Hong Kong High Court Justice Michael Hartmann has ruled that an executive order on covert surveillance operations made last year by Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen is unconstitutional. Instead of immediately repealing it, however, he gave the government six months to replace it, declaring that having no law regarding covert surveillance would leave a dangerous [...]

Conrad Black , former chairman of media company Hollinger International , told a US federal judge in Chicago Friday that he would prefer to have a trial soon. Black appeared at a court hearing held to assess the progress of the case against him. In December he pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of fraud [...]

The government of mainly-Muslim Malaysia has imposed a blanket ban on the controversial caricatures of Muhammad , making it an offense to publish, import, produce, manufacture, circulate, distribute or even possess the cartoons originally printed in a Danish newspaper in September and since republished in newspapers around the world. The Malaysian ban is believed to [...]

Initial results from the February 7 presidential election in Haiti indicate that Rene Preval , a former president and ally of ousted leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide has won with over 60 percent of the vote. If the current results are certified the simple majority of votes for Preval will circumvent the need for a second-round vote [...]

Iraq's election chief on Friday announced certified results in the December 15 parliamentary elections , confirming results announced by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) last month. Of the 275 seats, 128 now belong to the United Iraqi Alliance , the dominant Shiite coalition; 44 belong to the Iraqi Accord Front and 11 to [...]

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has decided not to submit a bill to parliament that would allow women to succeed to the throne, Japanese media reported Friday. Koizumi had supported a proposal that would change the country's male-only succession law, the 1947 Imperial Household Law , to allow female monarchs, but cooled his support earlier [...]

US Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and 14 other Republican senators have introduced a proposal that would rewrite an asbestos bill to allow asbestos-related lawsuits only under strict medical criteria, rather than establishing a $140 billion fund for all victims. Cornyn introduced the plan as an amendment to the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act , [...]

Andrew Lindberg , chief executive of the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) , has stepped down from his position as the Australian judicial inquiry continues its fourth week of investigations into alleged Australian connections to the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal . Lindberg has given up all responsibility within the company, and will officially resign on April 30. [...]

The number of discrimination charges against private employers filed with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission declined by five percent in 2005 , the third straight year the number of complaints fell. EEOC officials point to several factors as potential causes of the decrease, including the EEOC's outreach and prevention efforts as well as a [...]

Leading Friday's international brief, Zimbabwe Lands Minister Didymus Mutasa has told reporters that following controversial constitutional reforms that took effect last year, there are no longer any white farmers operating legally in Zimbabwe. Mutasa said on state television late Thursday that all farmland is now owned by the state and any farmer must have government [...]