Legitimate asylum seekers in the US may be ignored or detained for months or even years given the current expedited removal practices of domestic security officials, according to a report card released Thursday by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (CIRF) , a bipartisan commission established by Congress in 1998. The report finds fault [...]

Amnesty International accused Mexico in a report released Wednesday of having a "gravely flawed" criminal justice system in which human rights abuses are perpetuated and criminals are rarely punished. The report cites evidence of arbitrary detentions, torture, fabrication of evidence and unfair trials and claims that the victims are often indigenous Mexicans, the poor, women [...]

Two state legislators asked the attorney general of Texas Wednesday to issue an opinion on the legality of Gov. Rick Perry's executive order mandating that sixth-grade girls be vaccinated for the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) . The lawmakers also requested that Attorney General Greg Abbott advise the legislature on actions it can take to [...]

Nashville is set to conduct all official business in the English language after the Nashville City Council voted 23-14 Tuesday to amend the City Charter to declare English the official language of the city government. Mayor Bill Purcell is consulting with city attorneys to determine whether to sign, veto, or take no action on the [...]

No formal peace treaty will be concluded between Japan and Russia until Russia relinquishes control of several Japanese islands it has occupied since the end of World War II, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a rally on Wednesday. Possession of the island chain, known as the Kurils Islands in Russia and the Northern Territories [...]

White House spokesman Tony Snow Wednesday called for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to act on the case of Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, a Shiite lawmaker who US military intelligence says was convicted and sentenced to death in absentia in 1984 for his role in a series of car bombings at the US [...]

Fifty-seven countries have signed an international treaty in Paris banning governments from holding suspects in secret detention. The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance was approved by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in June and adopted by consensus by the UN General Assembly in December, but it has not [...]

The military judge overseeing the court-martial of US Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada declared a mistrial Wednesday after throwing out a pretrial agreement in which Watada admitted that he failed to deploy to Iraq with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division in June. Watada was initially charged with missing troop movement, contempt toward officials, and [...]

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair pushed Wednesday for a half-elected, half-appointed House of Lords that would remove 92 House members who still inherit their parliamentary seats and set the number of seats at 540. Currently, the House of Lords does not have a fixed number of members. According to House of Commons Leader Jack Straw [...]

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of Nigeria on Wednesday released an advisory list of 135 Nigerian politicians considered to be too corrupt to hold office, including Vice President Atiku Abubakar , who has left the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) to run for the presidential ticket. Commission chairman Nuhu Ribadu explained that by making [...]