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The convergence between Jihadi Khomeinists and Jihadi Salafists seems to be developing as strategists and terrorism analysts are debating the near future of the global jihadi movement. Moving fast to reach out to the Islamist regime in Khartoum, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah organization openly declared its backing of Omar Bashir's government as the latter in turn solidified its alliance with Hezbollah. This development, which surfaced as of the end of July, comes in parallel of an attempt by the Khomeinist-inspired organization to sign a collaboration agreement with Salafist factions in Beirut a few weeks ago. But the Hezbollah-Sudan exchange of declarations...

It was the one part of the six-lane intercounty connector that even highway haters embraced as a small but eco-friendly offset to a road that will pave over streams, woods and wildlife. Now, the possibility of building a continuous, off-road bicycle and walking trail along the Maryland highway's 18.8-mile route is in jeopardy -- in the name of protecting the environment. Montgomery County planners say a continuous 10-foot-wide asphalt bike path would cause too much damage to ecologically sensitive parkland traversed by the toll road under construction between Gaithersburg and Laurel. Instead, planners say, cyclists and walkers should be detoured...

Is the defendant's dock at the International Criminal Court reserved for leaders of small and poor countries that defy the West? Not if Rwanda has its way. It wants to charge some of France's most celebrated leaders of the 1990s as collaborators in genocide. Last week the government of Rwanda issued a damning 500-page report documenting France's participation in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. This marks a remarkable turnaround in the deeply politicized world of human rights reporting. Usually, such reporting takes the form of governments or human rights groups based in the West condemning poor countries for having political or...

PARIS — Georgia has filed a lawsuit against Russia at the International Court of Justice in The Hague for its actions in and around the territory of Georgia from 1991 to 2008, the court said in a statement.

President Medvedev said the EU peace plan contained "good principles to settle the problem," but that Russia would also add proposals and that it was "up to Georgia now". He said that President Saakashvili, whom he described as a "lunatic," had lied about his side's respect for a ceasefire during the conflict. "You know, lunatics' difference from other people is that when they smell blood it is very difficult to stop them. So you have to use surgery," President Medvedev said. Asked about the progress of the peace plan, President Sarkozy said: "The night is young. We are not at...

KIGALI (AFP) — France played an active role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, a report unveiled Tuesday by the Rwandan government said, naming French political and military officials it says should be prosecuted. The indicting report accused a raft of top French politicians of involvement in the massacres, threatening to further mar relations between the two countries, which severed diplomatic ties in November 2006.

Last update: 1:15 a.m. EDT July 20, 2008 CAIRO, Jul 20, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Arab League foreign ministers issued a statement after an emergency meeting Saturday opposing war crimes charges against the president of Sudan. The meeting in Cairo was called after the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, asked the court to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the BBC reported. No warrant has yet been issued. ...The attacks in the Darfur region by government-backed militias have become a cause among political figures and celebrities around the world. But the...

AFRICA INSIGHT - Locking up Sudan’s Al-Bashir could let in some light into war-torn Darfur Story by OKELLO OCULI Publication Date: 7/25/2008 The charges brought by the International Criminal Court against Sudan President Hassan al Bashir present a crack for sunlight to shine through the dark clouds of official terrorism perpetrated for over two decades by the Khartoum regime against helpless peasants, writes OKELLO OCULI “The oil found in Darfur will turn into a curse for the region, bringing about the loss of many lives, hand in hand with large-scale land alienation and devastation,” so wrote Prof Fouad Ibrahim...

Karadžić practiced alternative medicine22 July 2008 | 11:12 | Source: B92, Beta, Tanjug BELGRADE -- Radovan Karadžić lived in Belgrade with an assumed identity, and practiced alternative medicine, said Rasim Ljajić. At a joint conference led by the president of the National Council for Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal and War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vuk�ević, it was stated that Karadžić worked at a private Belgrade surgery under the alias of Dragan Dabić. It was added that he had been arrested last night in Belgrade while moving from one location to another. Vuk�ević and Ljajić said that the operation had begun...

July 15, 208 (KHARTOUM) — The United Nations urged hundreds of staff to stay at home on Tuesday as crowds of Sudanese protested against war crimes charges levelled against their president by an international prosecutor.

