The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday cited executive privilege in denying congressional requests for certain documents relating to the agency's decision to deny California a waiver from new auto-emissions standards. The waiver would have allowed California and 16 other states following its lead to impose stricter greenhouse emissions standards on cars and light [...]

Canadian Foreign Minster Maxime Bernier said Saturday that the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade will remove the US from an internal document that lists countries that employ interrogation methods that amount to torture and where prisoners risk being tortured. The document was part of a manual given to Canadian diplomats in a [...]

UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories John Dugard said Friday that Israel's recent attack on a Hamas government office in Gaza which injured around 50 civilians and the killings of some 40 Palestinians in the past week should be considered war crimes , noting that the attacks violate the Fourth Geneva [...]

A Belarus court on Friday sentenced a former newspaper editor to three years in prison for reprinting cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad . Alexander Sdvizhkov was the deputy editor of Zhoda, a small Belarus newspaper, when in February 2006 it republished the cartoons that had originally appeared in a Danish newspaper in 2005 and sparked [...]

Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr on Friday argued that he was a child soldier when he was captured in Afghanistan and that the US military commission responsible for trying him lacks jurisdiction over the case. In the motion, filed with US military judge Col. Peter Brownback, Khadr's lawyers asked for the case to [...]

Libya's plan to begin the mass expulsion of illegal foreign residents violates international human rights law , Amnesty International said Friday, noting that "collective expulsions are inherently arbitrary and those seeking refuge from persecution risk being sent back to face torture and other serious human rights violations in such a sweeping measure." Earlier in the [...]

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told the Associated Press Friday that he has "no doubt" that the controversial interrogation technique waterboarding should be considered torture. Ridge noted that he didn't have specific information about interrogation techniques used by intelligence agents while he served as head of the Department of Homeland Security, but stressed that [...]

Chinese company Zhongyi Electronic sued Microsoft Friday in Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court claiming that Microsoft has been using a technology that converts Roman characters to Chinese characters without paying Zhongyi a license fee for the program. Microsoft has denied the allegations, saying Friday that it has fully performed its obligations and complied with its [...]

A US federal judge on Friday sentenced Mohamed Mansour Jabarah to life in prison for plotting to bomb US embassies in Singapore and the Philippines . Jabarah, a Canadian citizen of Iraqi descent, pleaded guilty in 2002 to five counts: (1) conspiracy to kill United States nationals; (2) conspiracy to kill United States officers and [...]

The five alleged plotters of an attack on Fort Dix pleaded not guilty Friday to new charges filed against them, including attempted murder, and received a new date for trial. Prosecutors filed the additional charges earlier this week. Jury selection is scheduled for September 29, and prosecutors said the trial will probably last four to [...]