Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture , on Tuesday called for unrestricted inspections of the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay . The UN plans to send inspectors to Guantanamo on December 6 for a report that Nowak's team is due to complete by the end of the year, but Nowak says "if the [...]

In a meeting Tuesday with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) , Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito distanced himself from a 1985 statement in which he asserted his belief that the constitution does not guarantee a right to an abortion. The statement was made while Alito was applying for a position with the Attorney General's office during [...]

The US Senate on Tuesday passed a compromise amendment to the 2006 Defense Appropriations Bill that would curtail, but not totally cut off, Guantanamo Bay detainees' access to the federal court system to challenge their detentions. The new amendment, passed by a vote of 84-14 , was brokered by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) as a [...]

The only United Nations official to lose his job over the oil-for-food scandal has been reinstated, after an internal appellate body found that he had not violated staff rules . Joseph Stephanides was also issued a letter of apology and awarded $200,000 for emotional suffering and damage to his reputation by the UN's Joint Disciplinary [...]

The German trial of Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel was postponed Tuesday after Judge Ulrich Meinerzhagen fired one of Zundel's lawyers. Judge Meinerzhagen fired Sylvia Stolz because he believed Stolz would not defend Zundel properly, but did not set a date for the trial to reopen because a new lawyer would need sufficient time to prepare. [...]

A former Serbian soldier admitted in a special high-security court in Belgrade on Tuesday that he participated in the November 1991 execution of about 200 Croatian prisoners of war at a pig farm. The testimony by Ivan Atansijevic was the first admission by one of the 16 defendants who are being tried for the execution [...]

US District Judge Leonie Brinkema has delayed the sentencing trial of September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui by one month and ordered a two-stage process to determine whether or not he will receive the death penalty, according to ruling released Tuesday. The trial, now set to begin with jury selection on February 6, and opening arguments [...]

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) on Tuesday announced that it has launched its largest international wave of legal action against illegal online file-sharing. This latest push targeted 2,100 alleged uploaders using peer-to-peer networks in 16 nations including the UK, France, Germany and Italy, and first-time nations Switzerland, Sweden, Argentina, Singapore and Hong [...]

Hissene Habre , the former president of Chad wanted by a Belgian court for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during his rule, has been arrested and is being held in Senegal, lawyers said Tuesday. Habre has been indicted in Belgium for his alleged crimes, which, human rights groups contend, consist of some 40,000 executions and [...]

The military commission trial of Australian David Hicks , who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for more than 3 1/2 years, was postponed on Monday by a US district judge until the US Supreme Court rules on the legality of such military tribunals. US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly granted Hicks' motion to delay the [...]