Text of report by private Sudanese newspaper Al-Ra'y al-Amm on 12 July Sudan's Permanent Representative to the UN, Abd-al-Mahmud Abd-al-Halim, has revealed that there are two directions inside the UN Security Council regarding the new arrest warrants of the International Criminal Court [ICC] [against high-ranking Sudanese officials]. The first is led by China and Russia who are calling on [ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-] Ocampo to refrain from demanding the arrest of high-ranking officials and the other is led by the US, France and Britain who support this. Abd-al-Halim told Al-Ra'y al-Amm that China and Russia were seeking to issue...

The chief prosecutor of the Internationals Criminal Court will seek an arrest warrant Monday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charging him with genocide and crimes against humanity in the orchestration of a campaign of violence that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the nation's Darfur region during the past five years, according to U.N. officials and diplomats.

Several Israeli officials instructed not to visit European country due to international arrest warrant issued against them over their involvement in assassination of senior Hamas member Salah Shehade The Foreign Ministry has instructed a number of Israeli officials not to visit Spain after an international arrest warrant was issued against them on suspicion of committing war crimes. A Spanish human rights organization, believed to be representing a Palestinian group, filed a lawsuit last week against Israeli officials involved in the assassination of senior Hamas member Salah Shehade six years ago. Sixteen Palestinians were killed in the airstrike in the heart...

The International Criminal Court isn't discussed much in the presidential campaign, but few issues are more revealing of a candidate's perspective on the United States' legal and political relations with the rest of the world. -snip- Unlike the rest of the Republican field, Sen. John McCain has said he would like to see the United States join the international court, although he would first require more protections for U.S. personnel. -snip- At the other end is Ron Paul, a Republican congressman from Texas, who said in 2002 that both the court and the United Nations "are inherently incompatible with national...

A few miles off Interstate 270, in the heart of bustling Montgomery County, a once-thriving neighborhood has taken on the feel of a ghost town. Half the homes are vacant, their windows broken or boarded up. Driveways are strewed with debris. "No Trespassing" and "Beware of Dog" signs dot trees. Banging sounds come from empty houses where burglars pry copper pipes from the walls. The culprit is not foreclosure but the imminent arrival of the six-lane intercounty connector that will slice through the Derwood neighborhood. This week, highway workers demolished a brick house and will soon raze five more on...

In the community of Shady Grove Woods, trees are becoming more and more scarce. Residents and other anti-Intercounty Connector activists marched through the neighborhood on Saturday, pointing out the trees that were cut down to make way for the six-lane highway. ‘‘It’s just that we didn’t have a say in it in so many ways and we’re not talking about a two-lane road, we’re talking about a major highway running through here,” resident Sam Chim said of the ICC. ‘‘We have a lot of nice, private woods back here and now we’re going to have a highway running through instead....

A senior Bush administration official said Friday that the U.S. now accepts the "reality" of the International Criminal Court, and that Washington would consider aiding the Hague tribunal in its investigation of atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region. "The U.S. must acknowledge that the ICC enjoys a large body of international support, and that many countries will look to the ICC as the preferred mechanism" for punishing war crimes that individual countries can't or won't address, John Bellinger, the State Department's chief lawyer, told a conference in Chicago marking t he 10th anniversary of the tribunal's founding treaty, the Rome Statute....

The ICC at Georgetown Law by: Malcolm A. Kline, April 16, 2008 If you wonder where new bureaucracies come from, look at their nurseries—colleges and universities. That is where such notions not only are procreated but polished and promoted as well. Knowing that their birthplace is usually on a college campus also aids in understanding why they usually fall prey to the law of unintended consequences. Paper theories usually don’t work out even as well as equations worked out on the back of cocktail napkins. An example of the latter is the Reagan tax cuts that gave the United States...

Loose cigars are safe, cloned meat doesn't have to be labeled and English won't become Maryland's official language. Bills dealing with those issues are among the dozens that state lawmakers in Annapolis have rejected. When House members returned for a rare Saturday session, they found a long list of proposed bills that were rejected by committees, or in some cases, withdrawn by their sponsors. The losing bills include a formal recognition of English as the state's official language and a bill to ban the sale of cigars in packages of less than five.

BAGHDAD — Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee who has linked his political future to U.S. success in Iraq, was in Baghdad on Sunday for meetings with Iraqi and U.S. diplomatic and military officials, a U.S. government official said. Details of McCain’s visit, which had been anticipated, were not being released for security reasons, the U.S. Embassy said. It was unclear who he met with; no media opportunities or news conferences were planned. McCain, a strong supporter of the U.S. military mission in Iraq, is believed to be staying in the country for about 24 hours. “Senator McCain...

