Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday urged the United Nations to scrutinize the Philippine government's response to accusations that the Philippines military has engaged in extrajudicial killings of left-wing activists since 2001. HRW's press release comes two weeks before the UN Human Rights Council is scheduled to hold the first meeting of the Universal Periodic [...]

Baseer Naveed : "The election of Mr. Mohammad Yousaf Raza Gillani as prime minister of Pakistan is itself a threat of the old regime of President General (retired) Musharraf and even his very existence. Mr. Gillani was loyal to Ms. Benazir Bhutto, the lifetime chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party and is also very loyal [...]

EU and NATO forces on Thursday raided the homes of family members of wanted Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic , looking for information on Karadzic's location. In a sunrise raid, the forces entered the homes of Karadzic's wife Ljiljana Zelen Karadzic, his daughter Sonja Karadzic Jovicevic and alleged aide Smiljka Popov. The forces [...]

An Indonesian court cleared former Indonesian President Haji Mohammed Suharto and his heirs Thursday of civil liability in a corruption case involving state funds allegedly stolen by a charitable foundation run by Suharto. Dismissing the $1.1 billion damage claim leveled against Suharto, the court ordered the foundation to repay $110 million out of $440 million [...]

A federal judge in the Eastern District of Michigan on Wednesday struck down a Michigan election law that limits access to information on presidential primary voters to the Democratic and Republican parties, blocking the state from releasing the voter lists from the Jan. 15 presidential primary election to the two political parties. The ACLU of [...]

Mark Warren : "Along with charting the boundaries of the President's foreign relations powers, the Medellin decision confirms the steady drift of the Roberts Court towards a major revision of the canons of treaty construction. The Court now claims that its many prior decisions upholding individual treaty rights stand for no more than the "unremarkable [...]

Belarusian district courts Wednesday sentenced at least 55 demonstrators for participating in a banned "Freedom Day" rally in Minsk to protest against Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko . "Freedom Day" first began as a celebration of Belarus' 1918 declaration of independence but has in recent years become a protest against Lukashenko's authoritarian policies. Some protesters, including [...]

The Bush administration has filed an appeal of a ruling by a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit invalidating new less-stringent mercury emissions rules issued by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) . In February, the panel ruled that the "cap-and-trade" policy, to be implemented in 2010 by the EPA [...]

Indonesian prosecutors Wednesday recommended that two alleged leaders of the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) be given life sentences if found guilty on terrorism charges. Prosecutors also asked the court to officially outlaw the group. Zarkasih and Abu Dujana went on trial in December, charged with training and equipping JI members as well [...]

A court in Egypt Wednesday sentenced the former editor of weekly newspaper al-Dustour to six months in prison after convicting him on charges of spreading "rumors" about the health of Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak in an August newspaper report. Ibrahim Eissa originally faced a maximum sentence of three years in jail when his trial began [...]