The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) issued a joint report with 21 other rights groups Saturday on last week's Egyptian presidential elections , concluding that although up to 15 percent of the votes cast may be questionable, there was lass fraud in Egypt's first ever contested elections than in past ballots. Monitors reported widespread [...]

California Army National Guard Sgt. David Fimon has been sentenced to a year in military confinement and received a bad-conduct discharge after pleading guilty to abusing detainees in Iraq. Fimon pleaded guilty to maltreatment of detainees, conspiracy to commit maltreatment of detainees, dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice. Fimon's case is part of a [...]

The Israeli Cabinet voted Sunday to leave Gaza, the last formality in Israeli withdrawal from the region before handing over control to the Palestinian Authority (PA) . However, the Cabinet also voted against demolishing 20 synagogues still standing in the Gaza Strip , a move which PA officials say could delay IDF withdrawal . An [...]

Ayman Nour , the main rival to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Wednesday's multi-party election, said Saturday that the vote-counting process which resulted in Mubarak's officially-declared victory Friday with a certified 88.6% of the vote was fraudulent, and that 10-15% of the votes for Mubarak were themselves frauds. The official Presidental Election Commission has insisted, [...]

The US government has so far held back from making any guarantee to illegal immigrants caught up in aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that they will be able to seek help from federal agencies without fear of arrest on immigration grounds. After the September 11 terror attacks, federal authorities made it clear that illegals who had [...]

Kuwaiti Justice Minister Ahmad Baqer said Saturday that Kuwait has prepared its own indictment against former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein for crimes against the emirate during the 1990-1991 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and that that indictment "calls for Saddam's death." Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and occupied it for seven months until the [...]

The Washington Post reported Saturday that a group of former aides and other Republicans are quietly boosting the Supreme Court nomination of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales by shoring up his reputation among conservatives. Former Gonzales deputy David Leith said supporters do not want to "see a good man who has been a very solid conservative [...]

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani , now on a visit to the United States, insisted Friday at a Washington press conference that if the draft Iraqi constitution is not adopted in a referendum next month there would be no civil war in Iraq. Talabani's comments came on the same day that lawmakers in Iraq said that [...]

The head of UK security service MI5 has warned that civil liberties might need to be "eroded" in order to protect the British people from terrorism after the "shock" of the London bombings . Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller , MI5's director general, made her remarks in a speech delivered Setember 1 at The Hague on the [...]

President George W. Bush has issued an executive order allowing federal contractors working to rebuild areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina to pay lower wages, effectively suspending regulations under the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act requiring contractors to pay workers the minimum of prevailing wages for federally-funded construction projects that are in excess of $2,000. The President is [...]