In an apparent effort to address growing concerns about scandal and corruption in the United Nations system UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Monday announced the appointment of UN Development Program head Mark Malloch Brown as his new Chief of Staff,...

A top advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin who publicly voiced concerns about the Russian government takeover of Yukos, free speech limitations and Russian policy towards Ukraine has been stripped of his responsibilities as Russia's envoy to the G8...

Two court-martials of US soldiers accused of killing or abusing Iraqis in separate incidents are set to take place this week at Fort Hood, Texas. On Tuesday, Sgt. Tracy Perkins will stand trial in the deaths of two Iraqis...

Thai government officials have announced a program of legal assistance for victims of last week's tsunami that killed over 4000 people in Thailand and left thousands more in the country homeless. A senior spokesman for the Thai Ministry of...

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Monday that an autonomy plan passed by Basque lawmakers last week is doomed for failure and called the proposal secessionist, unconstitutional and an anomaly in a Europe moving to become more...

Survivors and families of victims of last week's tsunami disaster in South Asia are falling prey to thieves, rapists, kidnappers and hoaxers. Sri Lanka's Women and Media Collective said Monday that they "have received reports of incidents of rape,...

Scotland's Tory leader David McLetchie is calling for public debate over Scotland's proposed ban on smoking in public places, saying the ban is tougher than that proposed in a UK white paper, published in November (JURIST's Paper Chase has...

Reacting to reports of a US government plan to detain some suspected terrorists for life (see this previous report on JURIST's Paper Chase), Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Carl Levin have suggested...

Party activists and state ministers in Indonesia have expressed concern about possible human trafficking in parentless or apparently-parentless children after last week's tsunami which killed more than 80,000 Indonesians and left over 5 million people in South Asia homeless,...

The White House is planning a system for indefinitely imprisoning terror suspects it is unwilling to set free or turn over to foreign or domestic courts, according a report in Sunday's Washington Post . The Pentagon and CIA...