French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy , widely seen as a leading candidate to replace President Jacques Chirac in 2007, is calling for new crime prevention legislation and affirmative action policies in the wake of widespread rioting by immigrant youths earlier this months that prompted the French government to declare a state of emergency . The [...]

Jose Padilla , a US citizen charged with planning to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the US, will not face those charges because US officials obtained evidence against him using torture on two al-Qaida members, according to a New York Times report. The Times Thursday quoted unnamed current and former government officials as saying [...]

Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye , charged last week with treason by civilian prosecutors, was taken before a Ugandan military court Thursday to answer additional charges of terrorism and illegal firearms possession. Besignye, who had been scheduled to attend a bail hearing in the civilian High Court, refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the military [...]

Leading Friday's international brief, Kenyan legal experts have raised concerns that Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki acted illegally and unconstitutionally when he sacked all 29 ministers and their deputies within 24 hours of his draft constitution being rejected by Kenyan voters . Kenyan Attorney General Amos Wako defended Kibaki's actions as valid under the current Kenyan [...]

British families of soldiers killed in Iraq petitioned the UK High Court Thursday for permission to launch a legal challenge against the government's refusal to hold an independent inquiry into the country's involvement in the Iraq war. Their group, Military Families Against the War , which called for an inquiry in May, argues that the [...]

Syria has requested a formal "cooperation protocol" with the United Nations which would govern the country's assistance with a UN investigation into the death of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri . A draft given to the UN indicates that Syria wants chief UN investigator and German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis to only question suspects and [...]

The Dutch Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that the Netherlands wants to secure a prisoners' rights guarantee in Afghanistan with its NATO allies, including the United States, before deciding whether to send additional troops there. Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot told parliament "We want very good guarantees. That is an important condition for the cabinet for [...]

New German chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that she plans to revive the European constitution , on hold since French and Dutch voters rejected the charter earlier this year. While indicating that the charter will be at the top of her agenda when Berlin assumes the EU presidency in 2007, the first woman chancellor said [...]

Austria has joined several other countries investigating whether the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted unauthorized flights through their airspace in 2003 while transporting terror detainees. An Austrian air force commander told state radio that a US transport plane traveling from Germany to Azerbaijan crossed Austrian airspace on Jan. 21, 2003. Austria refused to allow [...]

Defense lawyers in the Saddam Hussein trial announced Thursday that they will attend the next session of the trial scheduled for November 28 despite the recent assassination of two of their colleagues. The defense team had threatened to boycott the proceeding unless security was provided to both the lawyers and their families, which has not [...]