Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki addressed the Iraqi parliament Sunday on a new national reconciliation plan which he hopes will end the Sunni insurgency and sectarian killings that have hindered reconstruction efforts in the county. According to a dispatch from Baghdad by Voices of Iraq news agency, the plan sets out some 24 guiding principles [...]

Italians headed to the polls Sunday to begin voting on a constitutional amendment package which would give more power to the prime minister and decrease the size of parliament, in the largest set of proposed changes to the Italian constitution since its inception. Those in favor of the package say that expanding the prime minister's [...]

Fourteen more Saudi Arabian nationals being held at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay were sent back to their home country Saturday, according to a statement by the US Department of Defense . The Pentagon indicated that a Combatant Status Review Tribunal had considered one of the men to no longer be an enemy combatant, [...]

Citizens of the north African state of Mauritania voted Sunday on a constitutional amendment that would limit the number of terms that a president can serve. The vote follows a successful coup attempt last August by a military group that sought to overthrow former President Maaouiya Ould Taya , who controlled the country for 20 [...]

The US military announced Sunday that two US Pennsylvania National Guardsmen have been charged in connection with the February 15 shooting of an Iraqi civilian near a US military base at Ramadi west of Baghdad. Specialist Nathan B. Lynn has been charged with voluntary manslaughter, and is joined by Sergeant Milton Ortiz Jr on a [...]

President Bush Saturday urged Congress to approve a line-item veto bill in his weekly radio address Saturday, insisting that "a line-item veto would allow the President to remove wasteful spending from a bill while preserving the rest." He said current law forces a President to either veto an entire bill or approve one with unnecessary [...]

Saddam Hussein knows that a death sentence awaits him at the end of his trial {JURIST news archive] before the Iraqi High Tribunal for alleged crimes against humanity, but his lawyer says Hussein believes the US will use his sentence as leverage to persuade him to end the Sunni insurgency and to "save it from [...]

President Bush issued an executive order Friday directing that US federal agencies and government departments may not seize private property unless the taking is for public use "and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties." Bush's order instructs the US attorney general to ensure that all federal entities limit [...]

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines Saturday signed into law a bill abolishing the death penalty. The law repeals the country's 12-year old death penalty and converts all current death penalty sentences into terms of life imprisonment. The Philippines Senate and House of Representatives passed the bill earlier in June. The legislation went directly [...]

A provision in the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act on its way to the US House of Representatives after being passed 96-0 Thursday by the Senate would restore military aid to countries that refuse to sign bilateral immunity agreements – so-called Article 98 agreements – under which they promise not to hand over US personnel [...]