Martha Stewart has reached a settlement agreement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on insider trading civil charges , the SEC announced Monday. Stewart will pay $195,000, which is roughly equivalent to the losses Stewart avoided by selling nearly 4,000 shares of ImClone Systems stock one day before the Food and Drug Administration declined [...]

A court in Argentina has convicted a former police officer of human rights violations during the country's so-called "Dirty War" , handing down the first sentence since the Argentine Supreme Court threw out the country's amnesty laws last year. After a trial which began in late June, Julio Simon was sentenced to 25 years in [...]

The Israel Defense Forces detained Fadl Hamdan, a member of the Palestinian parliament , during an overnight raid early Monday morning in the West Bank. Israeli authorities did not explain their reason for the detention. Hamdan is one of about 30 Palestinian lawmakers detained in the last six weeks, along with nearly a third of [...]

A Jordan military court Sunday convicted two lawmakers from the Islamic Action Front (IAF) , the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood , for expressing sympathy after the death of al Qaeda Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi when they visited Zarqawi's relatives in his native Jordan. The court sentenced Mohammed Abu Fares to two years [...]

Radhika Coomaraswamy , the Sri Lankan human rights lawyer now serving as UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict , said in an interview with AFP published Sunday that UN officials are very concerned that a new form of warfare targeting civilian institutions and infrastructure exemplified in the Middle East conflict [...]

Israel has arrested a Hezbollah guerrilla who is believed to have taken part in the July 12 raid which captured two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev , the Israeli Army announced Sunday. The Hezbollah member was captured in Lebanon and his involvement in the raid, which escalated the conflict involving Israel and Lebanon [...]

Hong Kong's Legislative Council passed a controversial surveillance law 32-0 Sunday, despite more than five days of deliberations and a vote boycott by 25 members of the pro-democracy opposition. The Interception of Communications and Surveillance Bill allows surveillance operations, including phone tapping and other measures, to be approved by judges appointed by Hong Kong's Chief [...]

Chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said Sunday that Iran will continue to expand its uranium enrichment program despite the UN Security Council resolution setting an August 31 deadline for the country to halt nuclear activities. Larijani stated that "such resolutions won't have any impact on our behavior" and that Iran's expansion of its nuclear [...]

A military hearing for the five US Army soldiers now charged in connection with the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the murder of her family in Mahmudiya began Sunday with testimony by unidentified Iraqi witnesses. The Article 32 hearing will determine whether there is enough evidence to hold a court-martial for [...]

US governors attending the annual meeting of the National Governors Association that got under way Saturday in Charleston, South Carolina, are opposing a bill in Congress that would allow the president to take over the National Guard without the consent of governors during emergencies. The House version of the National Defense Authorization Act includes a [...]