US House and Senate negotiators agreed Thursday to remove language that would broaden federal hate crimes legislation from a defense reauthorization bill currently being finalized in Congress. In September, the Senate approved an amendment to the 2008 Defense Reauthorization Bill that would have expanded hate crimes laws to cover violent attacks against people based on [...]

A US Army major testified Thursday at a pretrial hearing to determine whether Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan qualifies as an unlawful enemy combatant , describing the circumstances under which Hamdan was taken into custody in Afghanistan in November 2001. If Hamdan, allegedly a driver for Osama bin Laden before his capture and [...]

Alaskan state officials said Wednesday that they are presently building a civil case against oil giant BP for two oil spills in Prudhoe Bay in March and August of 2006. The announcement by the environmental division of the Alaska Department of Law comes less than a week after BP subsidiary BP Exploration Alaska (BPXA) pleaded [...]

Corrupt police and court systems are the most common institutions to demand bribes , according to a report released Thursday by Berlin-based corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) . The TI Global Corruption Barometer 2007 found that globally "25 per cent of respondents who came in contact with the police were asked to pay a bribe." [...]

Riot police and blockades prevented former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and hundreds of supporters from marching Thursday to the home of ousted Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry , who has been under virtual house arrest since Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's November 3 declaration of emergency rule. Sharif and his supporters disbanded peacefully. Meanwhile lawyers [...]

Bolivian President Evo Morales has proposed a national referendum on whether he and the country's nine provincial governors should remain in office in response to accusations that the process of creating a new constitution has been illegitimate. Although the text was approved last week by the Bolivian Constituent Assembly , simultaneous protests in Sucre resulted [...]

UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith on Thursday proposed extending the current time limit for the detention of terrorist suspects before charges are filed to 42 days, up from the current limit of 28 days. Smith's proposal follows statements made last June by former UK Home Secretary John Reid calling for longer pre-charge time limits , [...]

A Bush administration rule aimed at preventing urban forest fires was struck down as arbitrary and capricious by a three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday, drawing praise from environmental groups . The rule would have exempted from environmental review any logging project covering less than 1,000 acres [...]

The number of journalists behind bars decreased from 134 in 2006 to 127 at the end of 2007, according to a year-end report issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Wednesday. China incarcerates the most journalists with 29 currently in prison, followed by Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, and Azerbaijan. The report also found that [...]

CIA interrogators may be restricted to using only those interrogation techniques explicitly authorized by the 2006 Army Field Manual if US House and Senate lawmakers succeed in adding the restriction to an upcoming intelligence funding bill, aides working on the bill told AP under condition of anonymity on Wednesday. Army interrogation guide Field Manual 2-22.3 [...]