thursday, an extraordinary nine-judge panel of the UK House of Lords, Britain's highest court, held that the indefinite detention of foreign terror suspects without charge by the British government was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, incorporated into domestic law by the UK Human Rights Act. Reversing a Court [...]

Rossello-Gonzales et. al v. Puerto Rico Election Commission et al., US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, December 15, 2004 . Excerpt: A case may be removed to federal court if it presents a "claim or right arising under the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b). "The Supreme [...]

The US First Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in Boston ruled Wednesday that the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, not the local US District Court in San Juan, should rule on a case concerning disputed ballots in the territory's November gubernatorial election. The ruling makes it likely that the winner will be pro-status quo Popular Democratic [...]

In a banner day in telecommunications regulation, the Federal Communications Commission Wednesday voted to lessen the strictness of regulations requiring major telephone carriers to lease lines to competitors at federally-mandated rates, and to facilitate wireless Internet access for airplane travellers, but declined to apply indecency standard to satellite radio broadcasters. Under the new phone line [...]

Case Concerning Legality of the Use of Force (Serbia and Montenegro v. United Kingdom), International Court of Justice, December 15, 2004 . Read the judgment of the court here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Google's use of trademarked names as keywords to trigger advertising by rival companies is legal, according to a ruling Wednesday by US District Judge Leonie Brinkema. Insurance giant Geico brought suit in US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, claiming that Google's use of the word "Geico" in keyword advertising violates its trademark [...]

British Home Secretary David Blunkett (official Home Office biography here), one of the most powerful ministers in the cabinet of Prime Minister Tony Blair and the minister responsible for pushing sweeping anti-terror legislation through the UK Parliament in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, has resigned in the wake of [...]