As US president George Bush serves his final year in office, many ICC watchers look forward to his successor, hoping a new administration will increase support for the court. Yet the three presidential candidates - Republican Senator John McCain, Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton and Democratic Senator Barack Obama - have all been vague when quizzed about the ICC, only committing to continued backing for the court’s work in Sudan. “We’ve got three leading candidates, all of whom have made favourable remarks about the court but with considerable caution,” said John Washburn, convener for the American Non-Governmental Organisations Coalition for the...

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said on Tuesday he would denounce Venezuela's Hugo Chavez in international court in a growing Andean dispute after Venezuela and Ecuador cut diplomatic ties with Bogota and ordered troops to their neighbor's frontier. Colombia has accused Chavez and Ecuador's President Rafael Correa of links to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC guerrillas and the crisis was triggered by a raid by Colombian troops inside Ecuador to kill a top guerrilla boss. "Colombia proposes to denounce the President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez in the International Criminal Court for sponsoring and financing genocide," Uribe told reporters....

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said Tuesday that he will seek Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's denunciation in international court for financing a terrorist group. Camilo Ospina, Colombia's ambassador to the United Nations, will go before the International Criminal Court to accuse Chavez of "supporting and financing genocides," Uribe told reporters. The Colombian leader alleged Monday that correspondence taken from computers seized in last weekend's military raid into Ecuador showed Chavez had given $300 million to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Colombia's largest rebel group, known by the Spanish acronym FARC, has sought to overthrow the government for more than 40...

As reported by CNN (CNN en Espanol?), Alvaro Uribe (president of Colombia) has just announced a few minutes ago that the Colombian government will submit a criminal complaint against the President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez before the International Criminal Court for his ties with the FARC and having financed and supported a terrorist organization. Video coming soon.

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Tolls on Maryland tunnels and bridges could increase more than 70 percent over the next five years to help pay for building the InterCounty Connector in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, and the new express toll lanes on Interstate 95 in Baltimore and Harford counties, a fiscal analyst told lawmakers Monday. Based on information the Maryland Transportation Authority sent to lawmakers, average tolls throughout the system are expected to go up $1.20 (48 percent) as early as 2010 and 85 cents (23 percent) two years later. This would push one-way tolls at the Susquehanna River bridge...

The veterans and active-duty personnel who have supported the presidential aspirations of John McCain so far, may not be aware that he has advocated for legislation that might leave some of them struggling to avoid spending the rest of their lives behind bars.

John McCain’s win in New Hampshire did not impress former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Revealing a divide in the Republican Party between moderates and conservatives, DeLay slammed McCain in an interview Wednesday with FOX News. “There’s nothing redeeming about John McCain,” DeLay said. The Texas Republican added that McCain “does betray conservative principles.” When asked on which issues McCain was not a conservative, he said: “Mercy, there’s tons of them” and proceeded to list the Senator’s positions on the environment, immigration, the International Criminal Court, his support for affirmative action and taxes. He also called McCain a “hypocrite” when...

Many in the media are intrigued by Rep. Ron Paul's success in the presidential campaign but usually focus on how much money he is raising. In terms of issues, some think he is rising in the polls because of his opposition to the Iraq War. That may be a factor, but my research convinces me that he is doing well primarily because he has a traditional Republican message of returning to smaller and less expensive government. More than that, however, he is talking about the threat posed by global institutions. The media, which adore the U.N. and believe it is...

Maryland State Highway Administrator (MdSHA) has given contractors the OK to start construction work on the first part of the 30km (18.8mi) long $2.4b InterCounty Connector (ICC) tollroad. The ICC is an east-west connector mainly located in Montgomery County about 10km (6 miles) north of the Beltway (I-495) and about 23km (14 miles) north of the White House. It goes from I-370 at present a short spur off I-270 near Gaithersburg at the western end in direction a bit south of east across upper Montgomery County to I-95 and US1 near Laurel in Prince Georges County. The route is already...

BALTIMORE - Gov. Martin O’Malley and Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine called on Congress Wednesday to pass legislation to control greenhouse gas emissions, arguing the health of the Chesapeake Bay is at stake. “We now know with certainty that human activities — including coastal development, the burning of fossil fuels and increasing greenhouse gas emissions — are contributing to both the causes and consequences of climate change,” O’Malley told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. But his testimony did not go over well with critics of the Intercounty Connector — an 18-mile toll road that would connect Montgomery and...

