Thirteen men arrested last year in Australia's largest counter-terrorism raid pleaded not guilty to the charges against them during a pre-trial hearing Monday. Eighteen suspects were arrested in raids in Sydney and Melbourne and were charged with membership in a terrorist organization and planning a terrorist attack on Australian soil. The remaining five suspects are [...]

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) filed a notice of charges Monday against three former Fannie Mae executives over their role in fraudulently reporting future earnings so that top executives would receive maximum performance bonuses. The action was taken against former Chairman and CEO Franklin D. Raines, former Vice Chairman and CFO J. [...]

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said Monday that he will appeal last week's federal appeals court ruling striking down the state's corporate farming ban to the US Supreme Court. Although Bruning initially indicated he would ask the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to rehear the case en banc, Bruning said Monday that [...]

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged countries to sign and ratify the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families in order "to provide all migrants with the rights and protection they need and deserve." In a message marking International Migrants Day Monday, Annan decried the [...]

The Israeli Supreme Court ordered the government Monday to establish more specific criteria to be used by military officials when deciding whether Palestinian students may enter Israel to study. The supreme court's decision came in a lawsuit brought on behalf of Sawsan Salameh , a Palestinian woman who was denied entry to Israel by the [...]

Officials from 13 states, the District of Columbia, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District filed a lawsuit Monday against the US Environmental Protection Agency "for failing to mandate lower levels of disease-causing soot in the air." The lawsuit alleges that the EPA is failing to protect the environment and the public health by [...]

Violent crime in the US increased during the first half of 2006 when compared with the same period in 2005, according to the FBI's Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report released Monday. Violent crime, including murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, increased 3.7 percent since 2005 but property crimes such as burglary, larceny-theft, and motor [...]

Lawyers for a business associate of former South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma filed an appeal Monday with the South African Constitutional Court asking that the corruption conviction of Schabir Shaik be overturned. Shaik was convicted of paying Zuma for political favors in a case which has left Zuma's name tarnished as a potential presidential [...]

Iraqi authorities are investigating the escape from prison of a former head of the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity . Ayham al-Samaraie , a member of the 2004-2005 interim Iraqi government , was serving a two-year sentence after being convicted on corruption charges brought by Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity . He is so far the [...]

Sudanese Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardhi has indicated that Sudan will cooperate with a UN Human Rights Council mission investigating human rights abuses in Darfur , according to reports Monday in local Sudanese media. The Human Rights Council approved a resolution last week the authorizing the mission. Al-Mardhi has said that the government would "remove [...]