In a verdict upholding gender equality, the Supreme Court of Nepal ruled Thursday that men can no longer divorce their wives on grounds of the latter's infertility. A special bench of the court declared a provision in the 43-year old Civil Code relating to husband and wife "ultra vires." The discriminatory provision in the code [...]

Polish prosecutors on Friday charged General Wojciech Jaruzelski with "organizing crimes of a military nature" and "carrying out crimes that consisted of the deprivation of freedom through internment" for his imposition of martial law in Poland on December 13, 1981. The charges, which prosecutors have been preparing since late last year, were brought by the [...]

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called for the United Nations to reduce the number of reports it produces each year as part of his ongoing UN reform agenda first announced in March 2005. In a report delivered to the General Assembly on Thursday, Annan indicated that the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human [...]

The Alabama House of Representatives has unanimously passed a bill that would pardon Rosa Parks and others arrested for violating segregation-era laws. Under the proposal, arrest records of those pardoned would not be removed from the public record, but instead would be sent to the Alabama Department of Archives and History in order to preserve [...]

Manfred Nowak , the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture , has said that he is certain that the United States has secret detention facilities in Europe and has demanded access to the facilities. In an interview with the Associated Press Thursday, Nowak cited the refusal of the United States to provide details of interrogations used [...]

Pascale Duparc Portier : "The French Constitutional Council has now ruled on the constitutionality of Article 8 of the Statute on the Equality of Opportunities (Loi pour l'egalite des chances) dealing with the highly controversial First Employment Contract (CPE, contrat première embauche) which is tearing France apart. The country has been at a standstill and [...]

The FBI has said that it will look into allegations of illegal activities connected to the distribution of millions of dollars worth of Red Cross supplies in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina . The announcement comes in the midst of a pending state investigation regarding similar accusations. Investigators will look into reports of improper diversion [...]

The US Transportation Security Administration lawyer who allegedly coached government witnesses in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial and nearly scuttled the prosecution's case is under criminal investigation by the US Attorney's Office in Philadelphia and "may very well" face charges, according to newly-unsealed minutes of a March 21 hearing involving Judge Leonie Brinkema and other lawyers. [...]

US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on Thursday urged greater attention to reports of genocide in Sudan's Darfur region . In a speech to the annual meeting of the American Society of International Law in Washington, DC, Kennedy said that lawyers have a responsibility to work to prevent genocide and that "It is the duty [...]

Over 780 new allegations of clergy sex abuse were reported to the US Catholic Church in 2005, though a majority of the claims relate to incidents which occurred in past decades, according to a new audit released Thursday by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops . The report is the third annual audit released by [...]