Testimony began Tuesday in the trial of a civil suit brought against Sudan by families of US military personnel killed in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole . The families say Sudan has provided material support to al Qaeda since 1991, without which the attack that killed the US personnel would not have been [...]

Zimbabwe opposition presidential hopeful Morgan Tsvangirai , arrested by government forces at a protest in Harare Sunday, was taken to a hospital Tuesday after a brief appearance in court along with 50 other detainees. On Monday, Tsvangirai's lawyer and party officials said he was beaten while in police custody; he appeared in court Tuesday with [...]

The trial of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and former lawyer David Mills began Tuesday in Milan on charges of corruption arising from Berlusconi's alleged payment of $600,000 to Mills for favorable testimony at trials in the 1990s. Last month, the Italian Court of Cassation ruled that Berlusconi should face trial in an appeals [...]

The French Cour de Cassation held Tuesday that same-sex marriages are not valid under French law and that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. The case arose in 2004 when Stephane Charpin and Bertrand Charpentier were married , after which both a local court and intermediate appeals court ruled that the [...]

Chinese Chief Justice Xiao Yang reported Tuesday that nine high ranking Chinese officials were convicted by courts in 2006 as a result of China's anti-corruption campaign . In a working report to the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC) , the country's parliament, Xiao also reported that a total of 825 convicted government [...]

The Council of Europe's European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) called on Russia to deal with allegations of torture and abuse in the volatile Chechnya region in a record third public statement released Monday. The CPT previously issued public statements denouncing conditions in Russia in 2001 [...]

Media giant Viacom filed a lawsuit Tuesday for copyright infringement against the website YouTube and owner Google , seeking over $1 billion in damages and an injunction that would prohibit further infringement. Viacom, which owns Comedy Central, MTV, VH1 and other media outlets, alleges in its complaint that over 160,000 unauthorized video clips have been [...]

Pakistan's Supreme Judicial Council held a hearing Tuesday on the alleged misconduct of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as Pakistanis protested in the streets and lawyers boycotted courts across the country. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf suspended Chaudhry Friday for alleged misconduct. Chaudhry has questioned whether he will receive a fair hearing by the Council, which [...]

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) endorsed a declaration against torture drafted by 17 evangelical scholars, a move some say signifies an end to US President George W. Bush's alliance with Christian evangelicals. The declaration, written by Evangelicals for Human Rights , noted the traditional relationship between Christianity and "the human rights ethic." The authors [...]

A United Nations human rights expert urged the Philippines Monday to amend or repeal its new anti-terrorism law . Martin Scheinin, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism , specifically expressed concern that the law allows house arrests without strong evidence of guilt and make detentions reviewable by "members [...]