Equality/Justice

Court: Negligence by US Army Corps Caused Katrina Flooding

A rescue helicopter flies through a neighorbood in search of survivors in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, September 4, 2005. (REUTERS/Robert Galbraith)

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' failure to maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, a federal judge ruled late [Wednesday].

The decision could make the federal government the target of billions of dollars worth of legal claims by more than 100,000 other individuals, businesses and government entities that also sustained damages from the water that inundated 80 percent of the city when the levees protecting the low-lying city were breached in several places.

Does Wolf Blitzer Think It's Time to Call Out the Lynch Mob?

It's easy to praise constitutional rights in the abstract, to declare that you are a believer in free speech, the right to trial, the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments when you're speaking only in general terms. The real test comes when you're asked to deal with difficult specific cases.

Posted in Equality/Justice

The Only Anchor

Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday that some top al-Qaeda 9/11 conspirators will be tried by jury in New York not far from the scenes of devastation that they had wrought.

This decision by the Obama administration demonstrates faith in the American way of life, and a conviction that even the worst mass murderers can be dealt justice by democratic institutions.

Detainees to Get 'The-State-Always-Wins' System of 'Justice'

According to The Associated Press, Eric Holder will announce later today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 defendants will be brought from Guantanamo to New York to stand trial, in a real criminal court, for the crimes they are accused of committing.  This is a decision I really wish I could praise, as it's clearly both politically risky and the right thing to do.

BP Faces Damages Claim Over Pipeline Through Colombian Farmland

Court documents say the farmland has been ‘profoundly and adversely affected.' (Photograph: Jeremy Horner/Corbis) Ninety-five Colombian farmers are suing the oil company BP in the high court in London for allegedly causing serious damage to their land, crops and animals.

In the first case of its kind, the farmers are claiming that BP Exploration Company (Colombia) Ltd, which joined forces with Colombia's national oil company and four foreign multinational corporations in a consortium to construct the 450-mile (720km) Ocensa pipeline, caused landslides and damage to soil and groundwater, causing crops to fail, livestock to perish, contaminating water supplies and making fish ponds unsustainable.

Rendition Redux?

NEW YORK - On the heels of a federal appeals court ruling that only the U.S. Congress and the executive branch of government - not the courts - can interfere with government-sponsored "extraordinary rendition", a U.S. citizen from New Jersey is asking another court to tell the government it wasn't okay to secretly imprison and abuse him in three different African countries over a period of four months.

Yoo's Lawyers Warn of Flood of Political Suits

John Yoo wrote a 2002 Bush administration memo on interrogation of terrorism detainees. (Photo: Susan Walsh / Associated Press)

SAN FRANCISCO -- A ruling that allowed a prisoner to sue former Bush administration attorney John Yoo for devising the legal theories that justified his alleged torture threatens to "open the floodgates to politically motivated lawsuits" against government officials, Yoo's lawyers say.

In papers filed late Monday with the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Yoo's new team of private lawyers argued that a judge's refusal to dismiss a suit by inmate Jose Padilla injected the courts into the political arena.

Give Juveniles A Chance!

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in a pair of cases from Florida, Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v.

UN Endorses Gaza War Crimes Report

A Palestinian boy sits outside a tent near his house, which was destroyed during the three-week offensive Israel launched last December, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip November 3, 2009. (REUTERS/Suhaib Salem)

The United Nations General Assembly has voted in favour of resolution endorsing a UN-sponsored report into war crimes committed during Israel's war on Gaza.

The Goldstone report, which accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, was endorsed by the assembly on Thursday by a margin of 114 to 18, after two days of debate. 

Forty-four member-nations abstained from voting.

US House Rejects Goldstone Report

Palestinian civilians flee during an Israeli strike on the Gaza strip town of Beit Lahia in January 2009. Arab delegates to the United Nations are floating a draft resolution that would require UN chief Ban Ki-moon to bring a damning report on the Gaza war before the Security Council. (AFP/File/Mohammed Abed)

 

The US House of Representatives has rejected as "irredeemably biased" the findings of a UN-sponsored report which says Israel committed war crimes during its military assault on the Gaza Strip.

The house on Tuesday voted 344 to 36 in favour of a non-binding resolution calling on Barack Obama, the US president, to maintain his opposition to the report, which was written by a panel led by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge.

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