Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Saturday agreed to step down from power, ending his 32-year reign as the nation’s leader. Saleh agreed to a proposal requiring him to hand power over to his deputy in 30 days in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Opposition groups have accepted the resignation with some reservations — including [...]
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday urged Cambodia and Thailand to enter into a ceasefire agreement to resolve recent border clashes between the two countries. Saying that a military resolution is impossible , Ban urged the countries to pursue a diplomatic solution and to exercise military restraint. The neighboring nations have been clashing for [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday urged the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to reverse its decision to dissolve the board of directors of a prominent civil rights group. UAE social affairs minister, Mariam Mohammed Khalfan Al-Roumi, dismissed the elected board members of the Jurist Association civil rights group and appointed state officials [...]
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) , on Thursday announced an investigation into recent violence following national elections in Nigeria earlier this month. The preliminary investigation, a precursor to a formal investigation, comes in the wake of riots that killed over 100 and displaced more than 40,000 . Rioting broke [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday reinstated a case against four former Blackwater employees involved in the September 2007 shootings of 17 Iraqi civilians . The US Department of Justice (DOJ) dismissed the charges against a fifth ex-Blackwater employee. The charges against the remaining men include 14 counts [...]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday asked the US Supreme Court to reinstate an indecency policy that places restrictions on profanity and nudity during television broadcasting. In July, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the policy was unconstitutional . The court held that the policy was a violation of [...]
The Indiana House of Representatives on Thursday voted 64-32 to approve a bill considered to be a “watered-down” version of the Arizona immigration bill . The amended bill proposes to revoke tax credits from businesses that hire illegal immigrants and would also require the use of the E-verify System to check the eligibility status of [...]
Egyptian public prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmud on Friday ordered a 15-day extension of the detention of former president Hosni Mubarak , giving authorities more time to decide if they want to send him to jail or a prison hospital. The news comes shortly after an Egyptian court’s decision to remove Mubarak’s name , along with [...]
Electronics manufacturer Samsung announced on Friday that it has filed patent infringement suits against Apple in three different countries. The suits, filed in South Korea, Japan and Germany, may be retaliation for infringement suits filed by Apple against Samsung last week. The two companies are significant competitors in the mobile phone and tablet markets, and [...]
A Montana judge has dismissed a lawsuit that had called for the state to provide legal status to same-sex relationships. The lawsuit, filed in July by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Montana’s First Judicial District Court on behalf of seven same-sex couples, had alleged that the state has limited the couples’ decision-making powers [...]
