In news from Washington. the Bush administration has withdrawn from part of the Vienna Convention on Consular Rights to protect foreigners arrested abroad. This according to a report in The Washington Post. The United States proposed the protocol 40 years ago to protect American citizens abroad and became the first country to invoke it during the 1979 US hostage crisis in Tehran. But lately the Vienna Convention has been increasingly used by foreign governments and US opponents of capital punishment to complain before the International Court of Justice when their citizens are sentenced to death by US courts. Last year the World Court ruled the U.S. had violated international agreements after 49 Mexican nationals were sentenced to death without being given access to the Mexican embassy. Last week Bush surprised attorneys for the death row prisoners by ordering new hearings for all of the Mexicans.