US President George W. Bush Wednesday called for Congress to make permanent the expansion of surveillance powers granted in August's Protect America Act , adding that he would not sign any eavesdropping bill that does not grant retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies facing lawsuits related to government eavesdropping that was conducted without a court order. [...]

Myanmar opposition protester Win Shwe died while being interrogated by junta authorities, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said Wednesday. The Thailand-based group said that Win Shwe died while being tortured and that his body was cremated at the detention facility. AAPP also said that the leader of the opposition 88 Generation Students Hla [...]

Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Zdravko Tolimir said in a Wednesday letter to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia that he is in "excellent" health and that the ICTY registrar has exaggerated the severity his condition. The registrar expressed concern last week that Tolimir was suffering from a brain aneurysm and serious heart [...]

US and Iraqi officials said Wednesday that they have launched an investigation into Iraqi civilian deaths believed to be caused by armed guards working for security and defense company Unity Resources Group . Two women were killed in shootings that occurred on Tuesday in Baghdad. Unity was hired by US-based RTI International to provide security [...]

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday affirmed a federal appeals court ruling that the parents of a disabled child are entitled to reimbursement for the costs of private school education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) , even though the child never attended public school. In Board of Education of the City of [...]

An Argentinean court sentenced former military chaplain Christian von Wernich Tuesday to life imprisonment for participating in seven homicides, 34 cases of torture and 42 cases of kidnapping during the Argentina's Dirty War . Von Wernich is the third person to be convicted of crimes against humanity after the Argentinean Supreme Court declared amnesty laws [...]

Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr has filed an appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, challenging the US Court of Military Commission Review (CMCR) decision to send Khadr's case back to a military tribunal, Khadr's lawyers said Tuesday. Last week, the CMCR refused to reconsider its September ruling that the charges [...]

The US House of Representatives passed the War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007 Tuesday, a bill creating new criminal provisions to govern fraud conducted by private defense contractors against the US government. The measure, passed by a vote of 375-3 , "amends the federal criminal code to prohibit profiteering and fraud involving a contract or [...]

Democrats in the US House of Representatives introduced a draft bill Tuesday designed to "modernize" the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) . The so-called RESTORE Act of 2007 ("Responsible Electronic Surveillance That is Overseen, Reviewed and Effective Act of 2007") would increase court oversight of the Terrorist Surveillance Program run by the National Security [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour on Tuesday urged Afghanistan to reinstate a moratorium on executions . Afghanistan executed 15 prisoners by firing squad Sunday and Arbour said that "the circumstances of the executions may constitute a breach of Afghanistan's obligations under international law." Arbour's comments follow a statement issued by the top [...]