Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Thursday that he believes the ICC's appeals chamber will add a genocide charge to the case against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir . The chamber will rule next Wednesday on an appeal challenging the ICC's decision not to include a count of genocide in its [...]

A Vietnamese court sentenced writer and democracy activist Pham Thanh Nghien to a four-year prison term on Friday on charges of spreading anti-state propaganda. Foreign observers were not permitted to attend the trial, which took place in the city of Haiphong in the northern region of Vietnam and lasted less than a day . Nghien [...]

Kenya's Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on Thursday recommended eliminating the position of prime minister in the country's draft constitution . Other PSC proposals include an expanded parliament, with some seats guaranteed to women, a prohibition on members of parliament serving in cabinet positions to maintain a separation of powers, and a presidency that requires a [...]

Malaysia's Kuching High Court has issued an injunction to stop a company from destroying the homes of indigenous Malaysians. Last week, state-government agents began tearing down Iban houses on land controlled by the native Iban people at the request Tatau Land Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of ASSAR Group , a government-owned holding company seeking to [...]

US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues Stephen Rapp said Thursday that no US president is likely to present the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to the US Senate for ratification in the "foreseeable future." Speaking at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Rapp said that while the US has an important [...]

Ireland's restrictive abortion laws increase health risks to women and expose them to deliberate misinformation about abortion procedures, according to a report released on Thursday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) . Ireland's current legislation prohibits abortion for any reason except when the mother's life is threatened and carries a potential sentence of life imprisonment. The [...]

US President Barack Obama sharply criticized the Supreme Court's recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , which eased restrictions on political campaign spending by corporations and labor unions, in his State of the Union Address Wednesday night. Obama warned of the increased potential for powerful interest groups, both foreign and domestic, to [...]

The Canadian Office of the Privacy Commissioner announced Thursday that it would launch a new probe of Facebook to investigate privacy issues in response to a recent complaint. Facebook's privacy tool, which it introduced in December, requires users to review their privacy settings. The complaint alleges that these default privacy settings "have made his information [...]

Honduran President Porfirio Lobo on Wednesday granted amnesty to both former president Manuel Zelaya and military leaders accused of participation in a June 2009 coup against Zelaya. Making the decree during his inaugural address , Lobo said that it would allow the country to move past the conflict. He also said that he would appoint [...]

Two Iranians were executed Thursday and nine others have been sentenced to death for their roles in last summer's post-election protests , according to the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) . The two executed men, identified as Momammed Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour, were convicted on charges of mohareb, or being enemies of [...]