The US Department of Justice late Friday filed for dismissal of two lawsuits brought over the National Security Agency's domestic wiretapping program , saying that defending them would require disclosure of state secrets and would be contrary to national security interests. The first suit , brought in New York by the Center for Constitutional Rights [...]

European foreign ministers meeting in Austria Saturday held out little hope of substantial progress on ratifying the European Constitution next year during Germany's six-month presidency of the European Council, notwithstanding German pledges to move the regional charter forward if opportunity arises. Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said the constitution could not be considered a [...]

The military government of Myanmar – formerly Burma – Saturday extended the house arrest of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi for another year, according to a government source speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity. Suu Kyi met with a senior United Nations official last week regarding her detention, and members of her [...]

The parliament of Afghanistan on Saturday voted against reappointing Chief Justice Fazel Hadi Shinwari to continue his lead post on the Afghanistan Supreme Court . Afghan President Hamid Karzai had recommended Shinwari to remain as chief justice on the high court, but the parliament voted against the proposal by a margin of 117-77. Shinwari has [...]

A federal judge in Indianapolis sentenced an Indiana truck driver to 160 months in prison Friday for acting as an unregistered foreign agent and violating sanctions against Iraq. Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban, a Soviet-educated Palestinian Ph.D. who speaks three languages and became a naturalized US citizen but couldn't find work in his field of [...]

A California appeals court ruled Friday that Apple Computer is not permitted to subpoena an Internet service for e-mail records in order to uncover the names of online reporters who leaked information about unreleased product code owned by the company. The California Sixth District Court of Appeal overturned a decision by a lower court which [...]

Two Egyptian protesters were allegedly tortured and sexually assaulted by Egyptian police after a peaceful demonstration in favor of two judicial reformists who exposed alleged fraud in the country's election last year, according to one of the men's lawyers Friday and opposition group Kifaya . Mohammed el-Sharkawi participated in a protest outside the Journalists' Syndicate [...]

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and FBI Director Robert Mueller were among a host of other government officials and prosecutors at the US Department of Justice who said they would resign if the White House forced them to hand over information gathered during the FBI office search of US Rep. [...]

In the wake of public urging from President Bush, Congressional leaders Friday took steps to damp down a brewing constitutional conflict with the US Department of Justice over a weekend FBI search of the offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA). House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) backed away from a Thursday statement co-signed by Rep. Nancy [...]

An ongoing investigation into the November 2005 deaths of two dozen Iraqi civilians in the city of Haditha has yielded evidence indicating that the US Marines may have committed murders, according to a senior military officer speaking to AP Friday on condition of anonymity. The investigation was launched in March after a TIME magazine report [...]