Dear Four Reasons Reader: Something truly amazing has happened. George W Bush was re-selected by god so that he and his administration can be held accountable for a premeditated war of aggression- the highest international crime. There has been a tremendous effort underway since January of 2003 to bring up charges of impeachment as well as to try to bring up criminal charges in the International Criminal Court- which the US is not party to and therefore makes it a difficult task. This motion is headed by Ramsey Clark, Francis Boyle, and a host of serious legal scholars. Impeachment wasn't...

".. that could open the way for the deployment of US forces to the young Balkan republic - a step likely to fuel tensions with Russia."

I have been reading the Summary of the Judgement of the ICC on the charge of Genocide. The Court will therefore examine the facts of the case on the basis that genocide may be found to have been committed if an intent to destroy the Bosnian Muslims, as a group, in whole or in part, can be established.The Court further specifies that for the purposes of Article II, first, the intent must be to destroy at least a substantial part of the particular group. That is demanded by the very nature of the crime of genocide: since the object and...

WASHINGTON - Environmental groups filed two court challenges Wednesday aimed at blocking construction of Maryland's Intercounty Connector, a highway that officials say will ease commutes and take vehicles off local streets. The 18-mile, six-lane highway connecting Interstate 270 in Montgomery County with Interstate 95 in Prince George's County has long been championed by regional business groups, but faced stiff opposition from environmentalists as well as concerns over its cost. It finally won federal approval in May. In one lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club claim the air quality analysis conducted by federal...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Twenty-six Bosnian Serb refugees are in custody after a series of raids around the United States targeting people who served in Bosnian Serb military units that attacked Muslims. Officials say three others remain at large. Sixteen of the 29 face criminal charges for concealing their military service when they applied for refugee status in the United States. A court document says one of them, Nedjo Ikonic, 40, of Greenfield, Wisconsin, "was a commander of a police company that cooperated with and was subordinated to the Army of the Serbian Republic during the July 1995 massacre in Srebrenica."...

NEW YORK—Former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler has joined with officials from the United States and Israel in calling on the UN to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with inciting genocide. The group said the UN International Court of Criminal Justice should charge Ahmadinejad for his threats against the United States, for calling for the destruction of Israel and for instigating discrimination against Christians and Jews. Cotler, the Liberal MP for Mount Royal, united with John Bolton, the U.S.'s outgoing UN ambassador, and former Israeli UN ambassador Dore Gold in urging UN action. The call was made yesterday at the...

More than 1 million residents of the Washington-Baltimore region already live close to heavily trafficked motorways where dangerous soot pollution is at levels that can trigger asthma attacks, heart attacks and respiratory disease. Building the $2.4 billion (and rising), 18-mile intercounty connector linking Interstate 270 to Interstate 95 through neighborhoods and near schools would worsen these health problems. Maryland Gov.-elect Martin O'Malley (D) reiterated his support for the road following his election last month, but if the public demands protection for our children and the elderly, he still could take steps to prevent these health hazards. The toxic pollution the...

As Posted on Drudge...Exclusive: Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abusehttp://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1557842,00.htmlAlso:# Alberto Gonzales, George Tenet also to be named...# Focus: Alleged roles in abuses committed at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay...# Former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski to testify on behalf of plaintiffs...# PENTAGON: NO COMMENT...

Two environmental groups say they will sue to stop construction of the intercounty connector, arguing that building the highway would violate sections of the federal Clean Air Act. Environmental Defense and the Maryland chapter of the Sierra Club said the Washington region already fails to meet certain clean-air standards and that building the six-lane, 18-mile highway would increase pollution. The $2.4 billion intercounty connector would link Interstate 270 in Montgomery County with Interstate 95 in Prince George's County. "There are elementary schools and nursing centers close to the ICC, and people who live and work within several hundred yards of...

VATICAN CITY, June 28, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an interview published in the June 27 issue of Famiglia Christiana magazine, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, said that those involved in embryonic stem cell research which kills human embryos are excommunicated.In a wide-ranging interview about the Fifth World Meeting of Families, due to be held in Valencia, Spain from July 1 to 9, the Cardinal was asked about excommunication, first in the case of abortion.  He responded that the doctors, the nurses and the mother involved all incur excommunication.  He added that the the...

TRUTH in the David Hicks affair remains as elusive as ever after fresh allegations this week from inside the US military that the Guantanamo Bay commissions are so seriously flawed that a fair trial is impossible. The most damaging blows yet to the commissions -- still supported by the Howard Government -- came from three US Air Force prosecutors involved in the trials who have quit the investigation in protest. One, John Carr, said the process appeared to have been rigged and that the first four cases -- including Hicks -- had been been "handpicked" and would not be acquitted....

