The Mexican Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would amend the General Law of Health to allow terminally ill patients to refuse medical treatment. The bill passed with 84 votes in favor and only one abstention. Under the new law, a patient who has an incurable, irreversible disease and a life expectancy prognosis of [...]

The Iraqi parliament on Thursday approved a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that sets a 2011 deadline for the withdraw of US troops but also passed an additional law calling for a national referendum on the pact in July 2009. The vote on the SOFA had been delayed several times while majority Shia and minority [...]

Human Rights Watch said Wednesday in a new report that Greece and Turkey are according inhumane treatment to migrants and possible asylum seekers from Iraq and elsewhere attempting to enter the EU. The report describes the migrants as trapped in a "revolving door" because the EU's Dublin II Regulation stipulates that the state of first [...]

Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said Wednesday that he is considering indicting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert following police recommendations in connection with his alleged double billing of state and charitable donors for travel expenses in 2002-2006 while serving as a government official. Olmert allegedly accumulated over $100,000 in an account handled by the same agency [...]

Members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed Palestinian terror suspects in defiance of a 2006 Israeli Supreme Court ruling on targeted killings, according to Haaretz Wednesday. The 2006 ruling set up guidelines for targeted killings which include a direction that if possible, suspects should be arrested, and that "every effort must be made [...]

Russia's Federation Council , the upper house of parliament, voted 144-1 on Wednesday to approve amendments to the Russian Constitution that would extend presidential terms from four to six years and terms for members of the Duma , or lower house, from four to five years. The Duma passed the amendments last week, after expediting [...]

The Czech Constitutional Court on Wednesday ruled unanimously that the European Union (EU) reform pact formally known as the Treaty of Lisbon is consistent with the Czech Constitution . Members of the Civic Democratic Party of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek had asked the court to review the constitutional compatibility of the Treaty prior to its [...]

Greenlanders have voted for increased autonomy from Denmark in a national referendum, according to results released Wednesday. The referendum's "Self Rule" plan gives Greenland natives control over the country's courts , police, and coast guard, and recognizes Greenlandic as the island's official language. The plan also gives the country more control over its oil reserves [...]

The Jamaican parliament on Tuesday voted 34-15 , with 10 abstentions, to resume the use of the death penalty. Advocates for the measure cited the country's extremely high murder rate as justification for resuming executions. Opponents of the practice, including Jamaicans for Justice executive director Carolyn Gomes, have argued that the country should increase efforts [...]

A Florida trial court judge on Tuesday ruled that a Florida statute preventing same-sex couples from adopting children is unconstitutional, allowing a Florida petitioner and his partner to adopt two children previously in his foster care. Judge Cindy Lederman of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida found that the 1977 statute violated the equal protection [...]