The Iraqi National Assembly on Sunday postponed debate on proposed federalism legislation that would allow Iraq's 18 provinces to form strong governments with their own security forces. Debate on the bill, supported by Kurdish and Shiite politicians and opposed by most Sunnis, is now postponed until September 19, a month before the recently agreed-upon October [...]
US violent and property crime rates in 2005 reached the lowest levels since 1973, the first year such statistics were kept, according to estimations released Sunday by the US Justice Department . The report, Criminal Victimization, 2005 by the Bureau of Justice Statistics also shows that while slightly more robberies and gun violence incidents occurred [...]
Measures for Administering the Release of News and Information in China by Foreign News Agencies, People's Republic of China, September 10, 2006 Read the full text of the measures. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.
Two Kuwaiti nationals held for four years in the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay , Cuba, are set to be sent home to stand trial, the head of the Kuwaiti Family Committee , a group lobbying for the release of Kuwaiti detainees, said Sunday. The two prisoners to be released have been identified as [...]
CIA operatives taking over the interrogation of captured top al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah from FBI agents in 2002 had him stripped, exposed to extreme cold and subjected to loud rock music in an effort to extract sensitive information, the New York Times reported Sunday. The interrogation of Zubaydah at a secret safe-house in Thailand [...]
Palestinian refugees in Iraq face danger from Shiite militias and harassment from the Iraqi government, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a new report released Sunday. The monitoring group found that the security of the approximately 34,000 Palestinian refugees in Iraq has drastically deteriorated since the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003: "Militant [...]
China Sunday released new media regulations governing the domestic release of news and information by foreign news agencies. The regulations give China's official Xinhua News Agency ultimate rights of approval over the distribution and release of foreign news content in China . The new rules designate foreign news agencies as agents of Xinhua and are [...]
Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami has been served with a summons for a lawsuit by a group of Jewish Iranians while on a two-week visit to the United States . The lawsuit was filed Thursday in federal court in New York by seven families, located in Los Angeles and Israel, who claim that the Iranian [...]
UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland said on a visit to a refugee camp in northern Uganda Saturday that indicted leaders of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) should be brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) despite a recent offer of amnesty by the Ugandan government in exchange for their agreement to a truce and [...]
Senate Republican leaders plan to negotiate with the White House through the weekend to resolve different versions of a bill that would legislatively authorize the establishment of military commissions for suspected terrorists. Saturday's New York Times quotes Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-VA) as saying that most provisions of the White House-sponsored Military [...]