To anyone who didn't know better, it might seem that the world is finally getting serious about stopping the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, which over the past two years has claimed at least 300,000 lives and displaced at least 2 million people. After months of huffing and puffing, the UN Security Council finally agreed to freeze the assets of war-crimes suspects, impose a travel ban on them, and refer them for trial to the International Criminal Court. The latter resolution was the subject of tortuous negotiations between the Bush administration, which loathes the ICC (even though it...

Lebanese minister of justice states that Israel's attacks constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and wonders how pictures of Qana did not bring about ceasefire. Red Cross publishes that 28 corpses evacuated from Qana, contrary to Lebanese reports that 57 people were killed Lebanon is planning to file a lawsuit against Israel in the International Criminal Court. Tuesday, Lebanese Minister of Justice Charles Rizk made a written petition to the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, asking him to bring up the issue in the next meeting of the Lebanese cabinet, so that the prime minister will be able to collect...

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has said he is unhappy with "draconian" conditions in the Dutch prison where he is awaiting trial. Mr Taylor's lawyer made the complaint during his first appearance before a special UN-backed war crimes tribunal. Mr Taylor faces 11 war crimes charges after allegedly backing rebels in the decade-long Sierra Leone civil war. He was arrested in Nigeria this year and detained in Sierra Leone before being moved to The Hague for security. Attorney Karim Asad Ahmad Khan described The Hague jail regime as "far more draconian... than operates in Freetown", the capital of Sierra Leone....

Dulles, Virginia – One of the main criticisms Americans have of the United Nations is that it is an "ineffective" institution. As analyzed through the foreign policy goals of the United States, that is true. The UN has been unable to speak with clarity about Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and unable to condemn the country's leader for threatening the annihilation of another member state. This week, UN Security Council members are fumbling their way through the news that North Korea test fired several ballistic missiles and are preparing more on the launch pad. Promoting international peace and security is...

Excerpt - THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Former Liberian President Charles Taylor arrived in the Netherlands on Tuesday for a war crimes trial on charges accusing him in the death, rape or mutilation of hundreds of thousands of people in West Africa. An airport official said Taylor's U.N.-chartered plane landed after a direct flight from Sierra Leone, where he had been in detention since March 29. Two police vans and five motorcycle outriders were waiting on the tarmac at a small commercial airport south of The Hague. ~ snip ~

<p>New York: Deputy Secretary-General of the U.N. was on Wednesday night accused of making ``a very, very grave mistake'' after calling the Bush administration hypocrites who were feeding a right-wing anti-U.N. frenzy in middle America.</p> <p>Washington's Ambassador to the U.N. responded with undisguised fury to a speech by Mark Malloch Brown, the Deputy Secretary-General, in which he accused Washington of using the international body ``almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool'' while failing to defend it at home.</p>

May 11, 2006, 6:02 a.m. I Was an Icelandic “War Criminal” Believe me, Secretary Rice, you don’t want to go soft on the International Criminal Court. By Michael Rubin I looked forward to returning to Iceland. It had been seven years since I last lectured there, and I remembered it as a beautiful, rugged country, great for hiking and swimming. I was scheduled to deliver four lectures on Iran, Iraq, and transformative diplomacy at the Universities of Iceland and Reykjavik, and at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Keflavik. This trip would not be so smooth. Word of trouble began...

WASHINGTON - China is training increasing numbers of Latin American military personnel, taking advantage of a three-year old U.S. law that has led to a sharp decline in U.S.-run training programs for the region, an Army general said Tuesday. Gen. Bantz Craddock, who oversees U.S. military operations in Latin America, said military members of all ranks are receiving training in China, In addition, he said, more and more Chinese non-lethal military equipment is showing up in the region...It's a growing phenomenon." Craddock testified before a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing where lawmakers from both parties called for the elimination of...

The Three Serbs After Europe criticized the U.S. for its treatment of war prisoners at Gitmo (where no terrorist ever died), 2 Serb war-crimes prisoners died in European jails in the same week (one was denied medical care). The first to die was Milan Babic. The second to die after his request for medical care was denied was Slobodan Milosevic. Most of the world will yawn or cheer these developments, of course. But there is a 3rd Serb who is currently being railroaded by the same EU officials, along with some left-wing American help. Years ago, CBS's Dan Rather sent...