After a referendum to liberalize Italy's fertility laws failed on Monday, church leaders and Italian politicians are sending some conflicting signals about the legal future of abortion in the country, which legalized abortion in 1978 and strongly...

The Ulamas Council, the conference of Islamic clergy in Afghanistan, passed a resolution on Tuesday demanding an apology from the US for incidents of abuse of the Koran at Guantanamo. While the Newsweek story that initially sparked deadly rioting...

A new report released Monday by the US Justice Department Inspector General says the government's terrorism suspect watch list co-ordinated by the new Terrorism Screening Center is missing some names ,...

After a businessman he was connected with was convicted of corruption and fraud , South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma was fired Tuesday by President Thabo Mbeki . Zuma had appeared ready to one day become...

Shirin Ebadi , a human-rights lawyer who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, spoke out Monday against the introduction of special Islamic tribunals in Canada. A Muslim group in Ontario proposed setting up the tribunals to settle family...

The UN East Asia and Pacific Regional Consultation Against Violence began in Bangkok Tuesday with a call for a ban on corporal punishment of children. The conference is part of the UN Secretary General's...

Pop star Michael Jackson has been acquitted of all charges against him. He had been charged with 10 counts in connection with events that allegedly took place with a 13-year-old boy two years ago. He was acquitted of four...

The trial of reputed Ku Klux Klan member Edgar Ray Killen began on Monday with jury selection in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Killen is charged in connection with the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers. About...

Lawyers for detainees being held at Guantanamo say as many as six of those being held were captured before they turned 18 . One lawyer says his client was not even 15 when captured, and...

Despite reforms giving women the right to vote, drive, and run for many government offices, hundreds of Iranian women staged a protest on Sunday demanding a right still denied them - the right to run for president...