A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas sentenced a former Texas college student from Saudi Arabia to life in prison on Tuesday for trying to make a bomb for use in a jihad. One of Khalid Ali-M Aldawsar’s possible targets was believed to be former US president George W. [...]

Undocumented foreign nationals in Libya are at risk of facing mental and physical exploitation and abuse that may include torture, Amnesty International (AI) reported Tuesday. The report urged Libyan authorities to confront issues of xenophobia and racism, which may in part be inspired by the prevalent belief that some foreigners were “mercenaries” who had supported [...]

A Ukrainian Court on Tuesday rejected the defense’s motion to suspend the tax evasion trial against former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko until her health is recovered but adjourned the trial to November 23 since Tymoshenko could not attend. The hearing was set to resume Tuesday, but the presiding judge ruled that it was impossible [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday to improve its impact and stimulate cooperation amongst the international community as the court enters its second decade. HRW not only emphasized the importance for ICC member countries to strengthen their efforts in making arrests of known suspects harbored within their borders, but [...]

The EU announced Monday that it would halt for one year its policy of charging airlines for greenhouse gas emissions (CO2) for flights into and out of EU member state airports. As a result of this delay, the EU will not require airlines to pay for CO2 emissions for the entirety of 2012 and will [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Tuesday urged Indonesia to end violence and discrimination against Christians and Muslim minorities, such as Shiites. During her visit to Indonesia, Pillay met with several government officials and the judges on the country’s Constitutional Court. Although Pillay commended Indonesia for ratifying several international human rights treaties [...]

A new protocol to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) intended to combat the illegal trade of tobacco products was unanimously approved on Monday. The protocol was approved by 176 countries during the Fifth session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO FCTC , which is being held in South Korea this [...]

The Supreme Court of Brazil on Monday sentenced a former aide to ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to over 10 years of imprisonment for his involvement in a vote-buying scheme. Jose Dirceu, Lula’s former chief of staff, was convicted of using public funds to pay coalition parties for political support. In addition to serving [...]

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Monday elected 18 countries , including the US, to a three-year term on the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) beginning January 1. The secret ballot election was held at the UN headquarters in New York, and the following UNGA members were elected to serve: Argentina, Brazil, Ivory Coast, Estonia, Ethiopia, [...]

Italian prosecutors on Monday filed suit against five former employees of Standard and Poor’s (S&P) and two former employees of Fitch for allegedly manipulating the market and abusing privileged information that led to the rating agencies’ downgrades of Italy. Though magistrates in Rome and Milan have refused to support the claim, prosecutors from the southern [...]