An Uzbek court sentenced opposition activist Nodira Khidayatova to ten years in prison Wednesday for embezzlement and tax evasion. Khidayatova, a leading member of the Sunshine Uzbekistan Coalition (SUC) , was arrested in December after returning from a news conference in Moscow during which she criticized Uzbek President Islam Karimov . The SUC campaigns for [...]

A bill banning same-sex marriage passed the Republican-majority Wisconsin State Legislature Tuesday evening and will be presented to voters on the state ballot in November. Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle (D-WI), who will not have an opportunity to consider the bill, has vetoed prior efforts to ban gay marriages and is expected to denounce the proposal. [...]

Military commission hearings for two Guantanamo Bay detainees scheduled to begin Wednesday have been delayed, but a third detainee will face a pre-trial hearing as scheduled. Ali Hamza al Bahlul is accused of serving as Osama bin Laden's bodyguard and making al Qaeda recruiting videos. He has said that he wants to represent himself during [...]

Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, Inc., et al. v. Jeremiah W. Nixon, et al, Supreme Court of Missouri, February 28, 2006 . Read the full text of the decision. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The US Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that plaintiffs in a patent-tying antitrust action under Section 1 of the Sherman Act must prove that the defendant has market power as part of its affirmative case. In Illinois Tool Works v. Independent Ink , 04-1329, Independent Ink sued under the Sherman Act, arguing that an Illinois Tool [...]

The Council of Europe said Wednesday that an investigation into allegations that the US Central Intelligence Agency operated secret prisons in Europe revealed no "smoking gun" evidence that proved the existence of the prisons. COE Secretary General Terry Davis , presenting his findings on alleged illegal detentions and rendition flights on European territory based on [...]

US District Judge Federico Moreno ruled Tuesday that the US Coast Guard acted unreasonably when it sent 15 Cubans back home after their boat reached an abandoned bridge in January and said that the Cubans had reached US soil. The Coast Guard acted under the government's "wet-foot, dry foot" policy , which allows Cubans to [...]

Saddam Hussein admitted in court Wednesday that he had ordered the trial of a group of Shiites who were executed under his regime in the 1980s and that he had ordered that their land be confiscated, but he also asserted that his actions were not criminal. Speaking at the close of proceedings at his trial [...]

Leading Wednesday's international brief, a British official has revealed that the UN Security Council will be presented with a resolution in the next two weeks that will seek to impose mandatory sanctions against up to ten government officials in Sudan for their involvement in the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur . Security Council members have [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Nancy Rapoport, dean of the University of Houston Law Center, says that as we watch witnesses at the trial of former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling continue to testify about Enron's earnings management, we should ask ourselves if we're really all that different from the defendants when we "manage" numbers [...]