A same-sex couple on Tuesday petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice to force the country's Population Registry to recognize their same-sex marriage , performed legally in Toronto, Canada in July 2005. Jonathan Herland, a 29-year-old Canadian immigrant to Israel, and Ayal Walerauch, 26, accuse the Registry of “unlawful discrimination” for refusing to register them [...]

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday defended the US government's decision to prohibit UN human rights observers from interviewing detainees on any visit to the prison facilities at Guantanamo Bay . The UN observers said Monday they would not accept the invitation unless they could interview the detainees. UN Special Rapporteur on Torture [...]

Texas Judge C.W. Duncan ruled Monday afternoon that Rep. Tom DeLay will get a new judge to preside over his trial on money laundering and criminal conspiracy charges . In granting DeLay's recusal motion , Duncan said that Judge Bob Perkins should be replaced because of his donations to Democratic candidates and causes. Travis County [...]

An influential Ohio Republican said Tuesday that US Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito had a judicial philosophy "clearly within the mainstream" and that he should not be filibustered. Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH) was a member the bipartisan group of fourteen Senators that fashioned an agreement in May that headed off the so called "nuclear option" [...]

The US military released 500 prisoners Tuesday from the Abu Ghraib prison in observance of Eid ul-Fitr , the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan . The 500 prisoners, like the 1,000 prisoners released at the beginning of October at the start of Ramadan, were given a copy of the Koran, $25 and [...]

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on Tuesday transferred its case against Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac to Croatia, marking the first time a case involving persons already indicted by the ICTY has been transferred to the country. In 2004, ICTY prosecutors charged Ademi and Norac, both former officials in the Croatian army, [...]

The Syrian government on Tuesday sharply criticized a UN resolution ordering Syria to fully cooperate with the international investigation into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri or face serious diplomatic consequences. In Tuesday's response, the Syrian government characterized the UN resolution as politically motivated. A member of Syria's foreign ministry further asserted [...]

A group of asylum-seekers originating from Asia and Africa has begun a hunger strike in a detention camp in southwest Morocco in an attempt to gain refugee status from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) , the Moroccan Association of Human Rights said in a statement late Monday. Of the 247 illegal immigrants held [...]

Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien and his chief of staff, Jean Pelletier, must be held accountable for the flawed running of the federal sponsorship program from 1994 to 2003, said the first report on the scandal from Justice John Gomery, released in Ottawa Tuesday. Gomery also chided several others for their parts in the [...]

The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform , created by President Bush to find simpler and more economically productive methods of taxation, has recommended two different tax plans, both of which would change the way all individuals and businesses pay and file their taxes. In its final report released Tuesday, the panel proposed that [...]