President Lucio Gutierrez of Ecuador declared a state of emergency in the capital Quito late Friday and dissolved the Ecuador Supreme Court . The drastic measures announced in a surprise national television address came after three days of protests in the streets of Quito, which Gutierrez blames on unpopular Supreme Court judges. Rather than quell [...]

American and British officials have rejected assertions made by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the US and UK governments share blame with the UN for oil scandals involving Saddam Hussein's regime. Speaking in New York late this week Annan said that most of the money illegally pocketed by Hussein came from smuggling operations outside [...]

Review of Formation Issues Regarding the Department of Education's Fiscal Year 2003 Contract with Ketchum, Inc. for Media Relations Services, April 15, 2005 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Records released Friday by the Florida Department of Children and Families pursuant to a Thursday court order revealed no evidence that Terri Schiavo had been abused or exploited by either her husband Micheal Schiavo or her parents Robert and Mary Schindler. The agency investigated 89 complaints from as early as 2001 alleging that Schiavo was [...]

Still at Risk: Diplomatic Assurances No Safeguard against Torture, Human Rights Watch , April 15, 2005 . Excerpt: There is substantial evidence that in the course of the global "war on terrorism," an increasing number of governments have transferred, or proposed sending, alleged terrorist suspects to countries where they know the suspects will be at [...]

In re: Records of the Department of Children and Family Services, Circuit Court for the Pinellas County, Florida, Judge Greer, April 14, 2005 . Read the full text of the order here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Julian Ku, Hofstra University School of Law: "David Brooks defends Bolton's nomination today on very straightforward grounds: Bolton is opposed to creeping global governance in the form of the ICC and a strong U.N. Here's an excerpt: They know we're not close to a global version of the European superstate. So they are content to [...]

Housekeepers, elevator operators, workmen and others who might come in contact with Roman Catholic cardinals as they meet in secret conclave at the Vatican next week to choose a new pope took an oath of secrecy and signed written secrecy pledges Friday. Pursuant to section 46 of Pope John Paul II's 1996 Apostolic Constitution Universi [...]

Egyptian judges have threatened not to supervise presidential and parliamentary elections due later this year unless the government amends laws which limit judicial power and prevent the convening of free and fair elections. The judges say that close relations between the executive and the judiciary undermine their independence and ability to properly monitor elections and [...]

In an urgent appeal at a press conference in Santiago Friday, a coalition of leading human rights groups urged the Chilean Supreme Court to reconsider its January 25 decision to shut down unconcluded investigations of human rights violations that occurred under former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet . The January ruling had set a six-month [...]