The Hamas-controlled Palestinian Legislative Council on Monday voted to strip Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of powers given him last month by the lame-duck parliament dominated by Abbas' Fatah party . Among those was the authority to appoint a constitutional court empowered to cancel any law approved by the newly-elected Hamas-led assembly considered contrary to [...]

United Arab Emirates state-owned company Dubai Ports World Monday received the go-ahead to take over British shipping company P&O , after the UK's Court of Appeal declined to hear an appeal from Miami-based Eller & Co. . The three judge panel's unanimous refusal to hear an appeal affirms a lower court's holding that the $6.8 [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin Monday signed into law new anti-terrorism legislation giving the Russian police and military broad authority to tap telephone conversations and control electronic communications in the vicinity of counter-terror operations, shoot down hijacked planes threatening public places or strategic facilities, and deal with the aftermath of terrorist attacks. The legislation passed the [...]

AP is reporting that South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds has signed legislation that will ban most abortions in the state, excluding only those necessary to save a woman's life. Under the bill , approved by the state legislature last month, doctors who perform abortions will face up to five years in jail. The bill was [...]

President Bush announced Monday that he is sending new legislation to Congress that would give him "line-item" veto power over specific provisions in Congressional spending bills, allowing rejection of particular provisions without compromising entire legislative packages. Speaking at the White House swearing-in of new Council of Economic Advisers chair Edward Lazear, Bush said :Congress gave [...]

US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema on Monday sat 12 jurors and 6 alternates in the sentencing trial of al Qaeda co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui following several weeks of jury selection . While Moussaoui's lawyers attacked many of the 83 potential jury members as being tainted with personal connections to victims of Sept. 11, the prosecution [...]

Opening statements began Monday in the second New Jersey state trial against New Jersey-based Merck over their distribution of the painkiller Vioxx . Although a New Jersey jury found Merck not liable in a separate trial last year, in the consolidated case now at trial, plaintiffs allege that damage occurred through the long-term use of [...]

During a closed session of the Johannesburg High Court on Monday, former South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma pleaded not guilty to charges that he raped a guest staying at his house. The guest, a woman who had known Zuma since she was five years old, testified about the circumstances of the incident during the [...]

Five Kuwait citizens, previously held captive by the US at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, were released on bail from police custody in Kuwait on Sunday. The five were released on bail after denying the charges against them, which include joining al-Qaeda , fighting with the Taliban, and collecting donations for a terrorism-related charity. Family [...]

The US Supreme Court in a unanimous decision Monday upheld the Solomon Amendment , which requires educational institutions, including law schools, to allow military recruiters on campus in order to receive federal funds. In Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic Rights , the court considered whether the federal law violated universities' First Amendment right of association. [...]