French newspaper Le Figaro reported Friday that two CIA-chartered flights made secret stops in France in 2002 and 2005 , bolstering allegations that the intelligence agency used the flights to transport Islamist terror suspects to secret European prisons for interrogation . The first stopover was made in 2002 by a Learjet private plane in the [...]

The US Department of Defense said Thursday that it plans to move forward in the trial against a 19-year old Canadian citizen who was charged last month with murdering a US Army medic, despite the judicial stays issued in other cases against terror suspects. Omar Ahmed Khadr was captured at the age of 15 and [...]

A United Nations human rights investigator said Friday that prisoner torture in China is declining but is still widespread, and accused Chinese authorities of obstructing his work during a 2-week torture investigation . Manfred Nowak ], Special Rapporteur on Torture for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) , said his investigation uncovered [...]

Alexei Kurtsin, former manager at Yukos-Moskva – the financial and management center for Russian oil company Yukos , was convicted on Thursday of embezzling and laundering funds and sentenced to 14 years in maximum-security prison. Kurtsin's sentence was even harsher than the 13-year sentence demanded by prosecutors, and the second longest sentence given out to [...]

A US Army officer has been arrested on bribery, money laundering, theft, and wire fraud charges as part of an illegal scheme during his service with the US governing administration in Iraq, according to US Department of Justice officials Thursday. During his time in Iraq, Army Reserve Lt. Col. Michael Wheeler was responsible for developing [...]

A Paris court on Thursday overturned the convictions of six people who were found guilty of pedophilia last year. The six, and several others, had been accused of raping their own and other children, after a seven-year-old boy reported that he had been raped by adults at orgies at his parents' apartment. The boy's mother, [...]

Kenneth Lee Boyd became the 1,000th person executed Friday since the US Supreme Court reinstated the country's capital punishment program in 1977 after a 10-year moratorium. Boyd, who was convicted of fatally shooting his wife and father-in-law 17 years ago, did not deny the killings but said he thought he should receive a life jail [...]

The Belgian Chamber , the lower house of parliament, approved a bill on Friday that will allow same-sex couples to legally adopt children. The bill must pass approval by the Belgian Senate before becoming law. The Senate is expected to hold hearings on the bill in March. If approved, Belgium would become the third European [...]

Leading Friday's international brief, the Ugandan government has rejected a call by the Pan African Parliament (PAP) to release Kizza Besigye as illegal and contrary to the aims of the African Union and the PAP. Ugandan government Spokesman and State Minister for Information Dr. James Nsaba Buturo told reporters Friday that the PAP's demand that [...]

Belgium Justice Minister Laurette Onkelinx said Thursday that Belgian anti-terror raids held Tuesday night, which resulted in 15 arrests , were accelerated in order to stem the effects of a leak reported in the French media. Authorities in France, led by French Justice Minister Pascal Clement , have begun an investigation into the leak which [...]