The US District Court for the District of Colombia Friday ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to release approximately 100,000 pages of documents detailing the FBI's use of national security letters (NSL) pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) . The order set a July 5 [...]

Mike Elston, chief of staff to US Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty , announced his resignation Friday, making him the fifth Department of Justice (DOJ) official linked to the controversial firing of at least eight US Attorneys to resign. Elston, whose resignation becomes effective at the end of next week, is accused of making threatening [...]

The Russian delegation to the Extraordinary Conference of the States Parties to the CFE Treaty in Vienna expressed displeasure at the close of talks Friday and repeated calls for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to ratify the 1999 revision of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, insisting that the original 1990 CFE treaty [...]

Following a Friday meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski told the Polish daily newspaper Dziennik he was optimistic that a compromise on a controversial voting system for the European constitution could be reached, although he later said it was too early to give details. His brother, Polish President Lech Kaczynski [...]

Seven men who conspired with British al Qaeda leader Dhiren Barot to launch attacks in Britain and the US were sentenced to a combined 136 years in prison Friday in London's Woolwich Crown Court. The shortest sentence handed down was 15 years imprisonment, while the longest was 26 years. Six of the men had pleaded [...]

Colombia's Congress approved legislation giving same-sex couples who have cohabited for over a period of two years similar rights as regular common law marriages Thursday, which will guarantee equal rights in areas such as welfare benefits and property inheritance. The measure, opposed by the Roman Catholic church but supported by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe , [...]

Rights complaints by Muslims in the US rose 25 percent in 2006, according to an annual report on civil rights released Thursday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) . The group attributed the jump to a rise in anti-Muslim bias, particularly seen in cases involving delays in immigration proceedings. The majority of reported complaints [...]

The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) Friday announced it is investigating allegations made by Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoy that the deceased former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko and alleged coup plotter Boris Berezovsky spied for Great Britain. Lugovoy, who is currently sought by Britain's Crown Prosecution Service (CRS) for the polonium poisoning death [...]

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Thursday that it has filed suit against the heads of a technology company and two lawyers who assisted the company in an illegal "pump and dump" penny stock scheme. Arizona lawyer David Stocker and Texas lawyer Phillip Offill Jr, the latter a former SEC enforcement officer, are [...]

Japanese district courts in Kochi and Sapporo Friday rejected the claims of two groups of Japanese abandoned in China as children after World War II, ruling that the current Japanese government was not obligated to compensate the so-called "war orphans" because Japan had no obligation to to assist their repatriation and assimilation back in Japan. [...]