The US Senate Tuesday confirmed former Senate Legal Counsel Thomas Griffith to the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by a vote of 73-24 . President Bush had originally chosen Miguel Estrada for the seat, but the Senate Democrats had objected to his nomination and he eventually withdrew . Griffith was [...]

Ten Kuwaiti legislators signed a request Tuesday to put Sunday's appointment of Massouma al-Mubarak as the first female Cabinet minister in Kuwait up for debate in parliament, claiming it to be unconstitutional . The move comes a month after Kuwait granted women the right to vote and run for office . The legislators claim that [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, formerly a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, said Monday in an interview that the Canadian high court will likely have to revisit a 2002 deportation ruling that may conflict with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights , banning the deportation of suspects to [...]

After a referendum to liberalize Italy's fertility laws failed on Monday, church leaders and Italian politicians are sending some conflicting signals about the legal future of abortion in the country, which legalized abortion in 1978 and strongly supported choice in a 1981 referendum. Cardinal Camillo Ruini, chairman of the Italian bishops' conference which encouraged Catholic [...]

The House of Assembly and Senate of Swaziland have approved a new constitution . King Mswati III must now approve the document, which fuses centuries-old traditions and Western democratic principles. The constitution is a product of eight years of consultations and includes a detailed bill of rights including the right to life, liberty and equality [...]

A new report released Monday by the US Justice Department Inspector General says the government's terrorism suspect watch list co-ordinated by the new Terrorism Screening Center is missing some names , based on incomplete and inaccurate information , and mischaracterizes the danger posed by nearly 32,000 suspects who are not designated as targets of significant [...]

The Ulamas Council, the conference of Islamic clergy in Afghanistan, passed a resolution on Tuesday demanding an apology from the US for incidents of abuse of the Koran at Guantanamo. While the Newsweek story that initially sparked deadly rioting in that country and outrage elsewhere in the Muslim world was later retracted , the Pentagon [...]

A senior European Union official called for a break in EU expansion Monday, addressing the media days before EU leaders will meet to discuss fallout from rejections of the EU Constitution in France and the Netherlands . EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner stated that people needed time to "digest" the bloc's largest expansion, the [...]

After a businessman he was connected with was convicted of corruption and fraud , South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma was fired Tuesday by President Thabo Mbeki . Zuma had appeared ready to one day become president, and Mbeki cautioned that he should be presumed innocent, but he said that circumstances dictated his release . [...]

Shirin Ebadi , a human-rights lawyer who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, spoke out Monday against the introduction of special Islamic tribunals in Canada. A Muslim group in Ontario proposed setting up the tribunals to settle family disputes among members of the Islamic community there. Ebadi complained that traditional Muslim law is open to [...]