Concluding its 82nd session in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Committee asked the United States on Friday to delineate the legal status of inmates in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and Iraq. The US, which has been sharply criticized by human rights groups for abuses, is six years overdue on its regular report to the Committee on [...]

More than 30,000 protestors filled Kiev's main square Saturday in support of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, demanding a recount and claiming fraud occurred in last Sunday's election. Results have not been announced in the tight race between Yushchenko and his opponent, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, but the result is seen as crucial to many who [...]

Former governor of East Timor, Abilio Jose Soares, was released late Friday from Jakarta's Cipinang prison. Soares' 2002 conviction in 2002 for failing to prevent violence that erupted after the East Timorese voted on a United Nations sponsored referendum for independence was overturned by the Supreme Court in Indonesia. The court concluded that he had [...]

International arms dealer Milton Blane was awarded $3.6 million Friday after he accused military contractor Boeing Co. of backing out of a deal to buy two missile launchers and damaging his commercial reputation. Blane, owner of Blane International Group Inc., first approached Boeing in 1999 with a proposal to sell Russian made air-to-surface missiles made [...]

The US government will consider on a case-by-case basis allowing Haitian illegal immigrants who were victims of Tropical Storm Jeanne to stay in the US, so long as they are not violent criminals. Bill Strassberger, from the US Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, stated that the bureau will consider immigrants who entered the country [...]

Citing sovereign immunity, the Virginia Supreme Court on Friday threw out a lawsuit filed by one of 212 women who claimed that drinking contaminated tap water from Chesapeake city caused miscarriages or birth defects. Chesapeake Circuit Court Judge Norman Olitksy had earlier rejected the sovereign immunity defense, which traditionally shields government from lawsuits. Helen Cunningham, [...]

Two of the largest textbook publishers – Holt, Rinehart and Winston and Glencoe/McGraw-Hill – have agreed to change health-related textbooks in Texas to depict marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The Texas Board of Education approved the new textbooks Friday with a 10-4 vote. A board member argued that the previous [...]

Proposition 200, State of Arizona, November 2, 2004 Read the full text of the Proposition here . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The Chilean army has formally accepted responsibility for human rights violations from 1973-1990 under General Augusto Pinochet's rule. Chilean President Ricardo Lagos called it a "historic step" towards national unity. Current Army Commander General Juan Emilio Chyre offered no excuses and said that the army accepted full responsibility for these previous rights abuses. Under Gen [...]

US District Judge Ralph Tyson released a ruling Friday indicating he will not overturn the conviction of ex-Governor Edwin Edwards. After serving four terms as Louisiana's Governor from 1972-96, Edwards was convicted in 2000 for extorting payoffs from businessmen seeking riverboat casino licenses. The rejected defense motion claimed a political bias on the part of [...]