Bangladeshi security forces picked up 13 ex-ministers and senior politicians from their homes in raids in Dhaka Sunday. The government cited recently-promulgated emergency powers as the basis for the detentions. Bangladesh country has been in political turmoil since former prime ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina began feuding over proposed electoral reforms. After the disagreements [...]

Former US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor made her decision to step down in July 2005 after consulting with then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist , according to a Newsweek interview released Sunday. O'Connor told the magazine, talked a little bit. I was concerned about whether he had an intention to step down since his plans [...]

House Page Board Revision Act of 2007, White House, February 3, 2006 . Read the full text of the bill. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The head of the UN Mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) expressed concern Saturday about increased human rights violations by security forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo , particularly those in the remote eastern portions of the country. MONUC Chief of Mission William Swing told Reuters in an interview that it [...]

US President George W. Bush signed a bill Friday to help monitor US congressional pages by expanding the supervisory House Page Board to include a former page and a current or former page's parent. Reps. Dale Kildee, (D-MI), the new board chairman, and Shelley Moore Capito,(R-WV), co-sponsored the bill in response to the 2006 scandal [...]

The governor of Texas signed an executive order Friday making that state the first to require that girls be vaccinated for human papilloma virus (HPV) , which is the primary cause of cervical cancer. Gov. Rick Perry's order , which directs the state Department of Health and Human Services to promulgate rules mandating the vaccinations [...]

The UN Working Group of Experts on People of Africa Descent Friday called for a global ban on racial profiling at the conclusion of its annual 5-day session . The group urged "states to clearly define and adopt explicit legislative provisions banning racial profiling," a practice which European expert Joe Frans described as being "widespread, [...]

Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, the US Marine defense coordinator for the western US, told the Associated Press Friday that his paralegal, Sgt. Heather Cerveny, has been accused of having made a false statement by Army Col. Richard Basset. Bassett was ordered to investigate alleged abuses of detainees at Guantanamo Bay after Cerveny provided a two-page [...]

The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland ruled Friday that people with serious mental illnesses may be permitted to commit physician-assisted suicide under certain conditions. The decision recognized "that an incurable, permanent, serious mental disorder can cause similar suffering as a physical " and extended Switzerland's current physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill for such patients. [...]

Jonathan Hafetz : "The al-Marri case raises critical issues in defining the limits of executive detention power. The government not claims the right to indefinitely detain without charge individuals arrested the United States but also asserts that non-citizens living in this country do not even have the right to challenge their detention by habeas corpus [...]