Australian police have arrested a 33-year-old man for using text messages to incite rioting a week after race riots broke out in Sydney involving 5,000 people, mostly white men and youths, attacking Muslim residents on local beaches. Wednesday's arrest marks the first instance someone has been charged with such an offense. The man allegedly forwarded [...]

Nearly 700 same-sex couples in Britain took part in civil partnership ceremonies Wednesday, the first day of eligibility under Britain's Civil Partnership Act , which was enacted in 2004. Registration for civil partnerships began earlier this month, and couples are required to wait 15 days after registration before holding ceremonies. Partners in civil unions are [...]

The US Senate voted Wednesday to repeal the Byrd Amendment in October 2007, following a similar vote in the US House of Representatives last month. Officially known as the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act , the amendment, which allows private companies to collect duties from foreign imports that the government considers to be unfairly [...]

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in his traditional year-end press conference Wednesday that he wanted to dedicate his final year in the position to encouraging peace and UN reform . Looking back on 2005 he also offered stinging criticism of the media coverage of the UN oil-for-food program , accusing journalists of focusing too much [...]

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales requested that the German government not release Mohammed Ali Hamadi, a convicted hijacker accused of killing a US Navy diver, but Germany refused, the Bush administration confirmed Wednesday. Hamadi was convicted for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight by a group of Shiite militants seeking the release of Lebanese [...]

Colombian prosecutors plan to file charges against former justice minister Alberto Santofimio Botero in connection with the 1989 assassination of Liberal party presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan , the attorney general's office announced Wednesday. Santofimio will face homicide and conspiracy charges for Galan's assassination, which took place as he spoke at a political rally. Drug [...]

Saddam Hussein on Thursday denounced US denials of his claims that he has been tortured while held by US forces and argued that the US had also lied about Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction in the run up to the war in Iraq. Hussein made the remarks before the Iraqi Special Tribunal hearing [...]

A lawyer for Tariq Aziz , Iraq's deputy prime minister during Saddam Hussein's regime, said Wednesday that US troops are protecting "high-value" former Iraqi officials released from custody earlier this week. Badee Izzat Aref said that 25 officials, including Dr. Rihab Taha al-Azawi know as "Dr. Germ", had been released from custody and were being [...]

Afghan journalist Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, the editor of the magazine Hoqooq-i-Zan, (translated as Women's Rights) who was convicted of blasphemy for publishing anti-Islamic articles, has been freed from jail , a senior Afghan judge said Thursday. Nasab was arrested in October for reprinting articles arguing that Islamic law does not allow flogging for adultery and [...]

Russia's Duma , the lower house of parliament, approved on Wednesday a much-criticized bill restricting NGO activity by 376-10 on its second reading. The bill would create a government agency with broad power to monitor and regulate NGOs though original provisions that would have subjected local branches of foreign groups to strict financial and legal [...]