Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie has said that he wants to see the re-arrest of Saddam Hussein's former top weapons aides after the US military confirmed the release from custody of 14 more high-ranking detainees, including Dr. Rihab Taha al-Azawi , also known in the Western media as, "Dr. Germ" and Huda Ammash , [...]
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said Saturday that members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee intend to expand their probe into warrantless wiretaps within the US after the weekend disclosure that the National Security Agency had obtained access to the nation's telephone and Internet lines to track terrorists, in greater volumes than disclosed by the administration [...]
China announced Saturday on the last working day that prosecutors were able to bring the case that it is putting journalist Zhao Yan on trial for stealing state secrets and fraud within the next six weeks. Yan had worked at the New York Times' Beijing Bureau as a researcher. When the Times ran a scoop [...]
Election officials announced Saturday that citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo approved a new constitution in a referendum held December 18. The charter is designed to bring peace to the country after five years of war and provides for national elections to be held next year. International observers declared the vote to have been [...]
The US military will not transfer detainees to Iraqi-operated prisons or transition US-run facilities to Iraqi control until military officials are satisfied that Iraqis have met US standards for the treatment of detainees, according to Maj. Gen. John D. Gardner, commanding US-run prisons in Iraq. The decision was made after two raids of Iraqi run [...]
An Iraqi court ruled Saturday that some 100 as-yet-publicly-unspecified candidates – most believed to be Sunnis – who ran in the December 15 Iraqi parliamentary elections will be struck and not allowed to serve in the next national assembly due to previous associations with Saddam Hussein's now-defunct Baath Party . Commentators fear the decision will [...]
The government of Peru has approved 12 of the 17 charges proposed by the country's Supreme Court against former president Alberto Fujimori , currently detained in Chile after being arrested there in November when he returned from self-imposed exile in Japan. Peru is expected to file an extradition request with Chile before the January 6 [...]
French Judge Brigitte Raynaud has decided to open a formal investigation into accusations that French soldiers may have acted in complicity with Hutu militias who killed between 500,000 and 800,000 Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide . Several Rwandan survivors filed a lawsuit against the French government in February of this year, alleging that French [...]
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has again cautioned the Uzbekistan government to observe fair-trial standards after Uzbek courts sentenced another 42 people to 12-20 years in prison during closed hearings Wednesday. Arbour, concerned that the latest trials may have been plagued by the same problems as previous trials , including inadequate counsel [...]
The United Kingdom and Lebanon have signed a memorandum of understanding that specifies that non-UK citizens deported from Britain to Lebanon will not be mistreated. According to a foreign office spokesperson in London, the agreement seeks to protect the human rights of any person deported to Lebanon through the courts and independent monitoring, and is [...]
