Alexander Vershbow , the US ambassador to South Korea, on Wednesday called North Korea a "criminal regime" that is involved in arms sales, drug trafficking and currency forgery. Vershbow's comments came as he was explaining why the US has imposed economic sanctions against the country and follow North Korea's warnings that it could walk out [...]

The US Supreme Court handed down two decisions Wednesday, including one in Lockhart v. US , where the court held that the federal government can offset Social Security benefits to collect outstanding student loan debt even if the debt has been owed for over 10 years. The Court considered the appeal of James Lockhart, a [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on Wednesday sentenced Miroslav Bralo , a former Bosnian Croat soldier, to 20 years in jail. Bralo pleaded guilty to murder, rape and torture charges stemming from the 1993 Bosnian war. He had initially pleaded not guilty , but later changed his plea and ICTY Judge Iain [...]

Proceedings in the Saddam Hussein trial continued Wednesday without the former president in the courtroom, after Hussein promised not to return to an "unjust court". There was a delay in proceedings Wednesday at the Iraqi High Criminal Court (formerly the Iraqi Special Tribunal ) while judges decided whether to proceed without Hussein. Under Iraqi law, [...]

On the final day of Egypt's legislative elections , police beat back female voters with sticks when they tried to enter a blocked-off polling station in the Nasiriyah district of Zagazig, a stronghold of banned political group the Muslim Brotherhood . The Brotherhood is the country's largest opposition group and has won more support from [...]

Bruce Gordon , president and chief executive of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on Tuesday urged that death row inmate and convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams be granted clemency, calling him a secret weapon for helping young African-American men stay out of gangs. Williams, the co-founder of the murderous Crips [...]

Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was questioned Tuesday by Federal Judge Claudio Pavez, who is investigating the killing of an army colonel, Gerardo Hube, who has been linked to a 1992 illegal arms sale. The judge's questioning came the same day that Pinochet was charged with separate human rights violations stemming from the Operation Colombo [...]

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced Wednesday that the US has changed its policy on the interrogations of detainees, and will impose a worldwide ban on US personnel subjecting prisoners to cruelty, citing obligations under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) . The ban marks a staunch policy shift toward the international treaty, which prohibits [...]

A letter from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have been instrumental in preventing the UN’s World Summit on the Information Society last month from making changes to the current control structure of the internet. The letter, co-signed by US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, was sent to British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw whose [...]

Addressing the Dutch Parliament Tuesday, Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot called assurances by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the US does not conduct renditions for torture "unsatisfactory." The Netherlands has been reported as one of the countries in which CIA rendition flights made stop-overs. Bot nonetheless asserted that rendition itself was not a [...]