Palestinian Minister of Prisoners' Affairs Sufian Abu Zaydeh said Monday that the Palestinian Authority is demanding that the Israeli government release some 650 prisoners arrested during the Israeli settlement process of the Gaza Strip . Palestinian officials have hailed the withdrawal as a truly meaningful step in peace between the two peoples, but have warned [...]

AP is reporting that a Shiite member of Iraq's constitutional committee is saying that an agreement, on all but two issues, will be referred to Iraq's National Assembly. As of Monday morning, the committee charged with drafting the Iraqi constitution had reached agreement on most of the contested issues, but had not yet resolved questions [...]

A three judge panel of Israel's High Court Sunday rejected a petition to prevent Israeli Defense Forces personnel from being employed to seal off areas of the Gaza Strip after the current Israeli settlers there have been removed in accordance with the Israeli withdrawal plan. The panel, led by Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, [...]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has appointed Ali Larijani as Secretary of Supreme National Security Council, a position that carries the responsibility of negotiating with European nations concerning Iran's continued insistence on refining uranium . Larijani, former head of the state radio and television networks, will meet with representatives from Europe following Ahmadinejad's call for open [...]

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced Monday that Reliant Energy and California, Oregon, Washington and three other utility companies, have reached a financial settlement for legal claims against Reliant concerning its alleged price-gouging and manipulation of energy costs during the 2000 and 2001 California energy crisis . California will recover $453 million, and Reliant will [...]

Ahmed Salman Dawd al-Zubaidi, Ahmed Muthanna Jassem Ahmed Al-Aani, and Mohammed Mahdi Abderrahman Aasi al-Kanani, all Iraqi intelligence agents under the Saddam Hussein regime, entered pleas of not guilty Monday as they were arraigned before a Yemeni court for allegedly plotting to destroy the US and British embassies in Yemen . Ali Rashed al-Saadi, a [...]

China's UN Ambassador, Wang Guangya , indicated on Sunday that China was opposed to the call for an end-of-the-year deadline for UN reform by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan . Annan originally wanted an agreement reached by the second week of September, just prior to the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly , but differences [...]

Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda , a reporter for KFM Radio, was arraigned and released on bail Monday, following his plea of not guilty to charges of sedition, allegedly committed when he "uttered words with the intention to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite dissatisfaction against the person of the president." Mwenda was one [...]

US District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein will hear arguments Monday from US Department of Defense lawyers and attorneys from the ACLU concerning whether photos taken by Spc. Joseph M. Darby of Abu Ghraib prison will pose a danger to US military personnel if they are released. The government's brief , backed with a signed affidavit [...]

In the first national poll conducted by the government in Iraq, over two-thirds of all respondents said they favored increased rights for women, so long as those rights did not violate the teachings of Islam. The poll, which was conducted by a sub-committee of the Iraqi Constitutional Commission , was distributed to over 150,000 Iraqi [...]