The North Carolina Senate passed a joint resolution Thursday apologizing for the state government's role in the practice of slavery, detailing various legal steps in the 17th through the 20th centuries which had suppressed the freedom of black people in the state and expressing "its profound contrition for the official acts that sanctioned and perpetuated [...]

China's State Council on Friday banned the sale of human organs used for transplants effective May 1. The new regulation prohibits individuals and organizations from trading organs, such as hearts, lungs, and kidneys, following allegations of involuntary donations and international criticism that human organs taken from executed prisoners were sold to foreigners. The regulation only [...]

Steve Komadina : "I think the bill was good in that it mandated the Health Dept. to develop educational material to send home to parents informing them about the vaccine and the virus. Parents could then make an informed decision as to whether they wanted their child to be vaccinated or not. The only true [...]

Canada, Sweden and Eritrea are pressuring Ethiopia to reveal details regarding the foreign nationals it has allegedly detained in secret prisons in collaboration with the FBI and CIA . The existence of prisons in which US government agencies have interrogated individuals suspected of having ties to al Qaeda was disclosed on Tuesday after Human Rights [...]

The Serbian Supreme Court has upheld the sentence of Anton Lekaj , the first ethnic Albanian to be convicted by a Serb court of war crimes in the Kosovo region. A member of the Kosovo Liberation Army , Lekaj's trial began before a special war crimes tribunal in Serbia in 2005 . In September, the [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour released two reports Friday detailing alleged rapes and disappearances carried out by militia soldiers in the Darfur region of Sudan at the end of 2006. According to the first report released by Arbour, at least 15 rapes and sexual assaults were committed by men who appeared to [...]

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) , chair of the US Senate Judiciary Committee , asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in a letter Thursday to provide more details and respond to outstanding questions concerning his role in the firings of eight US Attorneys . Leahy asked Gonzales to submit a written statement at least 48 hours before [...]

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Thursday filed a stay order in California's 3rd District Court of Appeal to block a ruling unfavorable to his plan to transfer excess prisoners to out-of-state facilities . California had filed its own appeal Tuesday. The Sacramento County Superior Court ruled in February that Schwarzenegger's emergency declaration plans to transfer prisoners [...]

Kosovo's parliament voted 100-1 Thursday in support of a UN plan to establish an independent Kosovar state under UN supervision. The plan was drafted by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari , who believes independence from Serbia with international supervision "the only viable option" for Kosovo. The plan needs the approval of the UN Security Council before [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday that Mexico's now-closed Special Prosecutor's Office failed in its effort to address past human rights abuses stemming from the "Dirty War" of the late 1960s to 1970s . The office was created by former Mexican President Vicente Fox to investigate potential human rights violations that included more than 600 [...]