The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art is set to sign an agreement with the Italian Culture Ministry in Rome Tuesday under which the museum will return several pieces of looted Hellenistic art in exchange for Italy loaning it other works of "equal beauty and importance." Under a 1939 Italian law, all archaeological property excavated [...]

Lawyers asked the UK law lords on Monday to allow anti-war activists convicted on trespassing charges related to protests of the Iraq war to argue in their defense that the war was illegal. Fourteen Greenpeace protesters were convicted of aggravated trespass in 2004 for attempting to stop or delay a shipment of military equipment to [...]

Echoing views expressed by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last week, US Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and one-time top Bush aide Karen Hughes Monday defended US practices at Guantanamo Bay and rejected the United Nations call for the US to shut down its military detention facility. Interviewed by Arab [...]

An Argentine official said Monday that Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Milan Lukic has been handed over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and is now headed to The Hague for trial. Lukic , who was arrested in Buenos Aires in August, is one of the 10 most-wanted Bosnian Serbs and had [...]

The Danish ambassador to Saudi Arabia has said that Denmark will take steps to ban religious slander in accordance with Danish and European laws, according to reports Monday. As a result of the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad , Ambassador Hanz Kingburgh met with Muslim World League General Secretary Abdullah al-Turki Monday and [...]

Ayman Nour , the Egyptian opposition leader jailed for forgery after his unsuccessful campaign last year, has filed an appeal and requested a suspension of his five-year sentence until the appeals court can rule on the matter, his lawyers said Monday. In his appeal, Nour's lawyers argue that he was denied due process under Egyptian [...]

The Japanese government is planning to put English translations of its business-related laws on the internet in order to avoid their misinterpretation by foreign companies. Right now there are no official translations, although unofficial private English translations of multiple Japanese statutes have been online for years. On April 14, major laws including the Civil Code, [...]

The United States and Vietnam have ended a three-year suspension on talks regarding human rights and religious freedoms in the communist country, Barry Lowenkron , US Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour said Monday. The suspension began when the US cancelled the annual Human Rights Dialogue with the Government of [...]

The next nominee to the Supreme Court of Canada will face televised questioning from a parliamentary committee , Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Monday. Justice John Major retired from the court in December, and his replacement will be the first-ever nominee to face a US-style confirmation hearing. According to Harper, all four parties in the [...]

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) , the world's largest general scientific society, has denounced legislation and policies that "undermine evolution" and "deprive students of the education they need to be informed and productive citizens," referring specifically to pending legislation in 14 states that would "weaken science education." According to an AAAS [...]