US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has ordered a clarification of rules on how US troops are to respond if they witness mistreatment of detainees by other forces. The request is a result of the confusion that occurred when Rumsfeld stated that US forces in Iraq are to simply report abuse while Marine General Peter Pace [...]

Chilean Judge Victor Montiglio announced Tuesday that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet will face a new round of human rights charges. As the judge continues to investigate Pinochet's role in Operation Colombo , where a dozen members of the opposition were allegedly kidnapped and murdered, he found enough evidence to connect Pinochet to the abduction [...]

The chief United Nations investigator leading the probe into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri will leave his post on December 15 after submitting his final report to the UN, a spokesman said Tuesday. The spokesman said that German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis indicated he would conduct the investigation for only six to [...]

The US Army Monday dropped charges against an officer who was charged with murder for giving permission to soldiers serving under him to kill two Iraqi civilians, including an Iraqi teenager who was suffering from severe wounds in the aftermath of a US attack and was killed "to put him out of his misery." The [...]

Former South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma was charged with rape Tuesday in Johannesburg Magistrate's Court and was freed on 20,000 rand bail until the case opens on February 13, 2006. A family friend who viewed Zuma as a foster parent reported the alleged rape last month. Zuma has gained popularity due to his anti-apartheid [...]

China on Tuesday denied the findings of UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak who, after a two-week visit to China, criticized the country for the widespread torture and abuse of prisoners. Nowak, a UN envoy acting on behalf of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) , also said his investigation was hindered by [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Ed Richards, Director of the Program in Law, Science, and Public Health at the Louisiana State University Law Center, says that President Bush's bird flu plan raises a number of legal issues even apart from the question of whether it's the right policy response to the threat of a flu pandemic… Over [...]

The US held eleven captured al Qaeda suspects at two secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe until media reports exposing the existence of the prisons shut down the facilities last month, ABC News reported Monday. The prisoners were then hastily relocated to a CIA facility in North Africa prior to the arrival of US Secretary [...]

"Witness A," the first woman to testify in the Saddam Hussein trial , gave her testimony Tuesday behind a curtain and with her voice distorted by computer to protect her identity, despite some technical problems which caused a short delay. Witness A continued to describe how she was forced to strip while in prison custody, [...]

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials in Mississippi knew that their response system had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and warned headquarters of riots, according to an eight-page document of e-mails released Monday by the US House Government Reform Committee . The correspondence between former FEMA Mississippi top responder, William Carwile and FEMA regional response [...]