The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Friday issued new international guidelines regarding the detention of asylum-seekers. The new guidelines were presented amid statements of concern over the growing use of detention in a number of countries as global asylum claims have risen over the last few years, with 441,300 claims [...]

Germany is seeking the extradition of an 87-year-old Philadelphia man who is accused of committing war crimes as an SS Guard at Auschwitz concentration camp, the Associated Press (AP) reported Sunday. Retired Toolmaker Johann Breyer told the AP that he was a guard at the camp but was not involved in the killing of Jewish [...]

Faezah Hashemi , the daughter of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was arrested on Saturday and taken to Evin Prison to serve a six-month prison sentence. Faezah Hashemi, an outspoken critic of Iran’s incumbent government, was arrested upon returning from a trip to London. She was sentenced in January to a six-month prison term [...]

Belarus held elections for members of parliament Sunday, despite a boycott by opposition parties. Many of the largest opposition parties agreed to not vote in the elections and pull their candidates, believing the results are predetermined. Despite the boycott, voter turnout was reported as at least over 50 percent , which will allow the election [...]

The Afghan Interior Ministry on Saturday ordered a ban on all Pakistani newspapers from entering Afghanistan because, they claim, the papers are a source of propaganda on the part of the Taliban. The papers are to be barred from entry at the popular border crossings of Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan. The new order gives police [...]

The Libyan army ordered all militias to either come under the control of the national government or disband within 48 hours on Saturday. The announcement comes after intense anti-militia protests that included between 30,000 and 40,000 demonstrators in Benghazi killed at least eleven people over the weekend. All militias have been ordered to leave all [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed on Friday the dismissal of the Alaskan village of Kivalina’s nuisance claims against energy companies for greenhouse emissions it claimed contributed to global warming and threatened its existence. Kivalina brought suit against 22 energy corporations, attributing the destruction of its land to the effects of [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Saturday that Iran should reverse new policies for this academic year that deny many students, particularly women, academic freedom. The policies, announced in a manual released by the country’s Science and Technology Ministry last month, limit the number of men or women that can be enrolled in certain academic [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced on Friday that, following a request it made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) , the government has released the names of 55 detainees who were approved for release from Guantanamo Bay in 2010 but have yet to be released. The ACLU said it is happy that [...]

Apple filed a motion on Friday with the US District Court for the Northern District of California asking the court to issue an injunction prohibiting Samsung from selling products in the US that supposedly infringe on Apple’s patents. In the filing, Apple also sought $707 million dollars in damages from Samsung , including $400 million [...]