The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq has backtracked on a widely-reported estimate by one of its officials earlier Sunday who had suggested that some 72% of Iraqis eligible to vote had gone to the polls. In a cautionary statement the IECI said:Turnout figures recently announced represent the enormous and understandable enthusiasm felt in the field [...]

The president of Germany's Constitutional Court said Sunday that despite the failure of past government efforts, the extreme right-wing National Democratic Party (NPD) could still be banned under German law, renewing interest in outlawing the controversial group. Using procedural grounds, the Constitutional Court overturned the government's attempt to ban NPD in 2003, but German law [...]

Iraqi voters turned out in their millions Sunday, braving threats of a bloodbath at the polls to cast their ballots in the first democratic elections in the country in more than half a century. One official with the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq estimated a nationwide turnout of over 72% of eligible voters, and other [...]

The polls have opened in Iraq's first democratic election in a half-century. Stay tuned for continuous updates on our special Iraqi Elections website.

Douglas Berman : "The legal wrangling over the pending execution of serial killer (and death penalty "volunteer" Michael Ross is continuing in Connecticut. Howard Bashman at How Appealing has a lot of the newspaper coverage and other materials linked here and here, and the blog Kirby's Reports continues to be the go-to source for legal [...]

US Central Command reported late Saturday that the last UN-made ballots, printed by a special process in Switzerland to reduce the threat of fraud, have been delivered to polling stations in Baghdad as Iraq prepares to conduct its first free elections since 1944. Read the Central Command press release. When more than 5000 polling stations [...]

A UN appeal to European Union countries to draft a joint resettlement policy that would allow for acceptance of more refugees was met with reluctance Saturday by European justice and immigration ministers gathered in Brussels. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers called on EU states to agree to measures that would allow relocating refugees [...]

Colombia officials in Bogota have announced the end of a dispute with Venezuela over the capture of leftist rebel leader Rodrigo Granda . Colombian officials have acknowledged paying bounty hunters to capture Granda, a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) , on December 13, 2004 in Caracas. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is [...]

Insurgents attacked a police station Saturday in Khanaqin near the border with Iran, killing eight people and making a total of seventeen killed across the country on the eve of elections. The latest attacks came even as security forces barricaded streets, sealed the border, and closed Baghdad airport. Sunni Muslim extremists have threatened to "wash [...]

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission , a watchdog group supported by the UN and set up pursuant to the 2001 Bonn Agreement , called on the international community and the US-backed Afghan government [official website> Saturday to aid in the prosecution of war criminals. After more than two decades of conflict during the Soviet [...]