Chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno-Ocampo told the UN Security Council Thursday that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is deliberately protecting those accused of committing genocide in Darfur . Moreno-Ocampo said that violence has been ongoing and that hundreds of civilians have been killed and thousands displaced over the past six months. [...]

A court in the Italian town of Parma on Thursday convicted the founder and former chief executive of dairy giant Parmalat SpA , Calisto Tanzi , for the company’s fraudulent bankruptcy, sentencing him to 18 years. The court said that Tanzi and the 14 former executives sentenced with him will have to reimburse the company [...]

A French court decided Thursday to combine two separate cases involving misuse of public funds brought against former president Jacques Chirac , leaving him to face only one trial this spring. It is said that France’s Court of Cassation ordered the Paris court to consolidate the two cases into one trial. Chirac is accused of [...]

The US Senate failed Thursday to advance a vote on a bill to repeal the military’s controversial “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (DADT) , which prohibits openly gay men and women from serving in the armed forces. The Senate fell three votes short of the 60 votes necessary to approve a cloture motion on a [...]

Officials at Virginia Tech acted unlawfully by waiting too long to notify students during the 2007 shootings , according to a report released Thursday by the US Department of Education . According to the report, Virginia Tech officials failed to comply with the Clery Act , which requires universities to disclose crime statistics and communication [...]

Thailand’s Constitutional Court on Thursday dismissed a second case against the ruling Democrat Party for alleged misuse of campaign funds. The court voted 4-3 to dismiss the case on procedural grounds, allowing the ruling part to escape dissolution. If the suit had been successful, the Democratic Party would have been dissolved and party leaders, including [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday dismissed a challenge to California’s affirmative action ban in public university admissions. The ban, approved by voters in 1996 as Proposition 209 , prohibits discrimination or preferential treatment to any individual on the basis of race, sex, national origin and [...]

A judge for the US District Court for the District of New Jersey on Wednesday granted a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a physician organization challenging the constitutionality of the recently enacted health care reform law . Nonprofit New Jersey Physicians, Inc. filed the complaint in March, arguing that the new federal health [...]

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a bill that would provide a path to permanent resident status for some high school graduates who enter the military or enroll in a college degree program. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, or DREAM Act, would amend the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant [...]

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed a bill authorizing funds for a settlement with minority farmers over discrimination claims. The settlements include $3.4 billion to resolve claims that the Department of the Interior (DOI) mismanaged funds held in trust for American Indian landowners and $1.2 billion for African American farmers claiming they suffered racial [...]