The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Thursday upheld a district court ruling denying a bid by Canadian-born financier and former media mogul Conrad Black to remain free on bail pending the appeal of his July conviction on mail fraud and obstruction of justice charges. Black must report to a federal prison [...]

Iraq's Presidency Council on Friday approved the execution of Ali Hassan al-Majid , better known in the western media as "Chemical Ali," after months of deliberations over the fate of al-Majid and two other men condemned to death by an Iraqi tribunal last year. The Presidency Council, consisting of Kurdish President Jalal Talibani, Shi'ite Vice-President [...]

One in every 100 US adults is currently in prison, according to a report released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States (PCS) . The report found that males were 17 times more likely than females to be imprisoned, and that African Americans and Hispanics faced significantly higher incarceration rates than Caucasians. Since 1987, [...]

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 [...]