Human Rights in China (HRIC) issued a release on Wednesday saying that Chinese police and other officials still employ torture to elicit confessions and intimidate political dissidents despite domestic and international bans. The group said even though various government agencies have issued regulations against the use of torture, they aren't appropriately enforced. It also detailed [...]

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced Tuesday that the state has reached a settlement in a Medicare fraud lawsuit it had brought against drug manufacturer Abbott Laboratories . In the suit , Texas had alleged that Abbott Laboratories and other drug manufacturers had inflated drug prices that they reported to the state above what they [...]

The UK Crown Prosecution Service announced Wednesday that seven Muslim extremists accused of conspiring to bomb trans-Atlantic flights will be retried because a jury failed to reach verdicts earlier this week. In a prepared statement, Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald said: I have today concluded that the prosecution should apply to retry each of [...]

Serge Brammertz , the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) , told reporters in Serbia Wednesday that he was "cautiously optimistic" that two major remaining war crimes fugitives would be caught. Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic and Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic , both Serbian leaders during the Yugoslavian [...]

A Malaysian court on Wednesday set a September 24 hearing date for arguments over approval of an application to transfer of sodomy charges against Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to a Malaysian High Court. After the hearing, Anwar characterized the move by Malaysian prosecutors to transfer the proceedings as a "trial by ambush" , while [...]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that a peace plan approved on Monday between the European Union (EU) and Georgia to allow EU monitors in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia contradicts a deal approved only hours before by Russia . Lavrov said the deal approved by Russia only allowed the observers, [...]

The District Court of the Hague on Wednesday dismissed claims alleging the Dutch government negligently failed to protect civilians during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre . The relatives of several Bosnian Muslims killed at Srebrenica argued that the Netherlands should be liable for the deaths because Dutch soldiers acting as UN peacekeepers had forced the victims [...]

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials on Wednesday told Congress that a 670-mile fence along the US-Mexican border is unlikely to be completed as planned by year's end because of cost increases, technological problems and legal challenges. CPB Commissioner Ralph Basham said in prepared testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee that although 344 [...]

A report released Thursday by B'Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories alleges that Israeli security policies have resulted in Palestinians being prevented from accessing land adjacent to settlements in the West Bank. The report, entitled "Access Denied: Israeli measures to deny Palestinians access to land around settlements" describes [...]

A group of American citizens from Texas' Rio Grande Valley filed suit against the US Department of State (DOS) Tuesday, alleging they had been denied passports because they are of Mexican descent and were delivered by midwives. According to a complaint filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas , the [...]