The Chinese government signed a Memorandum of Understanding Wednesday agreeing to collaborate with the UN's human rights agency to reform the Chinese legal system in preparation for the adoption of a key UN treaty on civil and political rights. The agreement to revise China's Criminal Procedure Law, its lawyers' law, and other related laws and [...]

Jailed Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky , who is serving a nine-year prison sentence on fraud charges, officially announced his intention Wednesday to run for a Russian parliamentary seat . The election for Khodorkovsky's intended district in the State Duma , the lower house of the Russian parliament, will be held in December. The Central [...]

The Cambodian Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the appeal of a reporter found guilty of defaming Cambodia's foreign minister by suggesting he was involved in prisoners' deaths during the brutal Khmer Rouge reign. Kay Kimsong and two American reporters working for the Cambodian Daily were sued over two 2001 articles that accused Foreign Minister Hor [...]

The ongoing battle against changes to rules that regulate US power plants continued Wednesday, after the Natural Resources Defense Council made public draft EPA regulations it insists will lead to dirtier power plants. The proposed standards would allow modernized power plants to operate longer hours, thus increasing the plants' allowed daily emissions. The Environmental Protection [...]

The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) , Egypt's leading non-governmental rights group, has said that it does not believe the upcoming presidential elections will be fair due to the lack of neutral election monitors. EOHR and other rights groups are concerned about the composition of the election oversight committee, the committee's decision to bar [...]

Human rights group Amnesty International reported Tuesday that two men who were formerly held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp have been detained in Russia by men claiming to be security force officials. Airat Vakhitov and Rustam Akhmyarov were released from Guantanamo Bay last year with five other Russian men and returned to their home [...]

A US military tribunal in Iraq has ruled that a Reuters cameraman being held without charge in Abu Ghraib prison will be detained for another six months while the US reviews its case against him. Iraqi Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani was arrested on August 8 and will not be allowed to see a lawyer, family, [...]

A US federal court has frozen the Palestinian Authority's access to assets held in the US after it failed to pay $116 in damages for the 1996 shooting deaths of an American citizen and his Israeli wife. After the deaths of Yaron and Efrat Ungar, a five-year legal battle ensued against the Palestinian Liberation Organization [...]

Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union are expected to file suit in federal court Wednesday, demanding the release of Numan Adnan Al Kaby, an Iraqi-born permanent US resident arrested and held in Baghdad since April 2005. Al Kaby was arrested in Baghdad after the US military camp where he worked as a contractor was [...]

After hearing oral arguments Tuesday, US District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein expressed hesitation over ordering the release of 97 Department of Defense photos and videotapes depicting the abuse of prisoners held by US forces at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison . The request is part of a 2003 ACLU lawsuit in which the organization contends that [...]