[JURIST] Ricardo Palmera, aka "Simon Trinidad", the most senior leader of the controversial Colombian rebel group FARC was extradited to the United States Friday to face drug smuggling and kidnapping charges. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe agreed to Palmera's release to US authorities after the rebel group failed to release any of the more than 60 hostages it is currently holding. Among those held by the group are former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three US citizens and dozens of Colombian army officers and political figures. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] In what appears to be the first move of its kind by a western country, the government of Canada has announced that it will expedite immigration requests for victims of last Sunday's South Asian tsunami who have relatives in Canada. The move is expected to bring in some 5000 new immigrants, mostly from Sri Lanka. Citizenship and Immigration Canada has posted an official notice on tsunami assistance on its website here. From Toronto, CBC News has more.

[JURIST] The government of Sudan (official website here) and anti-government rebels in the south of the country Friday signed the final parts of a peace deal ending some 21 years of war in the oil-rich region. The deal fulfills a commitment made to the UN Security Council to resolve the conflict by the end of 2004, but does not directly affect the situation in Sudan's western Darfur region, where fighting with local militias has precipitated a humanitarian crisis that the United States has called "genocide". Reuters has more, plus a review of the key terms of the six peace protocols.

[JURIST] The Justice Department late Thursday posted on its website a revised and expanded interpretation of criminal "torture" under the US Code (18 USC ss. 2340-2340A) a week before White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who oversaw the development of a narrower interpretation articulated in a controversial August 2002 memo [PDF], is due to appear before the US Senate Judiciary Committee as President Bush's nominee for Attorney General. The old interpretation of torture punishable by law had been largely limited to acts causing severe pain leading to "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death", and had been blamed for a permissive approach to interrogation procedures leading to prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib and other US facilities. Thursday's memorandum, insisting that "torture is abhorrent both to American laws and values and to international norms" and that President Bush had directed that American personnel not engage in torture, is significantly more expansive in keeping with international standards, especially the UN Convention Against Torture. While indicating that torture is not associated with "mild and transitory" acts, it acknowledges that it need not always involve severe physical pain. Read the full text of the memo here [PDF]. The Washington Post has more.