In addition to considering the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case involving Guantanamo tribunals , the US Supreme Court on Monday granted certiorari in three other cases. In Bustillo v. Johnson, the Court will consider the appeal of Honduran national Mario Bustillo who was convicted of killing a Virginia teenager with a baseball bat. Bustillo was never [...]

US President George W. Bush on Monday defended US interrogation techniques in the war on terror and insisted that the US does not torture terror detainees. Answering questions about reports of a secret CIA facility in Eastern Europe and efforts by Vice President Cheney to seek an exemption for the CIA from proposed legislation banning [...]

Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh was removed from his position Monday at his own request after allegations arose that he improperly benefited from the now-defunct UN oil-for-food program in Iraq. According to the government, Singh will remain in the Indian cabinet while Premier Manmohan Singh assumes his position pending a newly-formed judicial commission investigation. According [...]

The UN-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) said Monday that final results of Afghanistan's legislative polls will be announced on Wednesday , and that fraud allegations will not call the results into question. The September 18 vote was the first opportunity for Afghans to elect members to its Wolesi Jirga , or lower house of [...]

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was arrested in Chile on Monday at the request of the Peruvian government. Fujimori had arrived from Japan in a bid to reenter Peru and run for the presidency in April 2006, despite the fact that he has been banned from holding public office until 2010. Fujimori was president of [...]

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair urged British members of Parliament Monday "not to compromise with the nation's security" by reducing a proposed legislative 90-day time limit for detaining terror suspects without charge recommended by London's Metropolitan Police. Blair's statement came minutes after Home Secretary Charles Clarke proposed a compromise amendment to the government's Terrorism Bill [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the Bush administration's use of military tribunals for foreign terror suspects. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld comes on appeal from the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, which held in July that Guantanamo Bay detainees may be tried by military commissions , overturning [...]

A Syrian official said Monday that the country has received a UN request to interview six officials in connection with the UN investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri , and is considering whether to comply. While Syrian officials declined to release the identity of the six officials, the al-Hayat newspaper [...]

International voting observers and opposition leaders on Monday challenged the victory claimed by the ruling party in Sunday's Azerbaijan elections, saying that the elections were rigged. According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) , the elections did not meet international standards for democratic elections, despite some improvements. OSCE officials said that [...]

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan linked France's ban on the hijab in public schools to the country's recent rioting , in an interview Monday with the Turkish newspaper Milliyet . Erdogan blamed feelings of exclusion for stirring racial tensions and encouraging the violence which has resulted in more than 1,000 arrests, 36 police injuries, [...]