Nicaraguan lawmakers voted Thursday to prohibit abortions for any reason in the country, including procedures to save the life of a pregnant woman. The measure eliminates a long-standing medical necessity exception to the country's anti-abortion laws. Nicaragua has a large Roman Catholic population and the church assisted in drafting the bill, which has been criticized [...]

Alexander Milinkevich , the defeated opposition candidate in Belarus' presidential elections in March, was awarded the Sakharov Prize on Thursday by the European Parliament , for his fight for democracy. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko won over Milinkevich by a landslide 80 percent of the popular vote in an election that has been widely condemned as [...]

Jack Martin : "At this point, the border fencing law signed by President Bush Thursday is largely symbolic, although important. The legislation sends the message abroad that we intend to defend our borders against illegal immigration. It is symbolic because little more than a start on the project can be made on the basis of [...]

Israel is breaching international humanitarian law and is violating the rights of Palestinians by placing severe restrictions on family visits with Palestinian prisoners, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B'Tselem) said in a new report released Thursday. The human rights group claims that Israel is breaching the Geneva Convention , [...]

President Bush Thursday reiterated his belief that "marriage is a union between a man and a woman" a day after the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples in the state must be afforded the same rights as heterosexual couples. At a Republican fundraiser Bush spoke out against what he called the ruling of [...]

US Marine Corps Pfc. John J. Jodka pleaded guilty Thursday to assault and obstruction of justice charges in relation to the April 26 death of an Iraqi civilian in Hamdania . Jodka was one of eight military personnel originally charged with murder, kidnapping, conspiracy, assault and housebreaking for his role in the death of Hashim [...]

President George W. Bush Thursday signed the Secure Fence Act of 2006 authorizing 700 miles of fencing along the US-Mexico border. The legislation represents the second portion of a two-part plan to tackle illegal immigration in the US; the first half of the legislation creates a $34.8 billion fund for tackling immigration issues, including the [...]

Thailand Army Chief Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin , who seized power from former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless military coup in September, admitted Thursday that investigators are struggling to find evidence of corruption, the ostensible reason for Thaksin's overthrow. The investigative commission is finding little evidence to implicate Thaksin, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon, in [...]

A Danish court dismissed a lawsuit Thursday filed by Muslim organizations against the two editors of the Danish newspaper who published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad earlier this year. Worldwide protests among Muslims followed Jyllands-Posten publication of the cartoons, leading to multiple deaths , the burning of Danish embassy buildings , and boycotts of Danish [...]

JURIST Contributing Editor Michael A. Olivas of the University of Houston Law Center says that the Secure Fence Act signed into law by President Bush and authorizing the construction of a 700-mile barrier along part of the US border with Mexico is a shortsighted election-time absurdity that cannot work… I once had a friend who [...]