US Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Thursday called for the US Justice Department to launch a grand jury investigation to determine if misdemeanor contempt of Congress charges should be prosecuted against former White House legal counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten for failing to cooperate with an [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Thursday upheld a district court's denial of an emergency injunction to block enforcement of an Arizona law that penalizes employers who hire illegal immigrants while opponents of the law argue their case before the appellate court. Civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union [...]

Serbian Justice Minister Dusan Petrovic signed an extradition request Thursday for the widow and son of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic . Mirjana Markovic and her son Marko currently reside in Russia but are wanted in Serbia on charges related their alleged involvement in a cigarette smuggling ring in the early 1990s. Markovic and her [...]

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque signed two international human rights treaties on Thursday, making Cuba party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights . Both treaties build upon ideas contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , to which Cuba is [...]

A key witness in the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor has been moved into hiding after being threatened for testifying before the Special Court for Sierra Leone , chief prosecutor Stephen Rapp said Thursday. Varmuyan Sherif, one of Taylor's former bodyguards, testified in January that Taylor had supplied weapons, cash and [...]

Sebastian Elgueta : "Amnesty International was deeply disappointed at the passage of Decree 06-2008 by the Congress of Guatemala which effectively aims to restart executions of those condemned to death. The Decree establishes the procedure by which the President can grant a pardon to a death row inmate. Executions had been stalled since 2000 when [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday ruled against the deportation of former Tunisian terror suspect Nassim Saadi, finding that evidence provided by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch showed that he would likely be subjected to torture in violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights if returned to [...]

An Indonesian court Thursday dismissed a civil corruption case against Tommy Suharto , the youngest son of former Indonesian President Haji Mohammad Suharto . The court also awarded some $550,000 to Suharto on a counter-claim for damages. Lawyers for Suharto argued that the case should be dismissed because related criminal charges had been dropped, but [...]

Afghan Deputy Chief Judge Mohammed Omar Ishaqzai said that Afghan journalism student Sayad Parwaz Kambaksh should be permitted to appeal a death sentence that resulted from a trial where he says he was not represented by a lawyer , the Independent reported Thursday. Kambaksh was sentenced to death in January for distributing papers questioning gender [...]

A 28-mile "virtual fence" along the US-Mexico border , known as Project 28, has been placed on hold due to technical issues, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said during a joint hearing Wednesday before two subcommittees of the House Committee on Homeland Security . Richard Stana of [...]