The US Supreme Court Monday denied without comment petitions for certiorari filed by 10 death row inmates seeking to have their executions blocked. Last Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled ...

Australia has acquired exploration and drilling rights to an additional 2.5 million square kilometers of ocean shelf after a UN commission ruled that Australia's continental shelf extends farther than previously defined, the Australian government said Monday. The UN Commission...

Afghan President Hamid Karzai rejected calls for the reinstatement of a moratorium on the death penalty Monday, saying that while he prefers life sentences, he will abide by Islamic law's sanctioning of the...

Sergei Ordzhonikidze, director-general of the UN Office at Geneva , on Monday urged UN member states to advance the cause for human rights by increasing arms control efforts, saying that the improvement of human rights in developing regions...

An Indonesian judge handed down 15-year sentences to two leaders of the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) , after convicting them on terrorism charges. The judge also ruled that JI is a terrorist...

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called for the establishment of special courts to deal specifically with corruption charges, telling a convention of high-ranking justices and government ministers on Saturday that "apart from pendency and delayed justice,...

More than 400 supporters of the Zimbabwe opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have been detained and more than 3,000 families displaced since the March 29 election , MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti said Sunday. Biti...

The National Assembly of Niger passed new anti-terrorism legislation Saturday aimed at helping security forces combat the resurgence of an ethnic Tuareg rebellion that has thrown the West African country into in a...

Zimbabwe opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai has condemned as "illegal" a process of recounting votes in 23 constituencies that began Saturday after a judge dismissed an opposition appeal . The...

Eight former British Guantanamo Bay detainees are suing the UK's MI5 (domestic) and MI6 (foreign) intelligence services over alleged complicity with the US in their illegal abduction, treatment and interrogation at the prison, according...