Military judge Col. James Pohl has declined a request by lawyers for US Army Pfc. Lynndie England to step down from her Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse case. Defense lawyers claimed that Pohl asked inappropriate questions while presiding over the first trial, which ended in a mistrial as the answers contradicted statements from England. Pohl rejected [...]

Bearing in mind the experience of Muslims in the United States after 9/11, the London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission has urged UK Muslims to stay indoors to avoid being targeted for revenge in the wake of Thursday's terrorist bombings in London which have been tentatively linked to al-Qaida. IHRC chairman Massoud Shadjareh said The Islamic [...]

Leading Senate Democrats said Thursday that although they appreciate the phone calls from the Bush administration following the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor , they want to know exactly who President Bush is considering as a replacement before he submits a nomination to the Senate. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) stated, "To be meaningful, consultation [...]

Leading Thursday's international brief, a Peruvian judge has ordered the arrest of 118 current and retired military officers for their alleged involvement in a 1988 attack against the Andean village of Cayara , in which soldiers allegedly tortured and killed civilians in an attempt to gain information concerning a prior Shining Path attack. The order, [...]

A Pentagon spokesman said Thursday that there was "no evidence" of widespread abuse of prisoners by medical personnel at Guantanamo, denying earlier media reports . Accusations of physical abuse had followed criticism about use of detainees' medical records against them . A Pentagon spokesman did say that changes in procudures for the medical treatment of [...]

Lawyers for Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced Thursday after a meeting with prosecutors in Moscow that no new charges had been filed against the former Yukos CEO. Earlier, local media had reported that new money laundering charges were going to be announced when lawyers were summoned to the detention facility where Khodorkovsky is being held.

An Al-Qaeda group in Iraq has claimed to have executed Eyhab al-Sharif, Egypt's top ambassador to Iraq. He was kidnapped on Saturday shortly after arriving in Baghdad as the first envoy from a major Arab state to the new Iraqi government, and would be the first high-level foreign diplomat to be killed by insurgents. A [...]

New York Times reporter Judith Miller , who was ordered jailed for contempt after refusing to reveal a source in conjunction with a federal criminal investigation into an intelligence leak, is at the Alexandria Detention Facility in Alexandria, Virginia, after being brought to the facility late Wednesday. The jail, touted as a "New Generation" facility, [...]

Indonesia's highest court Thursday rejected a challenge from environmental groups and upheld a law enabling 13 mining companies to operate in protected forests. The Constitutional Court ruled that the law did not violate the 1945 constitution and that the government must honor commitments to the companies . Such mining was banned in 1999 but in [...]

AP is reporting that the US terror alert level will be raised to code orange for mass transit in the wake of London explosions, according to US officials. 12:37 PM ET – The UN Security Council has been called into emergency consultative session on the London bombings, and a formal public meeting may follow later [...]