Former Rwandan president Pasteur Bizimungu has asked that country's high court to overturn his 15-year criminal sentence for inciting violence, embezzlement, and associating with criminals. On appeal, Bizimungu argues he was tried on charges different from those for which he was originally arrested and that his prosecution is politically motivated. First sentenced in June 2004, [...]

A Delaware Chancery Court judge on Tuesday warned that corporate directors may face US government regulation of executive pay unless they control soaring salaries and payoffs. Judge William Chandler , who ruled in August that Disney’s directors acted properly in paying $140 million to former president Michael Ovitz when he resigned in 1996, delivered a [...]

Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced Tuesday that he plans to send his top legal advisers to address state governments' concerns about the constitutionality of that country's proposed anti-terror law . Several reservations center around a legislative provision authorizing courts to detain individuals who have not been accused or convicted of any crime. Constitutional lawyers [...]

A Texas court has appointed a retired district court judge to hear a motion filed by attorneys for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) , arguing that the initial judge assigned to DeLay's case, Judge Bob Perkins , should not preside over DeLay's trial on money laundering and criminal conspiracy charges because of personal political bias. Retired [...]

Syrian ambassador to the UN Fayssal Mekdad Tuesday angrily refuted the UN-commissioned Mehlis report , which found that the Syrian government was involved in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri . Speaking during a UN Security Council debate , Mekdad dismissed the report as biased, asserting it was influenced by the anti-Syrian [...]

Conservative activist groups are stepping up their opposition to US Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers , launching two new websites Monday and also planning radio and television advertising aimed at forcing the withdrawal of the nomination. The nomination has seemingly lost all support from base conservative groups. According to Brian Burch, a spokesperson for Fidelis [...]

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has lifted a ban on firearms in emergency housing parks built in the wake of Hurricane Katrina , officials announced Monday. FEMA spokesperson Butch Kinery said the complaints from gun-rights groups that the ban violated the Second Amendment and a consultation with department lawyers prompted the lifting of the [...]

The full US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has declined to reconsider a decision requiring the Federal Election Commission to write new rules implementing the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 . The law bans congressional and presidential candidates from raising corporate and union money and from receiving unlimited donations from all sources. [...]

A federal district court judge in Washington, DC has again ruled that the US Department of the Interior must disconnect computers from the Internet that have access to data related to trust accounts it administers for American Indians. Judge Royce C. Lamberth said in the 205-page opinion that the department's computers were vulnerable to hackers [...]

A New Hampshire commission on same-sex marriage voted Monday to recommend that the state legislature not allow same-sex couples to marry, not recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages, and not establish a domestic partner registry. The commission, established in 2004 "to examine all aspects of same sex civil marriage and its legal equivalents," has held months of [...]