Efforts by delegates from 188 countries attending the UN's 2005 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty Review Conference to agree on a final agenda were foiled Friday by Egypt's last-minute call for the meeting to include a review of how well nuclear powers have met commitments set in 2000 to move towards the treaty aim of achieving nuclear [...]

Japan threatened Friday to leave the International Whaling Commission to form a pro-whaling commission by 2006 if the 20-year moratorium on commercial whaling is not lifted and the IWC fails to establish a new whaling management system that would set quotas for whaling countries. Commercial whaling has been banned world-wide since 1986 and has been [...]

Robert Parton, who resigned last month as senior investigative counsel for the Independent Inquiry Committee into the defunct UN Oil-for-Food Program , has handed over potentially incriminating documents to a US congressional committee. The handover, made public Thursday, triggered outrage from inquiry head and former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Paul Volcker who believes [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled Friday that FCC regulations prohibiting the manufacture of video and computer hardware without broadcast flag anti-piracy technology are invalid. The court said:The broadcast flag regulations exceed the agency's delegated authority under the statute. The FCC has no authority to regulate consumer electronic devices that can [...]

A Spanish judge has charged 11 additional suspects with participating in the Madrid commuter train bombings that in March 2004 killed 191 and injured 1,900, bringing the total charged up to 101 people. Included in Thursday's indictment is Driss Chebli, a Moroccan citizen currently being tried in Spain for 2,500 terrorist murders in connection with [...]

A poll of 2700 Iraqis released Friday reports that three out of four citizens believe that Islam should be a primary source of Iraqi law and legislation, with only two percent of respondents believing that religion should have no role in government. The poll was conducted by the US International Republican Institute (IRI) chaired by [...]

Despite a low 61% turnout and an undisputed third-term victory for Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Labour Party in Thursday's UK election, officials from the UK Electoral Commission Friday warned of voting irregularities and called for implementing reforms to prevent future postal voting fraud. About 4 million people requested postal ballots for Thursday's vote [...]

President Bush and visiting Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo discussed how indicted ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor might be brought to trial during a meeting Thursday at the White House. Taylor, now in exile in Nigeria, has been charged by the Special Court for Sierra Leone with 17 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and violations [...]

Nepalese political leaders and rights activists Friday condemned the bringing of corruption charges against former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, with the head of Nepal's Informal Sector Service Center calling the royal anti-graft commission a "kangaroo court." The commission, whose members are appointed by the current monarch, has the power to arrest, investigate charges, and [...]

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a report released Thursday that an increase in allegations of sexual abuse against UN peacekeepers and related staff is "deeply troubling," but may be related to "the newly implemented measures to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse." In 2003, only 53 allegations of sexual abuse were [...]