Senior managers in the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST) allegedly violated ethics rules by maintaining an improper relationship with an accounting firm that won more than $6.5 million in contract work related to Indian trust funds held by the government, according to a US Department of the Interior (DOI) investigation . [...]

US officials Thursday denied that the US had violated British air transport safety regulations in routing "smart bombs" to Israel through the UK, despite concerns expressed by UK Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett earlier this week that procedures for handling the dangerous cargo were not followed. Beckett said Wednesday that a formal complaint would be made [...]

Former President of Malawi Bakili Muluzi was released Thursday following a brief arrest, during which he was charged with 42 counts of corruption, fraud and theft, according to Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director Gustave Kaliwo. Kaliwo said the charges arose from allegations that Muluzi directed campaign contributions into his personal accounts. Muluzi proclaimed his innocence through [...]

Turkish author and journalist Perihan Magden was acquitted Thursday for defending an objector who was sentenced to four years in prison for refusing to wear his military uniform. The law in Turkey requires any man over 20 years old to serve in the military for 15 months and does not allow conscientious objections. Magden was [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday ruled in favor of the mother of a Chechen man who claimed that Russia failed to investigate the death of her son as required by Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights . Fatima Bazorkina brought a civil suit against the Russian government after [...]

At a US Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing Thursday, Democrats renewed their fight against the nomination of John Bolton as the permanent US ambassador to the United Nations . To avoid initial opposition in the Senate , President Bush gave Bolton the job on an interim basis last year through a recess appointment that [...]

The US Marshals Service has released statistics showing that the number of threats on judicial employees, including judges, increased 63 percent from 2003 to 2005, from 584 threats to 953. So far this year, marshals have investigated 822 threat reports. The Marshals Service, part of the US Department of Justice, is responsible for protecting federal [...]

President Bush signed a bill Thursday to reauthorize expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) . The provisions would have lapsed in 2007, but the reauthorization extends them through 2032. "Today, we renew a bill that helped bring a community on the margins into the life of American democracy," Bush said during a signing [...]

The entertainment industry and Sharman Networks announced Thursday that they had reached a settlement regarding Sharman's Kazaa software, which allowed illegal Internet downloads of music and movies . The company agreed to pay "substantial" penalties – $115 million, according to a Los Angeles Times report – and to discourage online piracy by creating roadblocks for [...]

The United Nations may sanction the Philippines if its government continues to refuse to submit reports on human rights abuses in the country, the chairwoman of the Commission on Human Rights Philippines (CHRP) said Thursday. Purificacion Valera Quisumbing said that Manila has not complied with UN requirements to release the reports since 1992, subjecting the [...]