Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley announced Wednesday that government officials have requested a probe into allegations that former Chile dictator Augusto Pinochet stashed approximately nine tons of gold in a Hong Kong bank, as reported by El Mercurio . Pinochet's lawyer vehemently denied the rumors, which Foxley called "grave." The State Defense Council , the [...]

An internal memo circulated in the Israeli State Prosecutor's Office has called for an immediate investigation into possible criminal actions taken by Prime Minister Ehmud Olmert involving bids on a controlling interest in a bank stretching back to 2005. Olmert is suspected of accepting bribery since a friend seeking approval of his bid overpaid for [...]

The Supreme Court of Ohio on Wednesday held that state charter or community schools are valid and the statute authorizing them is constitutional "on its face and as applied." Chapter 3314 of the Ohio Revised Code allows the state legislature to fund charter schools, which have grown from 15 to 250 statewide since the law's [...]

Bosnia's ambassador to the United Nations wants the Swedish government to free Biljana Plavsic from the Hinseberg prison for women, where she has been serving an 11-year sentence as the only woman convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) . Ambassador Milos Prica petitioned for Plavsic's release in [...]

A Chinese court has sentenced a pro-democracy leader to three years in prison for criticizing the communist government in Internet posts, according to the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy Wednesday. Li Jianping participated in the 1989 movement for democracy in China and wrote online essays criticizing the Chinese government's efforts to implement an [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) Wednesday accused agents of the Burundi National Intelligence Service of widespread abuses since the new government came into power, including killings and torture . HRW contended in a new report that President Pierre Nkurunziza has given agents at all levels authority to carry out the government's agenda by any means necessary, [...]

Atheist Michael Newdow , the man who sued to have the words "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance , will be able to proceed with a libel lawsuit against a chaplain, according to a ruling Tuesday by the California First District Court of Appeal . Newdow sued Reverend Austin Miles after Miles used [...]

German intelligence agents personally witnessed the torture of detainees at a secret US prison in Europe two weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks , according to a German intelligence report leaked to Stern magazine. The leaked report asserts the German agents saw US interrogators beat a 70-year-old terror suspect with a rifle butt, requiring [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is currently reviewing proposed rule changes that would place further restrictions on attorney contact with detainees now held at Guantanamo Bay . The rules, submitted in government court filings for use in the case against Haji Bismullah, are intended to prevent defense attorneys from [...]

The Supreme Court of the Philippines on Wednesday ruled that a planned referendum on modifying the country's constitution to abolish the upper house of congress cannot proceed. The referendum would have amended the 1987 constitution to abolish the Philippines Senate in favor of a unicameral parliamentary assembly. Seven of fifteen judges dissented from the court's [...]