The investigation into allegations that former French president Nicolas Sarkozy exploited L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt into donating illicit election campaign funds has been dropped, according to Monday reports. Bettencourt’s accountant had stated she had passed €150,000 to Sarkozy’s UMP party in the run-up to Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential election victory. Under French law Individual campaign contributions [...]

The Nigerian Socio-Economic and Rights Accountability Project announced Sunday that it has filed a petition with the International Criminal Court (ICC) urging it to investigate school attacks resulting in the deaths of teachers and students in northeast Nigeria as crimes against humanity. The petition came a week after Boko Haram allegedly attacked an agricultural college [...]

A Greek court on Monday found former defense minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos guilty of money laundering. The court also rendered guilty verdicts against 16 of Tsochatzopoulos’s co-defendants, including his wife, ex-wife and daughter. The charges against Tsochatzopoulos stem from his issuance of defense contracts in exchange for bribes during his tenure as defense minister from 1996 [...]

Voters in Ireland on Saturday rejected a constitutional amendment that would have abolished the country’s Senate , dealing a defeat to Prime Minister Enda Kenny . Kenny had personally campaigned for the amendment , saying that the Senate was toothless, undemocratic and unnecessary in light of recent budget woes. Irish voters defeated the referendum by [...]

A team of disarmament experts from the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on Sunday began overseeing the destruction by the Syrian government, and will verify that the process is correctly handled. The disarmament team will destroy the chemical weapons arsenal, its storage sites and the facilities which manufacture them [...]

California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a collection of legislation centered on immigration on Saturday. AB 4, 35 and 1159 create limitations, restrictions, and obligations for those involved in immigration services and compliance intended to limit detention of undocumented immigrants and increase accessibility to applications for citizenship. AB 1024 allows applicants who are undocumented [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Sunday alleged that the Algerian government has violated international and domestic law by impinging upon independent trade unions’ rights to freely associate and collectively bargain. Algerian lawmakers adopted Law 90-14 in 1990, pursuant to which workers could establish independent unions after decades of restriction. The law requires new unions to [...]

US military special forces on Saturday captured Abu Anas al Libi, a suspected high-ranking operative of al Qaeda , during a raid conducted in Tripoli, Libya. US authorities allege that al Libi played a significant role in planning and executing the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which left more than 200 [...]

On Friday, Judge Royce Lamberth for the US District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the release of Guantanamo Bay prisoner Ibrahim Idris , who suffers from a severe mental illness. Idris, originally from Sudan, was sent to Guantanamo more than 11 years ago after being captured with other Al Qaeda fighters trying to [...]

US President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law a bill that grants special immigration status to Iraqis who have aided US forces. The original bill allowing Iraqis to apply for this status expired last week, but passage of H.R. 3233 extends the time of application to the first three months of fiscal year 2014. [...]