The US Department of Defense Inspector General on Friday announced that the armed force's Southern Command has been ordered to investigate allegations that detainee abuse is occurring at the military facility at Guantanamo Bay . Last week, USMC Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, who represents Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr , filed a complaint based on [...]

US Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) on Friday pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and making false statements in connection with his involvement with lobbyist Jack Abramoff . Ney accepted money and gifts in exchange for taking actions on behalf of Abramoff and his clients, sixteen of which were admitted by his former chief of staff [...]

US President Bush on Friday signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 , a bill attached to a larger port security measure late last month by Congress, making it illegal for banks or credit card companies to process transactions involving Internet gambling. Internet gambling is an estimated $12 billion dollar a year business [...]

US Army Sergeant Ricky Clousing , a paratrooper and interpreter who disputed the legality of the war in Iraq , has pleaded guilty to going absent without leave for 14 months. A court-martial in Fort Bragg, NC, on Thursday sentenced Clousing to 11 months' confinement, with all but three months suspended, under a plea agreement [...]

A bill allowing a referendum on whether to oust Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian was defeated in the Taiwanese legislature Friday. Sponsored by the People First Party (PFP) , the bill accused the president of corruption. Chen is currently under investigation for his use of a confidential state affairs budget, and his son-in-law and former top [...]

A UK coroner's inquest ruled Friday that US troops were responsible for the "unlawful" killing of British reporter Terry Lloyd in Iraq in March 2003. Oxford Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker concluded that Lloyd, an award-winning reporter for ITN , was killed by a shot to the head as a minivan carried him to a hospital [...]

A court in Japan has dismissed an appeal by 81 plaintiffs who argued that the visits of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a war shrine honoring Japanese dead as well as war criminals from World War II violated the constitutional separation of state and religion. The Fukuoka High Court in Okinawa found it unnecessary [...]

Members of Britain's House of Lords Thursday voiced their support for an amendment to the Armed Forces Bill that would pardon 306 World War I soldiers who were executed for various offenses including cowardice, sleeping while on duty, striking a superior officer, disobedience and desertion. The bill, with the pardons amendment, passed through committee Thursday [...]

The Santiago Court of Appeals voted 16-2 Thursday to strip the immunity of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet , in a case involving the kidnapping and murder of a chemist who worked for the secret police. Eugenio Berrios was kidnapped and taken to Uruguay to prevent him from being questioned in the assassination of Pinochet's [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Chibli Mallat, visiting professor at Princeton University and the EU Jean Monnet Professor in Law at St. Joseph's University in Beirut, Lebanon, says that Iraq's constitutional response to pluralism may yet make it an example to the world… Criticism of post-invasion Iraq has become a cottage industry; at latest count there are [...]