The US Senate unanimously passed a resolution Thursday apologizing to African-Americans for slavery and racial segregation. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced and sponsored the concurrent resolution, which will next be voted on by the US House of Representatives . The resolution reads in part: The Congress—(A) acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of [...]

Former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy was found liable to the company's shareholders for fraud Thursday by Judge Allwin Horn of Alabama's 10th Judicial District and ordered to pay $2.88 billion. The plaintiffs claimed that Scrushy encouraged others to purposefully inflate company profits in order to qualify himself and other executives for bonuses, directed company contracts [...]

The War Crimes Chamber of the Belgrade District Court on Thursday convicted four former members of a Serbian paramilitary group for the killings of 14 Kosovo Albanians in 1999, handing down sentences ranging from 15 to 20 years. The court concluded that Zeljko Djukic, Dragan Medic, Dragan Borojevic, and Miodrag Solaj, members of a paramilitary [...]

A judge on the Court of Criminal Appeals for England and Wales  held Thursday that a court can require a judge-only criminal trial for four men suspected of tampering with juries convened to consider robbery charges against them. The ruling is the first application of a Criminal Justice Act 2003 provision , which allows a [...]

An international commission should be set up to investigate human rights abuses that allegedly occurred during the 25-year civil war between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) , Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Wednesday. Earlier this week, a Sri Lankan government official announced Tuesday that an internal investigation [...]

The US Senate voted unanimously Wednesday to approve legislation that would block the release of controversial photos allegedly depicting abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. The legislation, which is included in a war spending bill, would exempt the disclosure of certain photographs under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in cases where the secretary [...]

Zimbabwe is still experiencing serious human rights violations and needs to confront issues that led to such problems, Amnesty International (AI) said Thursday. Calling the violations "persistent and serious," AI called for Zimbabwean leaders to reform police, army, and security forces and address the lack of government commitment to rectifying human rights issues. AI urged [...]

Political activists and politicians in Iran have been arrested following protests of the country's controversial presidential election , human rights groups said Wednesday. According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) , former foreign minister and current leader of the Freedom Movement of Iran Ebrahim Yazdi was arrested Wednesday in a Tehran [...]

The US Supreme Court issued opinions in four cases Thursday. The Court ruled 5-4 in District Attorney's Office v. Osborne that a defendant does not have the right to obtain post-conviction access to the state’s biological evidence in order to do DNA testing. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Osborne [...]

Spain will consider accepting four Guantanamo Bay detainees at the request of the US government, foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said Wednesday. Before Spain responds to the request, Moratinos said that the government will consider the charges against the prisoners, determine whether accepting them will pose any problems with other countries, and consider other legal [...]