Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina appeared in court Sunday, shortly after being released from hospital care for severe ear and eye conditions, to face charges that she received approximately $440,000 in illegal kickbacks on a power-plant deal while in office between 1996 and 2001. Her appearance before the court has been postponed numerous times [...]

British national Simon Mann , accused of participating in an alleged coup attempt against Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo in 2004, has accused Sir Mark Thatcher of being involved in the plot, Equatorial Guinea Attorney General Jose Olo said Sunday. According to Olo, Mann, whose trial is set to begin in May, made [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Sunday criticized Egypt for arresting over 800 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood , including 148 candidates slated to run in local council elections scheduled for April 8. HRW characterized the arrests as a "shameless attempt to fix the upcoming elections." The Muslim Brotherhood currently holds one-fifth of the seats [...]

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn warned Turkey on Saturday that there would be serious ramifications for its bid to join the European Union if the Constitutional Court of Turkey decides to shut down the ruling Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) . Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya petitioned the court earlier this month to disband the [...]

Zimbabweans voted Saturday in local, senate, assembly and presidential elections amid opposition allegations that the government was rigging the results. President Robert Mugabe was challenged by ruling party defector Simba Makoni and opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai . MDC officials claimed detergent could remove voting ink from ballots and that [...]

Ali Khan : "The film "Fitna" is an assault on the religion of Islam. It wounds deeply-held spiritual feelings of millions of Muslims around the world. It is a call for hatred and discrimination against Muslims in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe. Made by a race-supremacist Dutch parliamentarian, the film argues that the Quran [...]

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told parliament Saturday that he will 'work for the reinstatement' of superior court judges purged by President Pervez Musharraf last fall. The commitment was made in Gilani's first major policy speech on terrorism since taking office. He also promised to abolish criminal codes still in place from British colonial [...]

The UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution Friday condemning the military government of Myanmar for ongoing systematic violations of human rights and people's fundamental freedoms. The European Union expressed particular concern over human rights violations in the country and the lack of investigations in the aftermath of last year's government crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations [...]

Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (D) was released from federal prison Friday after a federal appeals court ruled that he was not a flight risk while his appeal of his fraud and bribery conviction is pending. The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit made the ruling Thursday, which coincided with a request from [...]

Former USA Today reporter Toni Locy on Friday asked the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reverse a federal judge's decision to impose sanctions against her for refusing to disclose government sources who provided information about former US Army germ-warfare researcher Dr. Steven J. Hatfill . In a ruling earlier [...]