The supposed abductors of Sunni Iraqi legislator Tayseer al-Mashhadani have offered to release her in exchange for the release of all Shiite detainees, a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops, and an end to all attacks on Shiite mosques, Iraqi co-Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi told reporters Wednesday. Al-Hashimi did not say whether the group [...]

European countries need to improve extradition and criminal cooperation procedures in order to face the growing threat of international crime, Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika told the seventh session of the Conference of Prosecutors General of Europe in Moscow on Wednesday. Chaika, who was installed as prosecutor general by the Russian parliament last month, took [...]

Six former Guantanamo Bay detainees now on trial in Paris were interviewed by French authorities while they were still being held at the US prison, according to a French newspaper. A French diplomatic telegram published in the Liberation daily Wednesday referred to intelligence agents who conducted interviews with the suspects at least twice while at [...]

The editors of seven independent newspapers in Egypt plan to go on strike Sunday to protest the lack of legal protection afforded to journalists, the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported Tuesday. The strike is scheduled for the same day the Egyptian parliament is expected to discuss a draft publications law touted by the government as [...]

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has said in a television broadcast that his Thai Rak Thai party is innocent of election fraud allegedly committed in an abortive general election this spring. Prosecutors, acting on a unanimous recommendation by an investigative committee, are expected to ask Thailand's Constitutional Court on Thursday to dissolve Thai Rak Thai, [...]

CNN is reporting that former Enron founder Kenneth Lay is dead. According to a spokesman for Lay's family, Lay suffered a massive heart attack in Aspen, Colorado on Tuesday evening. Lay, along with former Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling , was convicted in May on fraud and conspiracy charges for providing investors with false and misleading [...]

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday called for an independent Iraqi inquiry into allegations that US soldiers raped an Iraqi woman and murdered her and her family near the town of Mahmudiya in March. Al-Maliki said during a visit to Kuwait that he believes "immunity granted to international forces has emboldened them to commit [...]

Joseph Kony , leader of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, will be granted amnesty if upcoming LRA negotiations with the southern Sudanese government proceed smoothly and if he renounces terrorist activity, according a statement released Tuesday by the press secretary for Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni . Kony was indicted by the International [...]

The retrial of five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor accused of infecting more than 400 Libyan patients, primarily children, with HIV resumed Tuesday in Tripoli. The court heard testimony from three prosecution witnesses – parents of infected children – who identified the defendants as the medical workers who infected their children. Judge Mahmoud al-Huweissa [...]

Claiming that some ballots were counted twice and others not at all because of fraud, Mexico's Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) is demanding a full recount of votes in last weekend's presidential election. Preliminary results showed the PRD's candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador , trailing Felipe Calderon , of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) , [...]