[JURIST] Pakistani officials Saturday announced the re-capture of high-level Taliban operative Ustad Mohammed Yasir in the northern city of Peshawar near the Afghan border. Yasir served as senior aide and spokesman to Taliban leader Mullah Omar [BBC profile]. He was first arrested in 2005 by

[JURIST] South Korea's minority Democratic Party [official website, in Korean] filed a criminal suit Sunday after Assembly Speaker Kim Hyong-o [official website] on Saturday ordered security guards to end a sit-in by the minority party, which led to dozens of injuries. Democratic Party officials

[JURIST] Australian acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard [official profile] on Saturday officially announced Australia's rejection of a US request to accept foreign Guantanamo detainees. This was the second request by the Bush administration regarding Australia's acceptance of prisoners of the

[JURIST] Imprisoned Zimbabwe human rights activist and head of Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) [advocacy materials] Jestina Mukoko [advocacy website, JURIST news archive] has allegedly been tortured and forced by prison officials to ingest drugs, according to a report [text] in South Africa's Sunday

[JURIST] Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki [official profile] on Friday signed a controversial media bill [press release] into law that gives power to a communication commission to regulate broadcasting with threats of fines or incarceration. The Communications Amendment Bill of 2008 [text, PDF] allows

[JURIST] The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS) [official backgrounder] on Friday charged [press release] Captain Robert Semrau with second-degree murder in the killing of an Afghan citizen. Semrau is specifically charged under the National Defense Act [text] with shooting,

[JURIST] A Zimbabwe judge ruled Friday that Zimbabwe Peace Project [advocacy materials] leader Jestina Mukoko [advocacy website; JURIST news archive] and 31 other activists charged [JURIST report] with plotting to overthrow President Robert Mugabe [BBC profile, JURIST news archive] must remain in

[JURIST] Human rights group Amnesty International USA [advocacy website] on Friday accused the US of insufficiently responding to the Gaza crisis [press release] in a letter [text, PDF] sent to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice [official Profile]. The letter claimed that the US response has been "

[JURIST] Pakistan on Friday said a bilateral extradition treaty would be required if it were to transfer Mumbai terror attack [BBC backgrounder] suspects to India. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi [official profile] said in a television interview that no such treaty exists [PTI

[JURIST] Police in China detained five parents of children who became sick after drinking melamine-tainted milk [JURIST news archive], preventing the parents from participating in a Friday news conference. One of the parents said that they had been given no reason [Reuters report] for their

[JURIST] Russian President Dmitry Medvedev [official website] on Thursday signed into law [press release, in Russian; RT report] amendments [text, in Russian] to the country's penal code ending jury trials for terrorism or treason suspects and giving prosecutors broader investigative authority on

[JURIST] Australian acting prime minister Julia Gillard [official profile] on Friday said it was "unlikely" that the country would accept foreign detainees [press release] released from the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] military prison, but that her country was considering a second request

[JURIST] Vietnamese newspaper editors Le Hoang and Nguyen Cong Khe have been dismissed from their jobs at the Tuoi Tre and Thanh Nien [media websites, in Vietnamese] newspapers after protesting the arrests of two journalists [JURIST reports] working for their respective papers earlier this year,

[JURIST] The British government is willing to help the United States close the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] military prison by accepting some released prisoners who have no previous connection to the UK, the Times reported Thursday. The paper quoted unnamed officials who indicated that the

[JURIST] Judge Richard Leon [official profile] for the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] on Tuesday ruled that the US government could continue to hold Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees Hisham Sliti and Moath Hamza Ahmed al Alwi [decisions, PDF]. Both