After reaching an agreement with G4 nations to stick to a single plan for UN Security Council expansion, the African Union opened a conference on Thursday with 46 of the 53 member countries in attendance, all working to form a consensus on the expansion details. Prior to this arrangement, the AU had drafted a competing [...]

India's Supreme Court on Thursday let stand the death sentence of Mohammad Afzal for his role in a 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament that left nine people dead. The court commuted the death sentence given to Shaukat Hussain for his role in the same attack, instead sentencing him to 10 years in prison. The [...]

The London-based Assembly for the Protection of the Hijab , a Muslim women's group, voiced opposition Thursday to a suggestion from the UK Council of Mosques and Imams that women should cease wearing headscarves because of their potential to invite hate crimes. Rajnaara Akhtar, a member of the women's group, said the headscarves were integral [...]

Political leaders in Iraq prepared Thursday for a national conference set for Friday designed to break the deadlock surrounding key issues of the Iraq constitution , a draft of which is due August 15. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari are expected to attend. The conference is planning to deliver a report [...]

The truth commission established by Indonesia and East Timor to investigate the 1999 violence in East Timor that left 1,400 dead met for the first time on Thursday. The commission was set up earlier this year as part of an attempt by Indonesia to avoid an international tribunal that might prosecute the pro-Jakarta militias and [...]

Supreme Court nominee Judge John Roberts helped gay rights activists win a key Supreme Court battle in the 1996 Romer v. Evans case while doing pro bono work at Hogan and Hartson . While Roberts didn't write a brief or argue before the Supreme Court, several lawyers involved with the case said he was "instrumental" [...]

The last four files of the Alabama Legislative Commission to Preserve the Peace were released to the public this week by Alabama state archivists . The segregation-era state agency secretly monitored the activities of a range of groups from civil rights workers to interracial couples to suspected communists. Sam Webb, a history professor at University [...]

After originally allowing a two-day delay for inspections , Iran has now announced that it will push back its plans to resume uranium enrichment until "early next week" to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to install surveillence equipment. The UN had requested that Iran not resume uranium conversion until a UN agency could set [...]

Italian anti-terror magistrate Pietro Saviotti said Thursday that an extradition hearing has been scheduled for August 17 for Hamdi Issac, a suspect in the failed July 21 London bombing attacks , who was apprehended in Rome last week . Issac, an Ethiopian, was living in the UK under the name Osman Hussain and initially claimed [...]

A panel of judges in Argentina on Wednesday removed a judge from office for bribing a witness to a car bomb attack. The 1994 bombing leveled the seven-story Argentine Israeli Mutual Aid Association , killing 85 and wounding over 200. Five police officers charged with supplying vehicles to the bombers were acquitted last September, and [...]