Russia's official newspaper, Rossiskaya Gazeta reported Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law granting tighter state control over non-governmental organizations, including those foreign-based, though there has been no official announcement from the Kremlin. The law, approved by parliament last week, has been widely criticized , but its supporters defend the measure as [...]

The federal trial of former Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell on charges of corruption opened Tuesday with jury selection. Campbell, who served as mayor from 1994 to 2002, has strongly denied charges of racketeering, fraud and bribery, which included accepting more than $160,000 in illegal contributions in return for city contracts during his administration. He was [...]

An Austrian arbitration court has ruled that the country must return $150 million in artwork to the heir of the family from whom the works were seized by the Nazis, bringing to a close a case that wound its way through both Austrian and US courts. Both parties agreed to abide by the ruling, issued [...]

A coalition of civil rights groups, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the Bush administration's warrantless domestic spying program . In the ACLU lawsuit the plaintiffs are seeking a declaration that the NSA program, which authorizes warrantless wiretaps on international communications originating in the US, is unconstitutional under the [...]

In addition to its ruling in the Oregon assisted suicide case, the US Supreme Court on Tuesday limited the citizenship of a bank to the state in which its main office is located for purposes of diversity jurisdiction. The Court in Wachovia Banks v. Schmidt , 04-1186, reversed a Fourth Circuit decision that no diversity [...]

Four Cambodian civil rights leaders arrested on defamation charges were unexpectedly granted bail and released from jail Tuesday. Leaders from the Cambodian Center for Human Rights , along with a journalist and union leader were released pending trial, after intense international pressure and a request by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen that the four be [...]

The UK House of Lords has blocked government plans to issue national identification cards , objecting to three aspects of the proposal including questions of cost. The Lords on Monday voted to halt the legislation until the anticipated costs to launch the ID card program were revealed, but government officials said making such information public [...]

AP is reporting that the US Supreme Court has upheld Oregon's Death with Dignity Act , rejecting federal efforts to prevent doctors from assisting patients in taking their own lives. In 2001, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered a halt to the distribution of controlled drugs used by doctors for the suicides, arguing it was a [...]

Lawyers for a group of Chinese Uighur detainees being held by the US at Guantanamo Bay plan to ask the US Supreme Court to hear an appeal of last month's District Court ruling authorizing their continued detention. Lawyers plan to file a petition for certiorari, arguing that the Court should intervene before an appeals court [...]

Voters in Chile elected Michelle Bachelet as president with 56 percent of the vote in a runoff election Sunday. Bachelet and her parents were imprisoned and tortured in 1973 under the regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet , after her father, an air force general, opposed the coup which brought Pinochet to power. Bachelet, a pediatrician [...]