In Tuesday's international brief, state prosecutors for South Africa have appealed to the Constitutional Court for permission to retry Dr. Wouter Basson, a scientist allegedly employed by the apartheid government to create a "smart virus" that would only target black South Africans. Basson was acquitted in 2002 on charges of conspiracy, drug trafficking, and murder. [...]

The US Supreme Court issued opinions in two cases Tuesday. In the first, Smith v. Massachusetts, the Court ruled that a trial judge's reversal of a mid-trial ruling to dismiss a firearm charge constituted double jeopardy. Justice Scalia wrote the opinion in the 5-4 decision, with Justice Ginsburg authoring the dissent. According to the Court, [...]

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a former high school valedictorian in Virginia, has been charged with conspiring to assassinate President Bush and with supporting al-Qaida. Abu Ali made an initial appearance in federal district court Tuesday to face charges. The indictment alleges that Abu Ali plotted with an unidentified person in 2002 and 2003 on several [...]

KGW.com in Portland, OR, is reporting that the US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Bush administration challenge to Oregon's Death with Dignity Act , which allows assisted suicide. The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals previously upheld the law against a federal challenge and later refused to rehear the case. The Court had [...]

UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke announced Tuesday a revised version of proposed anti-terror laws that place suspects under house arrest in an attempt to rush the legislation through Parliament. Under the Prevention of Terrorism Bill , terror suspects may be ordered under house arrest by the home secretary, but they are entitled to an automatic [...]

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan defended the UN as being of "vital importance to humanity" as the body struggles to emerge from the cloud of the Oil-for-Food Program scandal. Annan's views were published in a Tuesday op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, in which he addressed charges of wrongdoing in the oil program in Iraq [...]

Iraqi women face increased violence and more restrictions on freedom in the period after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, according to an Amnesty International report released Tuesday. Amnesty found that systematic repression of women common under Saddam's government has ended, but it has not yet yielded marked improvements in Iraqi women's lives. Amnesty's report showed [...]

A spokesman for the militant Forces for National Liberation (FNL) said Tuesday that the rebel group will not disrupt a referendum on Burundi's new constitution, scheduled to be held later this month. The referendum, part of the peace process to end civil war between the ethnic Hutu majority and the politically dominant Tutsi majority, is [...]

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei withdrew his list of cabinet nominees Tuesday and promised to name a new team after parliament expressed strong opposition to his proposed cabinet. MPs criticized Qurei's selections, saying that the cabinet was stacked with members tainted by corruption and stressed the need to break from the legacy of Yasser Arafat [...]

A Spanish court has issued an international arrest warrant for former Guatemalan military ruler Romeo Lucas Garcia, sources said Monday. Garcia, who now suffers from Alzheimer's disease, is wanted in connection with a 1980 siege against the Spanish embassy in Guatemala where thirty-seven people died. 10 other former leaders have been charged in the case, [...]