Mississippi Judge Marcus Gordon on Friday granted bail to former Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen , who, in June, was sentenced to 60 years in prison for the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers. Gordon granted Killen's release on bond of $600,000 after determining through testimony that Killen, who is 80 and wheelchair [...]

All eight Democratic members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Friday, asking him to reconsider his decision not to release documents written by US Supreme Court nominee John Roberts while he was deputy Solicitor General. In their letter , the Democrats argue that the requested documents are [...]

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York has authorized the American Civil Liberties Union to make public papers it filed on August 3 challenging the Pentagon claim that images of detainee abuse must not be released because they put US troops and officials at risk. The [...]

Lawyers in Zimbabwe prepared Friday to challenge government-proposed changes to the constitution that will block white farmers from challenging land grabs in court and prohibit people deemed anti-government from traveling abroad. The Zimbabwean government last month published proposed constitutional reforms that would allow the state to assume ownership of farms immediately following the properties being [...]

NARAL Pro-Choice America said late Thursday that it is pulling a widely criticized television spot that linked US Supreme Court nominee John Roberts to anti-abortion bombers, claiming its efforts to expose Roberts' record have been "misconstrued." Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), a pro-choice Republican and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that will question Roberts in [...]

Sunni Arab leaders on Friday rejected calls for a Shiite federal region to be written into the new constitution , claiming the plan would break up Iraq along strict religious and ethnic lines. Sunnis, also fearing they will be cut out of some oil revenues if the country is split into such zones, responded negatively [...]

Terrorist suspect Hilal Abdul-Razzaq Ali Al-Jedda on Friday lost a court battle in his bid to be allowed to return to the UK on the grounds that his human rights had been violated . Al-Jedda, who has both Iraqi and British citizenship, had been held without charge by British troops in Iraq for nine months [...]

Former commander of the military wing of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) Salva Kiir Mayardit was sworn in as a vice-president of Sudan and president of the southern autonomous government Thursday. He replaces John Garang de Maboir who negotiated the end to a 21 year civil war in January then died in a helicopter [...]

Bosnian Serb paramilitary commander Milan Lukic is demanding to be taken into custody by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia , and not by Serbian authorities because he fears for his life, a Serbian newspaper reported Friday. Lukic was arrested in Buenos Aires on Monday at the request of the ICTY and [...]

The UN Security Council passed a resolution Thursday extending the UN mission in Iraqfor another 12 months in an effort to aid the troubled country in reaching political stability. A few weeks ago, Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent a letter to the Council pushing to extend the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq past the expiration date [...]