Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, was sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms on Thursday after pleading guilty in June to 10 murders. Since Kansas did not have the death penalty at the time of the crimes, the life terms handed down were the toughest sentence possible. AP has more.

Indonesian Minister of Justice and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin has confirmed that the Indonesian government will grant general amnesties to all members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) currently incarcerated by the government. The amnesty is part of the Helsinki peace agreement between the GAM, the largest independence group in the Aceh province, and the [...]

The Nepalese Royal Commission for Corruption Control arrested two government officials Thursday and issued an arrest warrant for a third on corruption and tax evasion charges adding up to nearly $400,000 (USD). Director-General of Inland Revenue Department Abanindra Kumar Shrestha and Ministry of Finance officer Sharada Prasad Dahal were arrested on corruption charges, while an [...]

Prosecutors in the French Caribbean island of Martinique have initiated a manslaughter investigation against West Caribbean Airways . The investigation will target the airline's increasingly controversial safety record to determine if WCA was at fault for the crash on Tuesday which killed 160 people . The plane reported engine troubles and then suddenly crashed in [...]

Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen reported Thursday that senior leaders in the Tamil Tigers have agreed to attend peace talks to be held with representatives of the Sri Lankan government . The date and location of the talks has yet to be decided, but the meeting will be the first between the two sides [...]

The Illinois Supreme Court reversed a $1 billion judgment against State Farm Thursday, ruling that a class action should not have been certified in the case. In 1999, State Farm was held liable for using sub-standard parts in repairing policyholders' damaged vehicles. The state Supreme Court held that, due to differences in the plaintiffs' insurance [...]

Japan announced plans Thursday to revise the so-called G-4 plan for expansion of the UN Security Council after the African Union rejected their previous proposal . The new plan will be presented to the UN in September and is expected to add another non-permanent seat for an African country. The original plan added six permanent [...]

Chief Justice Evan Gicheru of the Kenyan Court of Justice is scheduled to decide Thursday whether three separate court cases filed by three different opposition groups of the Kenyan Parliament should be consolidated into one case and heard by the nation's highest court. The suits seek to enjoin Kenyan Attorney General Amos Wako from publishing [...]

The Nigerian Senate has passed a resolution calling for the executive to abolish a pact made with the United States that said neither country will turn over suspected war criminals to the Hague's International Criminal Court (ICC) , which Washington opposes. The two countries signed the agreement in June 2003 under Article 98 of the [...]

A majority of jurors in a Republic of Congo court have acquitted 15 senior level military and police officials accused of orchestrating the 1999 disappearance of over 300 refugees returning from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Congolese city Brazzaville. Families of the victims brought civil and criminal charges against the officials, but [...]