Rights groups balk at Sudan leadership of AU News
Rights groups balk at Sudan leadership of AU

[JURIST] Human rights groups Monday voiced objections to Sudan President Omar al-Bashir [profile] becoming the rotating chair of the African Union [official website] for 2006-2007 when African nations hold a summit [agenda] in Khartoum next week. In a letter to African leaders, a coalition of 50 groups expressed concern about Bashir shaping the peace progress in the violence-wracked Darfur region [JURIST news archive] of western Sudan and claimed that letting him preside over the regional body would "deeply undermine and erode the credibility of the AU". The AU does not have clear guidelines on who should hold the position if Sudan does not. Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.