A Russian military court has convicted a senior officer in the country's elite missile corps of modern-day slavery and contracting out conscripts under his command for personal gain. Deputy Commander Vladimir Kontonistov has been banned from holding any command for three years and fined 56,000 rubles (approximately $1,987). Prosecutors are appealing the sentence as too [...]

A leaked memo reported in the UK Guardian newspaper Friday shows that Prime Minister Tony Blair had committed to US plans to invade Iraq well before seeking legal advice on the military action and any second UN resolution giving more definitive authorization. The memo is described in more detail in a new edition of a [...]

Mayola William et al. v. Philip Morris Incorporated et al., Oregon Supreme Court, February 2, 2006 . Excerpt: In summary, Philip Morris, with others, engaged in a massive, continuous, near-half-century scheme to defraud the plaintiff and many others, even when Philip Morris always had reason to suspect — and for two or more decades absolutely [...]

UN ambassadors from Panama and South Africa Thursday circulated a draft compromise resolution in the UN General Assembly outlining provisions for a UN Human Rights Council to replace the current 53-member Commission on Human Rights . The draft proposes a 45-member body based in Geneva with 12 members from Africa, 13 from Asia, 5 from [...]

Petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR); Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti,the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School, and TransAfrica Forum, February 2, 2006 . Excerpt: This petition demonstrates that the IGH, the United States, and the Dominican Republic violated the [...]

International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei Thursday sought to delay an IAEA vote on a draft resolution offered by Britain, France and Germany and backed by the US that calls for Iran to be reported to the UN Security Council after Tehran broke IAEA seals on equipment used to produce enriched uranium. ElBaradei said [...]

The Oregon Supreme Court Thursday upheld an award of $79.5 million in punitive damages that a jury in 1999 directed Philip Morris USA to pay to relatives of an Oregon man who died of lung cancer from smoking. The same jury set the level of compensatory damages at $821,000. The Oregon high court called the [...]

In a close vote Thursday, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) beat out stand-in GOP chief Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) to win election as GOP House Majority Leader , vowing to move the party away from recent ethics and corruption scandals. Boehner, who beat Blunt 122-109 on a second ballot, said that Republicans would now recommit to [...]

Michael J. Kelly : "President Truman used American involvement in the Korean War as justification for seizing privately owned U.S. steel mills when a labor strike threatened to cripple that industry and bring production to a halt – thereby threatening the country's continued ability to wage war. In short, the president used an external threat [...]

EU Justice Commissioner and European Commission Vice-President Franco Frattini intervened in the growing Islamic cartoons controversy Thursday, calling newspaper publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad "somewhat imprudent," while acknowledging that freedom of expression was a "'founding principle' of most European nations." In a statement from Brussels, he said:I can understand the feelings of indignation, [...]