The Executive Director of Saudi Arabia's recently-formed National Human Rights Association (NHRA) said Thursday that the commission has received over 2000 valid complaints, roughly a third of which concerned prison abuse in the country. Dr. Lubna al-Ansari said most "have been processed and resolved, either through letters to officials or some sort of action." An [...]

Federal prosecutors Thursday explained their controversial decision earlier this week to reduce a proposed racketeering penalty against major tobacco companies from $130 billion to $10 billion, saying that they were focusing on future smokers who might become addicted if the tobacco companies' alleged behavior continues, rather than on those suffered from it by becoming hooked [...]

Former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor was approved for a permanent seat on the US Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday by a 53-45 floor vote in the US Senate. Pryor, who was temporarily seated on the Court of Appeals by a 2004 recess appointment , was another of a series of Bush judicial nominees [...]

Former Bank of America broker Theodore C. Sihpol was found not guilty Thursday of aiding a New Jersey hedge fund in illegally trading mutual funds after the close of the stock market. Sihpol was acquitted of 29 counts of larceny, securities fraud, and falsifying business records but State Supreme Court Justice James Yates declared a [...]

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning filed an appeal Thursday contesting a federal judge's May 12 ruling against the Nebraska same-sex marriage ban. The appeal was expected as Bruning had previously announced in a press release that he would oppose the decision . Nebraska's overthrown Defense of Marriage Amendment was enacted by 70 percent of voters [...]

Leading Thursday's international brief, 54 residents from a state-created squatter settlement on the northern border of Zimbabwean captal city Harare have taken their attempt to prevent the government from demolishing their homes to the nation's Supreme Court. Residents of the Hatcliffe Extension, which houses several hundred families and was created by the Zimbabwean government in [...]

Concluding a four-day party congress Thursday, Syria's ruling Baath party called for political reforms and a broadening of press freedom in an effort to move away from the emergency law in place since the party took power in 1963. Though an immediate abandonment of the emergency law is not expected, Baath party officials say that [...]

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Thursday that the trial of Saddam Hussein will commence in a "matter of months" and Hussein may face the death penalty if convicted in a fair trial. The death sentence was suspended in Iraq in 2003 under the US Coalition Provisional Authority , but was afterwards reinstated by the [...]

US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Thursday that the US would release $10 million in economic aid to Serbia that had earlier been frozen due to Washington's unhappiness with Serbia's apparent unwillingness to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia . Read the State Department press release. The change in policy [...]

Despite increasing pressure to close the US military prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday that the government did not have any plans to shut down the facility any time soon. Rumsfeld told a NATO news conference that the move to close Guantanamo Bay would raise many more [...]