Former Argentine police and army officer Ricardo Taddei, wanted by Argentina for allegedly kidnapping and torturing 166 detainees during Argentina's 1976-1983 "dirty war" , was arrested in Spain Thursday. He is expected to appear before Spain's High Court, where he could be extradited to Argentina, though he could alternatively be charged in Spain as part [...]

An Uzbek court Thursday sentenced journalist Saidzhakhon Zainabitdinov to seven years in prison on charges of conspiring with "terrorists," defaming the state, and religious extremism for providing information to foreign media regarding last year's violent uprising in Andijan where as many as 500 protesters were killed by state troops . Previous trials against protesters have [...]

Former Serbian army officer Sasa Badnjar, a suspected accomplice of fugitive war criminal Ratko Mladic has been arrested for aiding Mladic's evasion of arrest, Serbian authorities said Thursday. Mladic has successfully avoided arrest, allegedly due to assistance from army officers formerly in his command, on an indictment for the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in [...]

AP is reporting that four holdout Senate Republicans have reached a tentative agreement with the White House on the renewal of the USA Patriot Act , according to Congressional sources. Several provisions of the anti-terror law were set to expire at the end of last year but members of Congress were unable to reach an [...]

The Australian Senate on Thursday voted to remove the need for the health minister's approval for importing and prescribing the abortion pill RU-486 (also known as Mifepristone) . The approval requirement effectively prohibits use of the drug since conservative anti-abortionist Tony Abbott holds the office of health minister and the power to veto applications for [...]

Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel on Thursday requested a death sentence for Nurpashi Kulayev , the sole surviving attacker from the September 2004 Beslan school siege . Kulayev has pleaded not guilty to terrorism and murder charges and denied killing anyone during the attack. Kulayev will not likely be executed since Russia placed a [...]

American International Group (AIG) , one of the world's largest insurance companies, has agreed to pay $1.64 billion to settle fraud, bid-rigging and improper accounting charges, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced on Thursday. The settlement, which does not include former chairman and CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg , ends civil litigation against the insurance [...]

US military forces are increasing efforts to establish a proper professional police force in Iraq , but it will take time to overcome issues in the current force including corruption, low morale, and incompetence, according to the US commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq . Gen. George Casey, Jr. said he nonetheless expects to [...]

EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said in an interview published Thursday that the EU may draw up a new media code of conduct to forestall any repetition of the global controversy now raging over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in European newspapers. Speaking to the London Telegraph newspaper, he noted [...]

A Zimbabwean court has set aside a decision by country's media commission not to license the Daily News newspaper. The newspaper was ordered to stop publishing in 2003 for criticizing the government. In March 2005, the country's supreme court overturned the original ban , but the media commission twice denied their application for a license. [...]