Members of the US House and Senate on Tuesday introduced bipartisan legislation to renew the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , which prohibits voter discrimination based on race or color. Although most of the act is permanent, three sections, including a requirement that states or counties with a history of discrimination secure Justice Department or [...]

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan presented his recommendations for a global counter-terrorism strategy to the UN General Assembly Tuesday, emphasizing the need to respect human rights in all aspects of anti-terrorism policy and practice. The defense of human rights constituted the fifth part of what he called the fundamental components of a global strategy, which also [...]

A spokesman for President Vicente Fox said Tuesday that the Mexican leader will sign a controversial new law legalizing the possession of small portions of such traditionally-illegal drugs as heroin, cocaine and marijuana. The legislation is viewed as a progressive move in the country's war against drugs that will free the legal system to concentrate [...]

European and US envoys meeting in Paris Tuesday discussed a new UN Security Council resolution that would invoke Chapter 7 of the UN Charter in another effort to get Iran to stop uranium enrichment. The Council directed Iran to stop enrichment in a resolution in late March, but the measure was technically non-binding. A Chapter [...]

Documents regarding the treatment of US-held detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, released to the public by the ACLU on May 2, 2006 pursuant to a FOIA request [showing that US officials had knowledge of reports of abuse at detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan before photos from Abu Ghraib prison first surfaced. Read [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday released new US Army documents it obtained through a Freedom of Information Act action purportedly showing that officials had knowledge of reports of abuse at detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan before photos from Abu Ghraib prison first surfaced. Among the documents was an information paper titled "Allegations [...]

No proof exists that the CIA used secret prisons in eastern Europe for terror suspects, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Tuesday. Solana, the high representative for common foreign and security policy in the EU, also told the European Parliament that he lacked the power to investigate the rendition allegations, which first surfaced in [...]

The dominant Sunni Arab political party Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF) on Tuesday called for a leading role on a legislative committee that will consider possible amendments to the Iraqi constitution in upcoming months. Senior IAF official Iyad al-Samarrai said the IAF should lead the committee because the party had demanded the opportunity to amend the [...]

Ten states sued the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Tuesday over new fuel economy standards the agency adopted in March . The states, led by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer , are arguing that the new standards for 2008-2011 under the Corporate Average Fuel Economy system were not strict enough for trucks and [...]

A group of 111 opposition politicians, rights activists, aid workers and journalists went on trial Tuesday in Ethiopia on charges of treason, inciting violence and attempting to commit genocide, despite calls from human rights groups for their release. If convicted, the defendants could receive the death penalty. The trial began Tuesday with the prosecution promising [...]