Italy systematically forces migrants to return to Libya where they face human rights abuses without screening them for possible asylum claims, according to a report released Monday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) . The report found that Italy often intercepts migrants traveling by boat from Libya and fails to screen migrants for potential refugee status [...]
British Liberal Democrats voted Monday to support a motion calling for a public investigation into the UK's potential complicity in torture. The motion, passed at the party's conference , calls for: A full and independent public inquiry into the facts relating to the involvement or knowledge of the British Government on matters relating to torture, [...]
Pakistani authorities on Monday placed under house arrest the leader of an Islamist group suspected of playing a key role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks . Hafiz Muhammad Saeed , the founder and leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was restricted from leaving his home by Pakistani authorities pursuant to Pakistani governmental orders. This is [...]
A French court on Monday began the trial of former prime minister Dominique de Villepin , accused of slandering businessmen and top politicians including current French President Nicolas Sarkozy . De Villepin is accused of having orchestrated the release of a fabricated list of government officials and business people who profited from illegal arms sales, [...]
The German Bundesrat gave final approval to a bill Friday that will allow Germany to ratify the EU reform treaty, known as the Lisbon Treaty . Although both houses of Germany's parliament had previously approved the treaty , the German Constitutional Court ruled in June that the treaty could not be ratified without certain parliamentary [...]
Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced Saturday that his government would indict seven suspects in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks . He also requested further evidence from India that the head of the erstwhile-Islamic charity and fundamentalist terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba , Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, was involved in planning the attacks. Recent reports on Saeed's involvement [...]
Two more Uighur detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay have agreed to be transferred to Palau, their lawyer told the Associated Press Saturday. Six of the remaining 13 Uighurs in Guantanamo Bay are now set to be transferred to the Pacific island. The detainees have been cleared for transfer since District Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered [...]
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) issued a plan Friday to reduce prison overcrowding as ordered by a special panel of federal judges in August, but the plan falls short of the order's requirements. According to the CDCR, the plan could reduce the overcrowding rate from 190 percent to 155 percent in the [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest Friday urging the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to reject a class action settlement in a copyright suit against Google. In its statement, which comes after an investigation into the agreement, the DOJ told Judge Denny Chin that the [...]
UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe on Saturday urged the Sri Lankan government to conduct an independent inquiry into allegations of war crimes during the civil war against the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) . After a visit to camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) , Pascoe also said that the [...]
