A Jordan military court on Wednesday sentenced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi , the alleged head of al Qaeda in Iraq, and eight other men to death for conspiring to attack several sites in Jordan with explosives and toxic chemicals. Al-Zarqawi and three of the defendants were sentenced in absentia, but the other five, including the mastermind [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says it's high time for universities to proscribe not only discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, handicap or disability, age, or sexual orientation, but also discrimination based on political opinion… Have you seen the movie “Good Night, and Good Luck” [...]

Western businesses burned and three people were killed Wednesday as Pakistanis took to the streets in a third day of protests over cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad . A man was shot dead in Lahore as violent clashes with police erupted during a rally of 1,500 students outside a university. In Peshawar near the Afghanistan [...]

Microsoft must provide a written answer to EU complaints that it has failed to comply with an antitrust ruling against the software giant by midnight European time Wednesday or risk daily fines of up to 2 million euros ($2.38 million US). The European Commission (EC) , however, has branded 71 of the 100 files relating [...]

British MPs voted Tuesday by an overwhelming margin to ban smoking in all public enclosed spaces beginning in the summer of 2007. Prime Minister Tony Blair , Chancellor Gordon Brown , and Home Secretary Charles Clark were the among the Labor MPs who voted for a full ban instead of the limited version of the [...]

US senators late Tuesday failed to overcome an objection effectively killing a bill designed to avoid costly asbestos litigation by creating a special fund to compensate asbestos victims . The objection, raised by Senator John Ensign (R-NV) and supported by fiscal conservatives , invoked a budgetary rule barring legislation that would up US government spending [...]

US Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) , chairman of the national security subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee, said Tuesday that changes in whistleblower laws are needed to provide better protection for whistleblowers in the national security area. The remarks made during a subcommittee hearing in which whistleblowers Spc. Samuel Provance , Russ Tice, Lt. [...]

Human Rights Watch has accused Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni of "playing dirty tricks" to intimidate voters in the upcoming elections on Feb. 23. Principal opposition leader Kizza Besigye is facing criminal charges in civil and military courts for treason, rape and terrorism. In a new report , HRW claims that military personnel in Northern Uganda [...]

Leading Tuesday's environmental law news, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has reopened the public comment period on its original 1999 proposal to remove the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) from the federal list of threatened and endangered species . The bald eagle is often cited as an example of the success of the Endangered Species [...]

The Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy on Tuesday ordered the state's 44 Wal-Marts and 4 Sam's Club stores to carry emergency contraception pills at their pharmacies. Previously Wal-Mart only carried the "morning after" pill in Illinois, a requirement of state law. Wal-Mart was sued earlier this month by three women alleging the retail giant was in [...]