A UK government minister said Monday that Camilla Parker Bowles can become queen after Prince Charles ascends to the British throne. Christopher Leslie, minister responsible for the UK Department for Constitutional Affairs answered a lawmaker's written question about Parker Bowles' status by saying the marriage of Charles and Parker Bowles would not be "morganatic" where [...]

Estonian prime minister Juhan Parts dissolved his government and announced his resignation Monday after parliament voted no-confidence in Justice Minister Ken-Marti Vaher and a controversial new anti-corruption plan. Vaher's plan had called for a system of quotas for the number of corruption cases regional prosecutors would have to hear every year. Parliament felt Vaher's proposed [...]

US Senator John Cornyn , a senior Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sunday introduced a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that judicial decisions regarding the US Constitution should not be influenced by foreign law. The purpose of SR 92 would be to discourage the use of foreign precedent in deciding constitutional [...]

Iceland's parliament voted unanimously Monday to grant citizenship to US chess champion Bobby Fischer . Fischer is currently being detained in Japan, and faced possible deportation to the US, where he is wanted for violating international sanctions by playing a chess match in Yugoslavia. Attaining Icelandic citizenship means that Fischer may avoid prosecution by being [...]

The White House on Monday insisted that the special legislation passed by Congress in a matter of hours over the weekend regarding review of Terri Schiavo's case was not intended as a precedent for Congress to step into future battles over the fate of simiilarly disabled or ill patients. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had [...]

The Pew Hispanic Center , a private research group, released a report Monday documenting recent massive growth of the illegal immigrant population in the United States. A 23 percent increase was reported in the population of undocumented residents over the past four years, from 8.4 to 10.3 million people. The report largely attributes the increase [...]

Human Rights Watch alleged Monday in a new report that Russian kidnappings of civilians in Chechnya have become so widespread as to constitute a "crime against humanity." The report says that thousands of people have "disappeared" since the 1999 start of the Chechnyan conflict with the full knowledge of Russian authorities. Chechnya's Moscow-backed president, Alu [...]

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressed the General Assembly Monday on his plans for UN and international reform. Annan stressed that the proposals in his report entitled In Larger Freedom , released Sunday, were a complete package and that other reforms should not be added piecemeal. Institutionally, Annan called for expanding the membership of the Security [...]

US District Judge James Whittemore of the Middle District of Florida has scheduled a hearing for 3 PM Monday afternoon to consider a request to have feeding resumed for Terri Schiavo . President Bush signed congressional legislation early Monday morning to move her case into federal court. Terri Schiavo's parents have asked the court to [...]

In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, March 21, 2005 on international and UN policy goals]. Excerpt from Annan's remarks introducing the report to the UN General Assembly: What I am proposing amounts to a comprehensive strategy. It gives equal weight and attention to the three great [...]