Facing a wartime enlistment deficiency, the US Army is granting special exceptions, called recruiting waivers , to an increasingly high percentage of recruits with criminal records or drug and alcohol problems. While the largest category of recruiting waivers were given to those facing medical problems, the largest increase in waivers was among recruits with misdemeanor [...]

New US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has chosen Adam G. Ciongoli, a former counselor to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft as one of his five law clerks. Ciongoli, 37, who currently serves as a senior vice president at Time Warner , clerked for Alito in 1995-1996 while Alito was a judge on US Court of [...]

A US federal judge in California has ruled that the state must change the drugs it uses when executing prisoners, because the current method may constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. US District Judge Jeremy Fogel said that he was concerned that prisoners were conscious during execution by lethal injection [...]

The Committee to Protect Journalists has deplored media repression in over 50 countries in its latest annual report . Highlighting unprecedented violence against reporters in the Middle East, it also condemned legal sanctions such as imprisonment and censorship, particularly decrying the crackdown on independent media in Iran and criticizing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's failure to [...]

Government officials in Haiti have announced plans to form a commission to review the contested results of that country's February 7 election . The commission will be composed of members of the president's office, representatives from the Provisional Election Council (CEP) , and members of the political party of leading presidential candidate Rene Preval . [...]

BBC News is reporting that the UK House of Commons has voted to include the glorification of terrorism as a criminal offense in the proposed Terrorism Bill , overturning the House of Lords on the issue. The Lords last month voted against outlawing the glorification of terrorism over concerns that the offense could unduly limit [...]

Germany's Federal Constitutional Court ruled Wednesday that a law permitting the German air force to shoot down hijacked planes to prevent a suicide attack was unconstitutional , reasoning that the government lacks the right to take the lives of passengers in an attempt to save lives on the ground. German ministers pushed through the legislation [...]

The US government has formally requested the extradition from Canada of Canadian citizen Abdullah Khadr , a week after indicting him on charges of procuring weapons to be used by al-Qaida against American forces in Afghanistan in 2003. Khadr, the son of alleged al-Qaida financier Ahmed Said Khadr and brother of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr [...]

Leading Wednesday's international brief, Ugandan General Court Martial (GCM) Chairman Elly Tumwine has gone ahead with the trial of over 20 suspects accused of collaborating with Ugandan opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye on charges of terrorism and illegal possession of firearms despite a Ugandan Constitutional Court ruling that the proceedings are unconstitutional. The 20 men, [...]

Previously unpublished photographs and video depicting alleged abuse of prisoners by US personnel at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison were shown on Australian television Wednesday. In an effort to expose "the extent of the horror that occurred at Abu Ghraib," SBS television's Dateline program showed images of blood-soaked prisoners who had been tortured or shot and [...]