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 [...]

The Non-Governmental Organisations Co-ordinating Board of Kenya may be empowered to conduct tighter reviews of the legal status of NGOs operating in Kenya, after several members of the Kenyan Parliament raised loud objections over the weekend concerning a report detailing nearly 1 Billion in Kenyan Shillings that has been distributed to fake NGOs by the [...]

AP is reporting that, according to a Shiite lawmaker, Monday's Iraqi parliament session on the draft Iraqi constitution has been postponed for two hours. The draft constitution must be submitted to the National Assembly Monday in order to comply with provisions in Iraq's Transitional Administrative Law . An extension to the drafting process would require [...]

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said Monday that the country will hold a referendum on September 29 on a draft charter for peace and national reconciliation for those involved in the instability and conflicts of the last 13 years. The proposal allows cases to be dropped against those who put down their arms and surrendered to [...]

During a Sunday rally co-sponsored by the conservative Christian groups Family Research Council and Focus on the Family , leaders slammed "judicial tyranny" and said the goal of the event was to educate evangelical Christians about the US Supreme Court and about judges that are attempting to bypass the Constitution with their rulings. Speaking about [...]

Shiite and Kurdish leaders said Monday that they are prepared to submit the draft of Iraq's new constitution to parliament, just meeting the August 15 deadline, even in the face of Sunni Arab objections. Though it could cause an increase in insurgent attacks, Shiite politician Hassan al-Sunnaid said there were "no deadlocks" and that the [...]

Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee Sunday announced plans to implement a new set of anti-terror measures that would allow the military to shoot down hijacked commercial planes the government believes will be used as weapons, prohibit negotiations with hijackers, and sentence convicted hijackers to death. Six years ago, hijackers diverted Indian Airlines flight 814 to [...]