Eight members of the UN Commission on Human Rights Thursday called on Israel to stop building a barrier to close off the West Bank. The group, marking the first anniversary this summer of an International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the issue , called the building of the barrier a human rights violation and [...]

The Colorado chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that recently-released FBI files support the contention that the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force is monitoring peaceful protesters as if they were terrorists . Mark Silverstein, legal director for Colorado ACLU, said information the group received from a public-records request shows federal agents opened [...]

Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock has again denied that David Hicks , an Australian national facing a US military tribunal on charges he fought for the Taliban, could be tried in Australian courts for the charges he faces. Ruddock Thursday dismissed a new analysis by George Williams , law professor at the University of New [...]

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 [...]