The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed habeas corpus petitions on behalf of four detainees held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The first petition , filed Friday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia , challenges the detention of Haji Abdul Wahid, a 61-year-old government employee, and his nephew Zia-ur-Rahman, [...]
A Zimbabwean law requiring all foreign-owned companies operating in the country to transfer a majority share to local owners went into effect Monday. The Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Act requires all companies worth more than USD $500,000 to submit information on the racial makeup of their shareholders and a plan for the transfer of a [...]
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Monday to defend himself against charges related to war crimes allegedly committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian conflict. Karadzic began his opening statement by denying any plan to expel Muslims from Serbia, and by blaming Muslims and Western [...]
Former Mozambican Transportation Minister Antonio Munguambe was sentenced to twenty years in prison on Saturday for his involvement in the embezzlement of millions of dollars from a publicly owned company. The trial was the largest corruption proceeding brought in Mozambique since the country achieved independence from Portugal in 1975. Judge Dimas Marroa of Maputo City [...]
The corruption trial of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was adjourned for a month on Saturday, after the court rejected the defendant's request to suspend the trial. A court in Milan ruled that it could not wait for the Court of Cassation to issue its opinion in the related prosecution of David Mills , as [...]
The Interior Ministry of Spain said Sunday that it has taken into custody the suspected leader of the Basque separatist group ETA , along with two other people who are believed to be senior members of the group. Ibon Gogeascoechea Arronategui and the two others were arrested in the French village of Cahan, after a [...]
The Constitutional Court of Colombia voted 7-2 Friday to strike down as unconstitutional a law that would have allowed a referendum to amend the Colombian Constitution to enable current President Alvaro Uribe to run for a third term. The court's decision was based on grave violations of principles of democratic participation and transparency that the [...]
Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy was accused in a new lawsuit filed Friday in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court by the Cambodian government of forging and then disseminating a false map of the Cambodia-Vietnam border on his political party's website. The map posted on the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) website shows an area along the [...]
The United Nations General Assembly voted Friday to give the Israelis and Palestinians additional time to finish their separate investigations into alleged human rights violations that took place during the 2008-2009 conflict in Gaza . The measure, which gives the two parties five additional months, was opposed by Israel and the US. While permanent Palestinian [...]
US Senate Judiciary Committee committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said at a hearing Friday that he was prepared to subpoena the Department of Justice (DOJ) if it did not turn over missing e-mail records of former Bush administration lawyers John Yoo and Patrick Philbin dealing with the so-called "torture memos" justifying the use of harsh [...]
