Pakistani Attorney General Malik Qayyum told Geo-TV Friday that emergency rule in Pakistan would be lifted and the country's constitution restored on December 15, one day earlier than the date set last week by President Pervez Musharraf in a televised address after being sworn into office for a third term. Qayyum said that two constitutional [...]

Four of the five UK residents being detained at Guantanamo Bay are scheduled to be released, the BBC reported Friday. Jordanian Jamil el Banna, Libyan Omar Deghayes and Algerian Abdennour Sameur will return to the UK, while Saudi Arabian Shaker Abdur-Raheem Aamer will return to his native country. A fifth detainee, Ethiopian Binyam Mohammed al [...]

The Rhode Island Supreme Court Friday ruled that a lesbian couple legally married in Massachusetts does not have the right to divorce in Rhode Island because Rhode Island does not explicitly recognize same-sex marriage. In Chambers v. Ormiston , Rhode Island residents Cassandra Ormiston and Margaret Chambers sought to end their 2004 Massachusetts marriage. Lawyers [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Friday sentenced Francois Karera to life imprisonment for his role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Karera, the former prefect of Kigali-Rural, was found guilty on three of four genocide and crimes against humanity counts brought against him, but was acquitted of complicity to commit genocide. In determining the sentence, [...]

US State Department officials Friday announced the resignation of State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard , following a long controversy over allegations that he obstructed inquiries that could harm the Bush administration. Last month, Krongard testified before the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and denied allegations that he politicized the Inspector General's Office. [...]

US Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) sent a letter to US Attorney General Michael Mukasey Friday, asking that the US Department of Justice launch an investigation into whether the CIA's destruction of videotaped recordings of two terror suspects in 2002 could be considered obstruction of justice. Existence of the videotapes was verified in November after the [...]

Former interim Liberian President Gyude Bryant was arrested Friday after he failed to appear in court on charges of corruption this week. Bryant was charged in February with embezzling $1.3 million during his tenure from October 2003 until January 2006. The indictment was based on an audit conducted by the Economic Community of West African [...]

The US Supreme Court granted certiorari in six cases Friday afternoon, including the consolidated cases of Munaf v. Geren (06-1666) and Geren v. Omar (07-394) , where the Court will decide whether US citizens held by US forces in Iraq can challenge their detention and seek to prevent US forces from turning them over to [...]

The Austrian Parliament passed legislation setting a complete ban on cluster munitions Thursday, and making a disarmament goal to destroy Austria's stockpile of approximately 10,000 devices over three years. Austria is the second country to ban cluster munitions. In 2006, Belgium banned the manufacture and use of cluster munitions and criminalized the investment and financing [...]

A legal challenge has been filed to the eligibility of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as a candidate in the upcoming January parliamentary election, an Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) official said Friday. The challenge, filed by a Bhutto rival from President Pervez Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) , says that Bhutto cannot run in [...]