A Nigerian court held Wednesday that Vice President Atiku Abubakar can run in next month's presidential election, throwing out a decision by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ban Abubakar after he was indicted for corruption. Only the court has the authority to ban a candidate from contesting elections under the country's 2006 Electoral [...]

The Bangladeshi interim government arrested six politicians, including the son of former prime minister Khaleda Zia , for alleged corruption Thursday, according to local media. Tarique Rahman was detained at his mother's house in Dhaka. Rahman, a senior member in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party , was widely expected to succeed his mother, who stepped down [...]

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his government will fully cooperate with an investigation by ruling Liberal Democratic party lawmakers into allegations that the Japanese military forced women into prostitution in army-operated brothels during World War II. Despite widespread evidence to the contrary, Japanese politicians have repeatedly denied the use of so-called "comfort women" to [...]

Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr told his mother Wednesday in the first phone call with his family since his capture in 2002 that he plans to do whatever he can to avoid appearing in front of his military trial in Guantanamo Bay because he believes the military commission is fundamentally unfair. The Toronto Star reported [...]

The US Senate voted 51-48 Wednesday to adopt an amendment to a new anti-terror bill , weakening union rights that would be granted to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport screeners under the bill. President Bush said last month that he would veto the anti-terror bill if provisions allowing TSA screeners to unionize were included in [...]

The European Court of Human Rights held a hearing Thursday to determine the admissibility and merits of a case filed in 2003 by 159 children of Norwegian mothers and German fathers born during World War II. Many of these "war children" or "krigsbarn", were officially registered as children of "Lebensborn" , a Nazi plot devised [...]

China accused the US of numerous human rights abuses on Thursday in its Human Rights Record of the US in 2006 , the Chinese state response to US criticism in Tuesday's publication of the 2006 US State Department Country Reports . The Chinese report, its eighth consecutive annual rebuttal to the US report, cites news [...]

The UK House of Commons backed two different proposals Wednesday on reforming the upper house of parliament , the House of Lords . Members of the House of Lords currently are appointed or hold hereditary peerages, but under the proposals at least 80 percent of members would be elected. Under the first plan approved by [...]

Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks will be arraigned before a US military commission on March 20, marking his first commission appearance after over five years in US detention. Australian Prime Minister John Howard confirmed the March 20 hearing in an interview with Southern Cross Broadcasting Thursday, expressing frustration at delays in bringing Hicks to [...]

The French Constitutional Council has upheld a law banning anyone other than professional reporters from filming or broadcasting acts of violence. Violators would face up to five years in prison and a fine of €75,000 (US$98,537). French lawmakers say the ban, proposed by Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy , will help stamp out delinquency, [...]