US Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the Bush administration's controversial domestic surveillance program opened Monday with testimony from US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales after senators argued over whether or not he should be given a sworn oath to tell the truth . A vote by the Republican-dominated committee resulted in no oath, and Gonzales proceeded [...]

An Italian prosecutor is seeking to put 17 former Nazi SS members on trial for participation in the 1944 massacre of 700 civilians in the town of Marzabotto in Bologna. Prosecutor Marco de Paolis has asked a judge in the town of La Spezia to add the officer and 16 enlisted men of the 16th [...]

Prosecutors at an appeals hearing in Arusha, Tanzania, Monday asked the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to overturn the genocide acquittals of two former Rwandan officials. One-time Rwandan Transport Minister Andre Ntagerura and Emmanuel Bagambiki , a civilian official in the Cyangugu Province, were acquitted in 2004 of genocide and crimes against humanity during [...]

A four-hour prison riot in Los Angeles County on Saturday was the result of racial tension, county Sheriff Lee Baca said Sunday. The riot, in which 2,000 inmates participated, took place at the maximum-security North County Correctional Facility in Castaic, California between black and Latino prisoners. One inmate was killed and over 40 injured. Officials [...]

Leading Monday's international brief, in one of the first public signs of division inside the Zimbabwean government of President Robert Mugabe , the Zimbabwean Attorney General and the Zimbabwean Registrar General have expressed sharp disagreement concerning the proposed draft of a parliamentary bill that would enable to government to seize the passports of individuals deemed [...]

Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant has asked the Canadian federal government for the power to ban handguns, vowing to look to constitutional options if he is refused. Last last week Bryant criticized current Canadian firearms laws permitting collectors to own guns for sporting competitions as ineffective, due to "the dangers caused even by safe storage [...]

Amnesty International (AI) Monday condemned as "shameful" the British government's inattention to the plight of nine long-term British residents currently being held at the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay , Cuba, and called once again for the camp to be closed. British government officials responded to the criticism by pointing out that while the [...]

UK Conservative Party leader David Cameron Monday urged a review of the traditionally-unilateral "royal prerogative" powers exercised by the prime minister in the name of the British monarch, including the powers to go to war, sign treaties, and change internal governmental structures. The party has set up a Democracy Task Force led by Conservative frontbencher [...]

American and European officials meeting in Munich Sunday at the annual Conference on Security Policy criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for backsliding on his protection of human rights. US Senator John McCain went so far as to suggest an international boycott of the upcoming G-8 summit to be hosted by Putin in St. Petersburg in [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond School of Law says Merck faces new legal difficulties as a retrial of the first federal Vioxx case begins… The retrial of the first federal Vioxx case begins Monday with jury selection. In December a jury deadlocked after deliberating for two days over whether Vioxx [...]