Changes to the controversial French labor law establishing the First Employment Contract (contrat premiere embauche, CPE) are expected to be announced Monday after an early-morning meeting between President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin . Villepin's office says he will make a speech on the law at 10:30 AM Paris time. Chirac signed [...]

German officials Sunday announced the arrest in Mannheim of Ignace Murwanashyaka , leader of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) . While the arrest was based on immigration violations, Murwanashyaka could face deportation or extradition to Rwanda for alleged war crimes committed during the 1994 genocide of Tutsis. Rwanda plans to formally seek his [...]

US Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) Sunday urged President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to go public about their roles in disclosure of classified information in the CIA leak case . Specter was interviewed on Fox News Sunday in the wake of a government court filing last week that disclosed grand [...]

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's personal envoy on human rights has told the Observer newspaper in an interview published Sunday that some Iraqis who have been detained by Coalition forces since the start of the war in Iraq have disappeared into what she described as a "black hole" and that there is no record of [...]

The Israeli Justice Ministry said Sunday that Israel will declare Prime Minister Ariel Sharon officially incapacitated on Tuesday. Sharon has been in a coma since suffering a massive stroke in early January. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert , who has been filling in since January and was elected to the post on March 28, is [...]

Thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators took to the streets in Nepal's capital of Kathmandu Sunday despite a Saturday-imposed curfew and threats from the government to shoot violators on sight. Scuffles with police, one death, and numerous injuries were reported, as were protests in other cities. The protests are part of a general strike against direct rule [...]

King Gyanendra of Nepal announced a strict all-day curfew Saturday that forced pro-democracy leaders to postpone a large rally organized by the country's seven main political parties. He ordered violators to be shot on sight. Government officials said the curfew was imposed out of concern that Maoist rebels would use the rally as a cover [...]

President Bush indicated in his weekly radio address Saturday that he would not support any immigration reform that would grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. Although he continued to call for a temporary guest worker program , he insisted:A new temporary worker program should not provide amnesty. Granting amnesty would be unfair to those who follow [...]

A US military lawyer acting as defense counsel for a Yemeni prisoner on trial for terrorism-related offenses before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay on Friday challenged a US Department of Defense regulation that says that only military attorneys with security clearances are allowed to see secret documents relating to their cases, effectively precluding detainees [...]

UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Juan Mendez said Friday that the international community remains reluctant to contribute the funds and military personnel necessary to stop genocide worldwide, as he spoke at a press conference on the 12th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda , during which some 800,000 Rwandans – mostly Tutsis [...]