Democrats in the US Congress will introduce legislation this week to maintain the authority of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) , according to the New York Times Sunday. SIGIR was originally established to independently supervise and investigate operations of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority , and has to date uncovered multiple instances [...]

A landmark international treaty governing the clean-up of unexploded munitions left over from war went into effect Sunday. The Protocol on Explosive Remnants of War , has already been ratified by 26 states . Although major munitions-producing nations like the United States and Russia have not yet acceded to the pact, it is the first [...]

A top Iranian prosecutor called for the arrest and extradition of several Argentina officials and judges Sunday in response to an Argentinean judge's Thursday arrest order for former Iran President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight other Iranian officials for their alleged roles in the AMIA Jewish cultural center bombing that killed 85 people and wounded [...]

Joseph Kony , leader of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, asked UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland Sunday to work with the International Criminal Court in lifting arrest warrants issued against Kony and several other top LRA officials. Kony and Egeland met in a heated 10-minute session in the Sudanese jungle. Egeland agreed to [...]

The Dalai Lama called Sunday for the sparing of Saddam Hussein's life in the face of the death sentence imposed on him last Sunday in the Dujail crimes against humanity case, telling reporters "however horrible an act a person may have committed, everyone has the potential to improve and correct himself." The exiled Tibetan leader [...]

London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair , the United Kingdom's most senior police officer, told a German security summit Saturday that changes to Britain's terror trial laws were necessary to speed up cases and increase public transparency. Blair said the current ban on publicizing case details that could prejudice other cases reduced the public [...]

US Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) said this week that the incoming 110th Congress will review the Secure Fence Act of 2006 and may scrap the plan after the new Democrat-controlled Congress convenes January 3, 2007. The bill, if implemented, will result in additional fencing of approximately 700 miles along the US-Mexico border. Speaking to [...]

France should acknowledge crimes it committed as the ruler of Algeria in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika reiterated Saturday. France ruled the North African country for more than 130 years and allegedly massacred 45,000 Algerians demanding independence at the end of World War II. After eight years of conflict costing 1.5 [...]

Morocco state news agency MAP reported Friday that a criminal court in Salé, a twin-city of the capital Rabat, has sentenced three former Guantanamo Bay detainees to prison for their involvement in terror activities. Mohamed Slimani was sentenced to five years in prison for his alleged role in creating and participation in a "criminal gang, [...]

The United States Saturday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning an Israeli attack on Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip on November 8 that resulted in the deaths of at least 18 civilians and calling on Israel "to scrupulously abide by its obligations and responsibilities under the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of [...]