TOKYO, Japan — While legislatures around the world wind down their sessions ahead of the New Year, the government in Japan announced earlier this month it was extending its parliamentary session in an effort to resolve a debate that has for the last couple of months brought the legislative process here largely to a halt. On Dec.15, the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announced that the Diet session would be extended for another month, the first time in 14 years that a session has been extended into the new year. The decision was made to allow time to [...]
The death of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto Thursday from wounds suffered in an attack on her party’s political rally has sent shock waves through Pakistan and the world, plunging the country into chaos and raising serious questions about the stability and future of the nuclear-armed state on the front line of the war on terror. Bhutto’s life was characterized by tragic deaths in her family, a historic rise to the pinnacle of Pakistani politics and corruption scandals that drove her into repeated exile as Pakistan’s well-oiled rumor mills ran wild. Bhutto was loved and reviled in almost equal [...]
Round two of the trial of Salim Hamdan is now underway in earnest. Most will recall that round one ended when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the military commission established by an order issued by President Bush violated constitutional separation of powers limitations (with a plurality of the court also concluding the commission violated the humane treatment mandate of the law of war). Congress responded rapidly to that ruling by passing the Military Commission Act of 2006, providing the president with a statutory basis for resurrecting the commissions. Pursuant to that statute, Salim Hamdan was recharged [...]
