Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari met with several of the country's leading Shiite clerics in the city of Najaf Friday to discuss issues surrounding the Iraqi constitution. Jaafari said after a discussion with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that the senior Shiite celeric "does not want to impose dictation on drafting the constitution, but according to [...]

A jury in Virginia Friday found that Daryl Renard Atkins is not mentally retarded, and upheld his death penalty conviction. Atkins had been convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for the 1996 killing of Airman 1st Class Eric Nesbitt; he later appealed his conviction to the US Supreme Court, arguing that he was [...]

Statement on Broadening Powers to Tackle Extremism, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, August 5, 2005 , anywhere, will automatically be refused asylum in our country"]. Excerpt: Over the past two weeks there have been intensive meetings and discussions across government to set a comprehensive framework for action in dealing with the terrorist threat in Britain, [...]

Leading Friday's states brief, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled today that Cedar Rapids does not have the authority to expand its control to include a preserve adjacent to the city because the city's extra-territorial jurisdiction does not extend to nature areas. The court said that while the Legislature intended to give cities extra-territorial jurisdiction over [...]

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Leading Friday's corporations and securities law brief, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) has agreed to pay Enron Corp. $250 million. The payment follows a a $2.4 billion settlement with Enron shareholders earlier this week. In a press release, CIBC said that this settlement, made in satisfaction of claims that the bank facilitated accounting [...]

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday rejected a US government plan that would have allowed vast undeveloped areas of the country's largest national forest to be open to logging. The Tongass National Forest in southern Alaska covers almost 17 million acres and is the world's largest [...]

Two technology privacy groups have asked the Federal Communications Commission to block a proposal that would give the US Department of Justice broad powers to listen-in on cellphone calls and monitor online computer activity by airline passengers. The Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have joined forces in a petition , [...]

Ismael Diallo, Chief of the Human Rights Division of the UN Operation in Burundi , has deplored ongoing rights violations in the central African state, indicating that 53 summary executions of civilians were reported in Burundi in July 2005 alone. The majority of human rights violations have happened in Bujumbura Rural, a province west of [...]

Former WorldCom accounting executive Betty Vinson was sentenced Friday to five months in jail with an additional five months under house arrest for her role in the $11 billion fraud at the telecommunications giant that resulted in its bankruptcy. Vinson initially pleaded guilty to fraud in October 2002 and later aided the government's prosecution of [...]