French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin Thursday announced plans to reform the country's current 35-hour workweek. While letting that formal limit stand, Raffarin said companies will be allowed to negotiate their own deals with employees regarding overtime. The 35-hour workweek was introduced under a Socialist administration in 1998, and was aimed at boosting employment by forcing [...]

A jury has awarded the parents of 17-year old David Boim $52 million in damages in one of the first jury awards against US-based charities accused of supporting terrorism. Boim was killed by gunmen in Israel's West Bank in 1996. Before trial, US Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys found the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and [...]

The United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of 23 mainstream Shiite groups under the auspices of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, announced Thursday a list of 228 candidates running for office in the Iraq elections scheduled for January 30. Iraq's Sunni factions, who have indicated that they may boycott the election, were not included in the list, [...]

Anna Ryzhova, Kyiv, Ukraine: "Yesterday, Dec. 8th, the Parliament of Ukraine adopted a number of landmark lawmaking decisions. The purpose of these decisions was to apply measures that would prevent fraud in future elections, to remove some powers from the presidency, and to appoint a new Central Election Commission. Generally, the Dec 8th session was [...]

The Zimbabwe parliament Thursday passed a controversial bill banning foreign-funded human rights groups from operating in the country and requiring all other rights groups to register with the governmet. Pro-government legislators have accused outside rights groups of being tools of western governments opposed to the regime of President Robert Mugabe; critics of the legislation see [...]

Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma signed a decree Thursday effectively firing the country's Prosecutor-General, according to Russia's Interfax news agency. Gennady Vasilyev had submitted his resignation Wednesday, which Kuchma had accepted as part of a parliamentary deal to pass a package of electoral law and constitutional reforms opening the way for a new presidential vote on [...]

Ellen Podgor, Georgia State University College of Law: "While Martha Stewart remains incarcerated, the world is continuing outside the prison grounds of "camp cupcake." The latest, according to Reuters, is that Martha Stewart will star in a new TV show upon her release. It sounds from the Wall Street Journal article like the new "cooking [...]

Military planners are seeking $25 million to build a state-of-the-art 200-cell permanent detention facilty in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be guarded by a special 324-member professional guard force, according to a story running Thursday in the Miami Herald. The permanent building, based on the layout of a medium-security prison in Indiana, would replace cells made [...]

The UK House of Lords ruled Thursday that immigration controls set up by the British government had systematically discriminated against Roma Gypsies trying to enter Britain, largely from the Czech Republic where many faced prosecution. Roma, known for their nomadic lifetsyle, have traditionally been a suspect social group across Europe, and have frequently been victims [...]

Reference re Same-Sex Marriage, Supreme Court of Canada, December 9, 2004 . Read the judgment here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.