Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Qin Gang blasted a new human rights report released by the US Department of State as being inconsistent with "basic facts" Saturday, characterizing it as unsubstantiated and slanderous to the human rights conditions in China . The annual report on US efforts to support human rights and democracy abroad was delivered [...]

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UN Legal Counsel Nicolas Michel will meet with Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri about the latter's efforts at stalling the establishment of an international tribunal to probe the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri , UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters Thursday. Earlier this week the anti-Syrian majority in the Lebanese parliament [...]

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A panel of Japanese experts will begin reviewing the Japanese constitution later this month to determine whether Japan needs to revise Article 9 , which has been interpreted to bar Japan from maintaining military forces and from using force in international conflicts except in self-defense, Kyodo News Service reported Friday. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and [...]

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Cambodian judges on the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) fired back at their international counterparts on Friday with a statement accusing the international judges of deliberately delaying the trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders by threatening to postpone the April 30 meeting to draft the ECCC's internal rules. The international judges on [...]

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Rwandan President Paul Kagame has pardoned former President Pasteur Bizimungu , freeing him Friday from a 15-year prison sentence handed down in 2004 for inciting violence, embezzlement, organizing a militia, and associating with criminals. Bizimungu's release comes nearly a year after Bizimungu sent Kagame a letter in May 2006 asking for clemency , saying that [...]

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