Malta's Justice and Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg urged his EU counterparts to help alleviate the influx of illegal immigrants to Malta Tuesday, as the EU's Justice and Home Affairs Council began a two-day meeting in Luxembourg to discuss EU policy on illegal immigration and other matters within the Council's portfolio. Borg's plea follows a [...]

Slobodan Radovanovic, Serbia's top special prosecutor for organized crime, said Monday that the widow and son of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic are to be charged with running a smuggling ring. Serbia will issue an international arrest warrant in the case and their assets are expected to be frozen. Mirjana Markovic and her son Marko [...]

An Ethiopian court convicted 39 opposition members Monday of treason and inciting violence for their roles in mass anti-government demonstrations in the wake of Ethiopia's 2005 elections . The opposition members, most of whom belong to the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) , will be sentenced on July 8 and face either life imprisonment [...]

Milan Martic was convicted Tuesday by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of 16 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of laws and customs of war, for crimes including persecutions, murder, torture, deportation, attacks on civilians, and wanton destruction of civilian areas. The former leader of the self-proclaimed "Republic of Serbian [...]

Iranian-American scholar Dr. Haleh Esfandiari , currently detained by the Iranian government, is being denied access to counsel, according to her lawyer, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi . Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the DC-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars , was formally charged last month with plotting to [...]

The US Senate voted 53-38 Monday on a cloture motion limiting debate on a joint resolution expressing its lack of confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales , effectively stopping the resolution from coming to a floor vote. The motion fell seven votes short of the 60 necessary to pass it and presumably adopt the much [...]

Thailand's Assets Examination Committee (AEC) ordered the assets of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife frozen on Monday, saying the $1.6 billion dollars should not be touched until a court determines if the money was legally obtained. Thaksin, who made his fortune after founding what is now the Shin Corporation in 1983, is [...]

The US Supreme Court granted certiorari Monday in three cases to be heard next term, two of which deal with federal sentencing guidelines. In Kimbrough v. US (06-6330) the court will decide an appeal of a Fourth Circuit case stemming from a district judge refusing to order a higher sentencing range because the defendant was [...]

Egyptian police reportedly prevented voters from entering polling stations and arrested approximately 100 members from the banned opposition Muslim Brotherhood Monday as Egypt held elections for the Shura Council , the upper house of the Egyptian parliament. Some voters also reported the government pressured them to cast ballots for the National Democratic Party (NDP) , [...]

The Supreme Court of Georgia Monday dismissed a challenge to Georgia's voter ID law , finding that the plaintiff lacked standing to mount the challenge , without addressing the law itself. The court said that the plaintiff, as a first time Georgia voter, was entitled to use a non-photo ID, such as a copy of [...]