Haitian nationals already present in the US on January 12 have been granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and will be allowed to continue living and working in the US for the next 18 months regardless of their immigration status, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Friday. Speaking days after a devastating earthquake hit [...]

The Wolesi Jirga , Afghanistan's lower house of Parliament, Saturday narrowly approved Habibullah Galib as the country's new Minister of Justice but overall rejected 10 of President Hamid Karzai's 17 nominees for cabinet positions, Karzai's second such setback in two weeks. A McClatchy Newspapers report quoted Sima Samar, director of the Afghan Independent Human Rights [...]

US Department of Defense officials Friday released the names of prisoners held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, in response to a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) last year. The list , containing the names of 645 prisoners, several of whose last names were listed as [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Friday strongly criticized proposed legislation in Uganda which would implement harsh punishments for homosexual behavior, including the death penalty in some circumstances. The bill includes provisions which would allow sentences of life imprisonment for people who are be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered, and also allows [...]

The US Supreme Court on Friday granted certiorari in five cases. In Doe v. Reed , the Court will consider whether the First Amendment allows a state to compel the release of identity information about petition signers. The case arose over an order to publish the names of those who signed a Washington state petition [...]

The corruption trial of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resumed Friday but was immediately postponed to February 27. Judges for the tenth section of the Milan Tribunal postponed the trial as requested by Berlusconi's lawyers but refused their request to have earlier proceedings thrown out. Berlusconi is accused of paying his former lawyer David Mills [...]

Chinese lawyers and US-based rights group ChinaAid on Friday called on Beijing police to conduct a search for missing Chinese rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng . Police reported Thursday that Gao, who has been in police custody since February, went missing in September. Gao's brother, Gao Zhiyi, stated Thursday that police believe his brother "got lost [...]

The Obama administration is considering bringing charges in a Washington, DC, federal court against Guantanamo Bay detainee Riduan Isamuddin , the suspected planner of the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing , the Associated Press reported Friday. According to the AP, administration officials have begun a security review to determine what measures would need to be taken [...]

The Russian State Duma on Thursday passed a resolution to ratify Protocol 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights , making the Russian Federation the last Council of Europe (COE) member-state to ratify the provision. The ratification passed with 392 votes out of 450. COE Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland called the move "a significant [...]

US Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) that combating financial fraud is a priority for the Department of Justice (DOJ) . When asked whether the reallocation of DOJ staff from financial fraud to terrorism investigations over the past decade had thwarted efforts to fight white collar crime, [...]