Inaugural address, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, January 23, 2005. Excerpt: Today's event has proven once more that the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian state have come through. The citizens of Ukraine have secured honest elections and the transfer of government has been legitimate. This is a tremendous national victory. Build with millions of Ukrainian hands, [...]

Two American soldiers were convicted Saturday of charges related to the shooting death of an Iraqi woman who was working with them as a translator. A military judge at Camp Liberty in Baghdad found Spc. Charley Hooser of the US 1st Cavalry Division guilty of involuntary manslaughter and making a false official statement to investigators. [...]

The US Defense Department Saturday finished Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearings for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Following a Supreme Court ruling last year that held that detainees were allowed to challenge their incarcerations, 558 men were questioned to determine if the government should continue holding them as "enemy combatants" or release them. So far, [...]

A top official in Austria's environmentalist Green Party said Saturday that California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger should lose his Austrian citizenship in the wake of his approval last week of the first California execution in three years . Peter Pilz cited a nationality law that allows for the revocation of Austrian citizenship in the event that [...]

Iraq's Interior Minister Saturday announced additional security measures for the pending January 30 election as insurgent groups increased their attacks and vowed to disrupt the vote. Baghdad International Airport will now be closed from January 29-30, nighttime curfews already in force in Baghdad and other cities will be extended, travel between provinces will be stopped, [...]

Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was sworn in Sunday as the new president of Ukraine , succeeding the outgoing Leonid Kuchma. Yushchenko won a December 26 re-vote against opponent and former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych after the results of the original November 19 ballot favoring Yanukovych were thrown out by the country's Supreme Court following [...]

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has canceled plans to fly to Germany in February to attend the Munich Conference on Security Policy , giving rise to speculation that the cancellation is connected with a war crimes complaint brought against him in the German courts in November and currently under investigation by the federal prosecutor's [...]

Updating a report from earlier today in JURIST's Paper Chase, the official IRNA news agency is reporting that Gholamhossein Elham, a spokesperson for Iran's Guardian Council, has rejected reports that quoted him saying women could run for president. IRNA quotes Elham as stating "My perspective on the Guardian Council's viewpoint on political and religious 'rejal' [...]

A spokesman for Iran's hard-line Guardian Council indicated Saturday that women can run in June's presidential election . The council ruling clears up an ambiguous aspect of the Iranian constitution which states that the president must be elected from among political "rejal," an Arabic word that can be interpreted as men or the more gender-neutral [...]

Voters in the Maldives went to the polls Saturday to elect a parliament three weeks after the Indian Ocean tsunami delayed voting. The small island chain has been under the control of Asia's longest serving ruler, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom since 1978 and new concerns about intimidation and aid allocation being linked to favorable votes have [...]