Bangladeshi officials on Monday arrested former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and her son on corruption and misuse of power charges, one day after another ex-PM was charged with taking bribes . Zia, who was in power until last October, is accused of failing to follow standard procedures in awarding a construction contract to a [...]

Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari , who was released on bail from Iranian custody in August, obtained a passport from Tehran and left Iran Sunday night for an unknown destination, according to her lawyer. Esfandiari, an American citizen, is the director of the Middle East program at the US-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Her [...]

The US ambassador to Norway has told Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget that the circulated draft of Norway's new anti-terrorism law is too lenient, Oslo newspaper Aftenposten reported Sunday. Ambassador Benson K. Whitney expressed particular concern about the fact that membership of a terrorist organization was not by itself an offense; as it stands, the [...]

Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed has been charged with another count of corruption relating to a bribe supposedly taken from a Bangladesh power company, Bangladesh police announced Sunday. Hasina is accused by Bangladesh's anti-corruption commission of taking 30 million taka (435,000 dollars) in 1997 and using the funds to buy land for the [...]

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced changes to Palestinian election law Sunday which could reduce the political power of Hamas , the rival to Abbas's Fatah party that scored major victories in last year's parliamentary elections and led a new Palestinian cabinet before that was dismissed by Abbas earlier this summer. The changes will end [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Friday that the US Navy can use high-powered sonar in training exercises off the California coast, granting the Navy's request to for a stay on an injunction granted by a lower court while the Navy appeals that decision. The Natural Resources Defense Council sued the [...]

A California-based federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Friday blocking the application of new US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rules designed to make it harder for illegal immigrants to obtain US employment. Under the get-tough rules, announced in August and slated to take have taken effect September 10, employers who receive notices from [...]

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the country's parliament Friday that his government will draft a new constitution that would more effectively protect individual rights in accordance with international standards. Erdogan was laying out his program for the next five years in the aftermath of the sweeping victory won by his Justice and Development [...]

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has filed a lawsuit challenging Louisiana's efforts to remove people from the state's voting list because they have registered in other states following Hurricane Katrina . In its lawsuit, filed Thursday, the NAACP argues that the Louisiana secretary of state's efforts to purge the voter [...]

A new one-page US military report obtained by the Associated Press shows that despite a decline in the number of prisoners held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay , "mass disturbances" by inmates have risen substantially thusfar in 2007, increasing over 90% from 201 in 2006 to 385 in the first six months [...]