For the first time Friday, a senior American military official publicly confirmed abuse of detainees and prisoners by Iraqi security forces. Major General David Rodriguez said in a briefing for Pentagon reporters from Iraq that in the last six to eight weeks there have been approximately forty cases of detainee abuse and that US troops [...]

The former head of investment banking at Merrill Lynch who was convicted last year in connection with Enron's bogus sale of power barges, will report to a low security federal prison in Hopewell, Virginia on July 14 to serve his two and a half year sentence , a judge ruled Friday. Daniel Bayly will be [...]

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi promised Friday that an investigation into allegations of fraud in the May 15 election, which left Zenawi in power, would be "totally transparent and fair." Zenawi said the investigation, which includes international observers, shows his Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) is committed to fairness. Police killed 36 people and [...]

The Turkish parliament has re-approved amendments to the country's new European Union oriented penal code, overriding an earlier veto by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer . The new code includes the first major changes to Turkish law in 79 years and is intended to liberalize that law in order to help the nation's chances of joining [...]

Leading Friday's international brief, the UN Security Council discussed the worsening housing crisis in Zimbabwe during Thursday's session, with several members expressing their reluctance to consider the issue. The British and acting US ambassadors to the UN both expressed concern with the fallout from "Operation Restore Order", which has resulted in over 46,000 arrests of [...]

A French court has sentenced Mauritanian Ely Ould Dah to 10 years in prison for torturing military officers abroad. Dah, a high ranking military officer in Mauritania, was sentenced in absentia Friday for torturing military officers in his home country . The trial marks the first time a French court has used the doctrine of [...]

At a parliamentary hearing on relief efforts, Indonesian lawmakers Friday assailed the government's response to the December 26 tsunami , arguing there had been no "significant progress" and demanding a response to claims of corruption. Six months after the disaster, 500,000 people remain homeless and few homes have been rebuilt. Some $162.2 million has disappeared [...]

In the wake of a June 6 state court ruling that upheld the November 2004 election of Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire , the Washington State Republican Party Friday paid the state Democrats $15,000 to cover court costs relating to legal challenges. Democrats had requested $48,000 and said they spent nearly $3.5 million in legal fees, [...]

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi took the remarkable step Friday of demanding in an official statement delivered to summoned US ambassador Mel Sembler that the US government exhibit "full respect" for Italian sovereignty in the wake of a controversy over the alleged 2003 CIA abduction of an Islamic cleric in Milan . Sembler provided assurances [...]

Software giant Microsoft has agreed to pay IBM $775 million to resolve claims stemming from the antitrust lawsuit brought by the US government in the late 1990s. As part of the agreement IBM agreed not to file any other claims for two years. Microsoft which has agreed to pay nearly $4 billion to end antitrust [...]