A panel of 11 members of the German parliament began its investigation into the role of German intelligence in the war in Iraq Friday. The committee will focus on 30 questions posed by the Free Democratic Party, the Left Party and the Greens , Germany's opposition parties, in reaction to an internal investigation which found [...]

The United Nations has expressed disappointment in the US decision not to run for a position on the new UN Human Rights Council . Spokesmen for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and UN General Assembly President Jan Eliasson , however, expressed hope that the US would continue to support the purpose and work of the council, [...]

Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Muhammad said Thursday that he had been tortured after United States authorities transported him to a Moroccan prison for interrogation. Muhammad is a suspected al Qaeda member and is charged with conspiring with al Qaeda to commit war crimes in the United States. He made his first appearance before a military [...]

Ruling on petition by Kizza Besigye challenging the presidential election of 23 February 2006 in which President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni was declared elected, Uganda Supreme Court, April 6, 2006. Text: The Petitioner, Rtd. Col. Dr. Kizza Besigye, who was one of the candidates in the Presidential Election held on 23 February 2006, petitioned the Supreme [...]

A bill reflecting what was heralded as a key compromise on immigration reform has stalled in the US Senate. By a margin of 38-60 senators voted Friday morning against a motion to send the existing border security bill back to the Senate Judiciary Committee with instructions to include compromise language agreed to by Senate leaders [...]

Serbia has promised to deliver fugitive Bosnian war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia by the end of April, according to a court spokesman. A spokesman for ICTY chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte said that Serbia had provided "clear assurances" that Mladic would be delivered to the tribunal [...]

Canadian Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said that he intends to fulfill a campaign promise and hold a free vote in the Canadian Parliament about whether to revive debate on a federal law permitting same-sex marriages that was passed last summer by the Liberal Party government of former Prime Minister Paul Martin. More [...]

The UN human rights chief in Haiti has accused the interim government of imprisoning 4,000 people "preventively" for months or years without facing charges or trials. According to Thierry Fagart, the human rights field officer in Haiti, many of the prisoners were arrested for political reasons after the February 2004 ouster of former president Jean-Bertrand [...]

Former immigration official Michael Maxwell testified about alleged widespread corruption and security vulnerabilities within the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) before the US House Committee on International Relations on Thursday. Maxwell, who resigned in February as Director of the Office of Security and Investigations at USCIS complained that because officials within USCIS did not [...]

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said Thursday he was open to all proposals for resolving the month-long standoff with students and labor unions over the law establishing the First Employment Contract (contrat premiere embauche, CPE) , but gave no indication that he was going to withdraw the legislation as critics have demanded. Speaking at [...]