The British Cabinet included a plan to ban smoking in enclosed public places as part of its Health Improvement Bill Wednesday, exempting from the prohibition pubs and bars that don't serve food. The Department of Health initiated research in June for the ban, resulting in plans by Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt to ban smoking in [...]

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy presented the country's anti-terrorism bill to the Cabinet Wednesday, rejecting claims that the provisions of the bill would infringe on civil rights and create a police state. The bill, proposed in response to the London bombings , is intended to fill gaps in France's earlier anti-terror laws by making flight [...]

Amnesty International condemned Spain and Morocco for human rights violations against all migrants and asylum-seekers of sub-Saharan origin Wednesday. Immigrants attempting to use Morocco as a conduit to Europe have recently met increased security forces along the Spanish border, resulting in violent clashes and claims of excessive use of force. Following a 10-day trip to [...]

Certification of the final results of the referendum on the draft Iraqi constitution, Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq press briefing, October 25, 2005. Excerpt : Ladies and gentlemen, today the constitutional referendum has completed in Iraq and we announced the final results. And now we are going to approve the results of the general constitutional [...]

Defense lawyers representing Saddam Hussein have announced that they will boycott the Iraqi Special Tribunal , following through on a threat to boycott made after one of the defense lawyers for a Hussein co-defendant was kidnapped and murdered last week. Lead counsel Khalil al-Dulaimi said that Hussein's defense team would boycott until demands for better [...]

A federal judge Tuesday upheld the conviction of civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart for conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists (18 USC 2339A), denying a post-trial motion for acquittal. Stewart was convicted in February for helping imprisoned Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman communicate with his terrorist followers. Stewart had argued that Abdel-Rahman was engaging in protected [...]

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said that he is willing to change controversial shoot-to-kill provisions in proposed anti-terror legislation . Howard also said that the legislation need not be introduced next week, but said that new proposals should be passed by the end of the year. Howard's comments follow an announcement that he will [...]

Serbia has arrested nine policemen in the 1999 murder of 48 Kosovo Albanians, a Serbian court official announced Wednesday. The arrests are the first to be linked to a mass grave discovered in 2001 outside of Belgrade, where the 48 bodies were buried along with the remains of over 800 victims of the 1998-99 Kosovo [...]

US Senate and House negotiators are preparing to discuss conflicting versions of the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005 , including a provision in the House version that would allow federal prosecutors multiple attempts at securing the death penalty. Under current law, if a capital jury cannot decide unanimously whether to impose [...]

The United States and France circulated a draft UN resolution Tuesday that demands that Syria fully cooperate with a UN investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and threatens economic sanctions should Damascus not cooperate. The UN International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC), authorized by the UN Security Council to investigate the [...]