Myanmar state media outlets announced Tuesday that the state's ruling junta released 9,002 prisoners for good behavior, including U Win Tin , a founder of Myanmar opposition group the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the state's longest-incarcerated political prisoner. Officials for the state newspaper New Light of Myanmar wrote: The government terminated the prison [...]

Corlett Letlojane : "First and foremost, many people are saddened by the unceremonious departure of the President of South Africa, when his term of office is only ending in April 2008. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who chairs the group known as The Elders, is an elder statesman playing a major role in reconciliation, a leading [...]

A US district judge in enjoined the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch on Monday from enforcing an ordinance that prohibits illegal immigrants from occupying leased property. US District Judge Jane J. Boyle of the Northern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction, replacing a temporary restraining order entered earlier this month, as she set an [...]

A spokesman for South African President Thabo Mbeki said Tuesday that Mbeki has challenged in the county's Constitutional Court allegations that he interfered with a case against Mbeki's political rival and current African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma , calling the accusations unjust. Earlier this month Judge Chris Nicholson of the Pietermaritzburg High Court [...]

Complaints filed with a Senegal prosecutor last week by fourteen Chadian and Senegalese citizens alleging that former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre was responsible for war crimes and torture are merely "judicial persecution," lawyers for Habre said in a statement Tuesday. Habre counsel Francois Serres of France and El Hadj Diouf of Senegal called the latest [...]

International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo traveled to New York Monday to seek support from members of the United Nations and the African Union for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir , as the UN General Assembly opened its 63rd annual session Tuesday. Moreno-Ocampo has faced criticism from international leaders and organizations [...]

Human Rights Watch(HRW) on Monday called on the Saudi Arabian government to end its 'systematic discrimination' against its Ismaili religious minority . HRW urged Saudi officials to create a national institution to recommend remedies for discriminatory policies and to consider individual claims. HRW's deputy Middle East director said : The Saudi government preaches religious tolerance [...]

Stable, wealthier countries like Denmark, Sweden, and New Zealand have the least perceived corruption and poorer, less stable countries like Haiti, Iraq, Myanmar and Somalia have the most, according to government accountability advocacy group Transparency International (TI) in a report published Tuesday. TI's 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) , was a survey-based study of perceived [...]

A legal adviser to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued an opinion Tuesday that UK regulations permitting mandatory retirement policies do not violate an EU anti-discrimination law. ECJ Advocate General Jan Marzak concluded that although the UK's Employment Equality (Age) Regulations fall within the scope of the European Directive on Equal Treatment , age-based [...]

US Senate Democrats on Monday questioned the constitutionality of the Bush administration's proposal to stabilize financial markets and introduced their own plan allowing courts to review purchases of troubled assets by the Treasury Department . The administration's proposed legislation, submitted to Congress on Saturday, would authorize the Treasury to acquire as much as $700 billion [...]