The government of South Korea is seriously considering abandoning capital punishment, according to officials at the country's Justice Ministry on Wednesday. Earlier this week the ministry ordered a study to determine how abolishing the death penalty – which has not been used since 1997 – would effect the crime rate. South Korea has been considered [...]

New Haitian president Rene Preval said Wednesday that ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide has a legal right to re-enter the country. In his first news conference since his victory in the February 2 election, President Preval invoked Article 41 of the Haitian Constitution: "No person of Haitian nationality may be deported or forced to leave the [...]

A Rhode Island jury Wednesday found three former lead paint manufacturers responsible for creating a public nuisance that had contaminated thousands of homes and continues to poison children. The jury found Sherwin Williams, NL Industries Inc. , and Millennium Holdings all accountable, but cleared a fourth company, Atlantic Richfield . The jury finding, said to [...]

EU justice and interior ministers meeting in Brussels Tuesday approved a controversial data retention directive passed by the European Parliament in December designed to track down terrorists, paedophiles, and criminal gangs and calling for EU member states to store citizens' phone call and internet service data for 6 to 24 months without stipulating a maximum [...]

Trial was scheduled to begin Wednesday in El Paso, TX for Sgt. Alan J. Driver, a reservist accused of abusing prisoners at Bagram Control Point in Afghanistan . He is the last soldier in a group of 11 from the Cincinnati-based 377th Military Police Company to go up for trial in connection with the alleged [...]

The Bush administration has indicated that journalists can be prosecuted for receiving or publishing classified information under the United States Espionage Act . US Department of Justice lawyers made the assertion in a January 30 response to a motion by lawyers for two lobbyists accused of receiving and passing on classified information unsealed earlier this [...]

US Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock , military commander for US Southern Command , which oversees the detention center at Guantanamo Bay , has confirmed that military officials have begun employing more aggressive tactics to deter detainees from carrying out long-term hunger strikes to protest their detention. Reports emerged in early February of the US [...]

Krishna Sitaula, leader of the opposition Nepali Congress , was arrested at his home on Wednesday, just two days after he was released from prison , along with several other opposition politicians, according to an order from the Supreme Court of Nepal . The government gave no reason for the arrest and members of Sitaula's [...]

Defense lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby , Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, have denied that they are trying to derail the prosecution in the CIA leak case by requesting access to classified government material. Last month, Libby's defense team requested the use of classified evidence and in a brief filed in federal [...]

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday handed down decisions in four cases, including Dolan v. U.S. Postal Service , where the Court ruled that a Pennsylvania woman could sue the US Postal Service for injuries she sustained after slipping on a pile of mail that was left on her porch rather than in her mail [...]