Parliamentary members of Zimbabwe's ruling African National Union-Patriotic Front party Tuesday defeated an opposition proposal that would have ended the government's controversial home demolition program . "Operation Restore Order" has resulted in 30,000 arrests of illegal squatters and merchants, and left anywhere from 300,000 to 1 million people homeless. The government has defended the plan [...]

A New York prosecutor Tuesday dropped all charges against New Paltz Mayor Jason West, who could have faced jail time for marrying gay couples on the steps of the village hall. In May 2005, 24 misdemeanor counts were filed against West for violating the state's domestic relations law by marrying couples without licenses, making him [...]

Human rights groups including the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network and Human Rights Watch have urged UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to support a UN panel's recommendation for an international tribunal to investigate atrocities committed after East Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia in 1999. Indonesia opposes such a tribunal , and activist groups [...]

Speaking in the British House of Commons Wednesday one day after police revealed that the perpetrators of the London bombings were British nationals, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said his government would tighten border controls to keep out individuals preaching religious hatred and would take steps to deport from the United Kingdom those already doing [...]

Judge William G. Young, chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston, issued a 107-page ruling Tuesday chastising Congress for a "virtually unprecedented" attack on judicial independence and for putting a "chokehold" on federal courts by removing their authority to hear deportation cases. Young says the recently-passed Real ID [...]

Near the end of his trial in Amsterdam Tuesday, Muslim extremist Mohammed Bouyeri confessed to the November 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh , saying "if I were released and would have the chance to do it again. . . I would do exactly the same thing." Bouyeri added that he stabbed, shot [...]

Corbell v. Norton, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, July 12, 2005 . Excerpt: But when one strips away the convoluted statutes, the technical legal complexities, the elaborate collateral proceedings, and the layers upon layers of interrelated orders and opinions from this Court and the Court of Appeals, what remains is the [...]

According to a congressional aide speaking on the condition of anonymity, an unreleased Pentagon report reveals that a top Army general rejected the recommended reprimand of former Guantanamo Bay prison commander Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller for the abusive interrogation of a detainee. The recommendation came from two generals after a military investigation into FBI [...]

British police are bracing for hate crimes against Muslims in response to the announcement Tuesday that the perpetrators of the London bombings were British citizens and are vowing to handle any calls swiftly and vigorously. Police chiefs and community leaders have met in Scotland Yard to discuss and prepare for potential retaliation. The chief constable [...]

An Egyptian court Tuesday ordered Tarek el-Zomor released from prison for his involvement in the 1981 assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat . El-Zomor was a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad militant group which organized Sadat's murder because it disagreed with his Camp David peace negotiations with Israel. The court order said el-Zomor [...]