The US House Appropriations Committee Tuesday continued to press the FBI to adopt recommended reforms in hearings on the the FBI's new budget . On Monday, members of the 9/11 Commission also expressed concern that the Bureau hasn't made enough progress in restructuring and reorganizing since the 9/11 attacks. The battle over reforming the FBI [...]

After rejecting the proposed European Constitution , a poll of French citizens released Wednesday says 61 percent want the constitution renegotiated, while 35 percent say it should not be changed. 74 percent believed France could get "significant and positive" changes to the proposal. The proposed constitution's defeat in France and the Netherlands has European leaders [...]

Lawyers for the US Department of Justice Tuesday asked for less than one-tenth of the expected penalty in a civil racketeering case against major tocacco companies. At the conclusion of closing arguments , government lawyer Stephen D. Brody asked for just $10 billion of the original $130 billion dollar penalty calculated for what the US [...]

Fifteen Guantanamo detainees who have been cleared of wrongdoing in March by Combatant Status Review Tribunals that concluded they were not properly classed as "enemy combatants" are still being held at the facility more than two months later, according to a Reuters report Wednesday. The Pentagon says it has delayed their release because of concerns [...]

US Marines detained 19 employees of North Carolina-based Zapata Engineering for 3 days, after reportedly witnessing the contractors open fire on troops and civilians in Iraq, the US military announced Tuesday. The employees, including 16 Americans, most of whom were security personnel, and 3 Iraqi translators, have resigned their positions and have returned to the [...]

A father and son have been arrested and charged with lying to federal agents after the son admitted to attending an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan, the FBI said on Tuesday. Hamid Hayat, 22, is charged with lying about attending the camp. Hamid's father, Umer Hayat, 47, is charged with lying about his son's activities [...]

Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Alvaro Gil-Robles Wednesday criticized the UK for its methods of detaining terror suspects . In a report to the Council Gil-Robles specifically targeted "control orders", a form of house arrest instituted by the British government earlier this year after indefinite detention was deemed a human rights violation. Under [...]

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen , a former Khmer Rouge soldier, responded to an opposition proposal Wednesday by saying that the families of the 1.7 million victims of the hardline communist Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 should not be paying for genocide trials . Members of the Sam Rainsy Party [...]

Theodor Meron , president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia said Tuesday that the tribunal will miss a 2008 trial completion date set by the UN Security Council, extending at least into 2009. Meron said the tribunal can't cut corners at the expense of "due process and human rights norms in order [...]

The US will end its lone opposition to Mohamed ElBaradei , Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Wednesday in exchange for concessions involving Iran and the fight against nuclear arms proliferation. ElBaradei is arriving in Washington to meet with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and new Undersecretary of State for Arms Control Robert Joseph [...]