The newly-formed state council of the military group which overthrew the government of Mauritania last week passed a law on Tuesday conferring on its leader, Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, all the powers of deposed President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi . On Monday, the group released Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef and three other [...]
Deborah Colson : "Last Wednesday, a panel of six military officers returned a split verdict in the military commission trial of Salim Hamdan, convicting Mr. Hamdan of material support for terrorism but acquitting him of the more serious offense of conspiracy. Mr. Hamdan acted as Osama bin Laden's driver, said the panel, but the government [...]
Sudan is merely going through the motions with its planned probe into Darfur human rights violations, said International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo in an interview with the Sudan Tribune on Monday. Moreno-Ocampo commented that Sudan does not have the political will to bring human rights offenders to justice, noting that an earlier Sudanese [...]
The Philippines House of Representatives passed a bill on Monday to create a new national commission meant to guarantee the rights of Muslims citizens. The bill creates a National Commission on Muslim Filipinos to replace the existing Office of Muslim Affairs (OMA) , created in 1987. The new commission will be responsible for addressing complaints [...]
Georgia is forcibly detaining Russian citizens within its borders in violation of international law, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in a Monday communication with Minister of Internal Affairs Rashid Nurgaliev. In the communication, Medvedev instructed Nurgaliev to ensure that the rights of ethnic Georgians in Russia are protected: I have received information, and you have [...]
Pakistan's Punjab Provincial Assembly on Monday voted to ask President Pervez Musharraf to resign or face possible impeachment by the country's parliament. Of the body's 371 members, 321 voted for the motion, including the majority of Musharraf's own Pakistan Muslim League-Q party. In response to the vote and impeachment plans led by the country's coalition [...]
Qwest Communications will pay an additional $40 million to settle a class action shareholder lawsuit, according to an agreement released Monday in the company's second quarter earnings report . Of that number, $5 million comes from insurance revenue by former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio and former CFO Robert Woodruff. In 2006, a federal judge approved [...]
Detained Myanmarian democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi has met with a lawyer to discuss the legality of her detention, a spokesman for the National League for Democracy party said Sunday. This was apparently the first time in five years that Suu Kyi has been allowed to consult with a legal representative. In May, the [...]
Bolivian national referendum results released Monday show that President Evo Morales won an estimated 63% of the votes on Sunday, enough to stay in office. Morales himself proposed the referendum last December in response to accusations that his process for rewriting the Bolivian constitution has been illegitimate, and said Monday that he will use his [...]
The Supreme Court of Thailand issued arrest warrants on Monday for former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife Pojamarn Shinawatra after the two failed to return to Thailand from the UK on Sunday. Thaksin and Pojamarn had been released on bail, but recently sent a letter to the Thai government saying they would [...]
