US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales repeatedly stressed his personal and institutional commitment to the protection of civil rights in a speech to Justice Department staff Wednesday setting out the Department's priorities for the coming year. First on his formal list was the fight against terrorism, followed by initiatives on violent crime, drug trafficking, cyber crime, [...]

Newmont Mining Corporation agreed on Thursday to settle a civil suit brought by Indonesia for $30 million, ending one of two significant legal battles between the two parties. The settlement comes after Indonesia decided it would not appeal the ruling that dismissed the $133 million suit brought against Newmont alleging that the company polluted the [...]

The Australian Parliament ended a de facto ban on the so-called "abortion drug" RU-486 (also known as Mifepristone) on Thursday by removing the need for approval by the Health Minister to use the drug. Tony Abbott , a strong anti-abortionist, had refused all applications for its use. Last week, the Australian Senate voted 45-28 to [...]

The Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) and Maoist rebels are violating international human rights laws , according to a new report released by the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Thursday. The OHCHR-Nepal report outlines the investigation of activities in Nepal since last April and reveals conflicts in populated areas that have [...]

Iraq's Interior Ministry Thursday announced an investigation into claims that a police death squad has been operating in Iraq, either working for, or claiming to work for the ministry itself. The US military says it recently detained 22 men in police uniforms who were about to kill a Sunni man. Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson, the [...]

Rene Preval became the president-elect of Haiti Thursday after the interim government and the Provisional Election Council (CEP) reached an agreement allowing him to exceed the necessary 50.1 percent of the majority of votes in the country's February 7 election . The agreement subtracted approximately 85,000 blank ballots from the total number of votes cast, [...]

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) , chairman of the US House Judiciary Committee, has complained of bias in a recent report of the Congressional Research Service on the NSA domestic spying program . In a letter written last week he said that a CRS study released in early January suggesting that the legal justification for the [...]

Situation of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Report of the Chairperson of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, UN Commission on Human Rights, February 16, 2005. Excerpt: The Chairperson of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers are deeply concerned about the legal regime applied by [...]

Leading Thursday's international brief, the civilian criminal trial of Ugandan opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye and his 22 co-defendants has been postponed until after the upcoming national elections in Uganda. Ugandan Deputy Director for Public Prosecutions Simon Byabakama Mugenyi was forced to ask for a continuance after Besigye's defense lawyers challenged the government's indictment as [...]

In an interview on the Fox News Channel Wednesday, US Vice President Dick Cheney said that while he may be called as a witness in the CIA leak case and therefore could not comment specifically on it, he does have authority under executive order to declassify government secrets. The comment has increased speculation that Cheney's [...]