The Iraqi government intends to oust Blackwater USA , the private security firm involved in a September shooting incident , from its borders over the next six months, according to a report complied by Iraqi authorities and the Iraqi National Police. The report, which is the culmination of an investigation by the Iraqi government into [...]

European laws need to be strengthened in order to more effectively fight organized crime throughout Europe, Italian prosecutor Nicola Gratteri said Monday. Gratteri is investigating the August slayings of six Italians in Duisburg, Germany , widely believed to be the result of a decades-old feud involving the Italian 'ndrangheta mob. Gratteri noted that 'ndrangheta has [...]

Serbian police arrested 56 neo-Nazis for protesting the potential independence of Kosovo from Serbia despite a ban against their planned demonstration, Serbian police said Monday. The arrests were made after fighting broke out Sunday between the neo-Nazis protesters and a group of anti-fascists, who were holding a counter-protest. The anti-fascist organizers accused Serbian police of [...]

American Electric Power (AEP) has settled a lawsuit for $4.6 billion with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) , 12 environmental groups and eight northeastern states. The settlement is expected to be formally announced Tuesday, the same day the lawsuit was set to go to trial. Under the terms of the settlement, which must be approved [...]

Opponents of an Oregon law that would allow same-sex couples to enter into contractual domestic partnerships with the same state benefits as married couples did not get enough signatures to block the law , Oregon election officials said Monday. If opponents had collected the required number of signatures, the law would have been been put [...]

Current Pakistani president and military leader General Pervez Musharraf appointed General Ashfaq Kiyani as new deputy army chief Monday, in an apparent consummation of his promise to step down as head of the country's military if he won a third term as president. Elections were held Saturday, and Musharraf won a landslide victory, collecting 252 [...]

Intel has asked the European Commission (EC) to extend its October 8 deadline to respond to antitrust accusations prepared by the EC in July over Intel's price and rebate tactics, which the EC said had the effect of driving smaller companies, such as Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) out of the market. On Monday, an EU [...]

A Bangladesh court Monday convicted former Home Minister Mohammed Nasim of corruption and sentenced him to 13 years in jail. Nasim's wife was also sentenced in absentia to three years for aiding her husband in accumulating property through "dishonest means." The court ordered the seizure of 12.6 million taka (approximately $183,000) deemed "disproportionate" to Nasim's [...]

A Milan prosecutor charged former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with false accounting on Monday, alleging that his broadcasting company, Mediaset, incorrectly reported its costs in purchasing television rights to US films in a ploy to lower taxes in 2000. Berlusconi's lawyer has said his client is innocent because he was not involved with the [...]

Afghanistan has ended a three-year moratorium on the death penalty by executing 15 prisoners Sunday by firing squad at Pul-e-Charkhi , the country's largest prison, Afghanistan's chief of prisons said Monday. The executions are the second confirmed reports of executions being carried out in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001. The [...]