Human rights

Sri Lanka will release 136,000 ethnic-minority Tamil war refugees Dec. 1, allowing the civilians to leave squalid and overcrowded government camps after a half-year detainment, a top official said Saturday.  

Italian police on Saturday arrested two Pakistani men accused of providing logistical support for last year's terror attacks in Mumbai, officials said.  

Survivor groups from Rwanda's 1994 genocide say they may stop sending witnesses to the UN tribunal in Tanzania, in protest at the court's recent acquittals of two genocide suspects. The groups, who provide many of the witnesses for the trials, say they will not cooperate unless the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) reverses its decision to release Hormisdas Nsengimana and Protais Zigiranyirazo. "The ICTR should sit down and revise their decision ... if there are no other positive decis  

Russia's Constitutional Court has brought the country a step closer to full abolition of the death penalty. The Court decided on Thursday to extend the current moratorium on executions, which was due to expire in January, and recommended abolishing the death penalty completely. "By taking this decision, the court frees the people of Russia from the fear of being put to death by their government," Amnesty International said in a statement.  

Sri Lanka said Saturday it plans to let war-displaced civilians move freely in and out of internment camps ahead of completing their planned re-settlement in two months. The announcement comes amid strong international pressure on Colombo to release tens of thousands of civilians held in the camps. Some 136,328 men, women and children still remain inside camps across the island's north, down from 280,000 at the end of the fighting in May with the defeat of Tamil Tiger guerrillas.

We will allow complete freedom of movement   -Basil Rajapakse

 

A key U.N. committee late Thursday strongly condemned human rights violations in Myanmar and urged the government to release more than 2,000 political prisoners and open the upcoming elections to all political parties. Myanmar's United Nations Ambassador Than Swe accused the European Union, which sponsored the resolution, of trying to maintain political pressure "in tandem with sanctions" and ignoring "the vast transformations" taking place in the country as it moves toward elections next year. The U.  

There may be additional e-mails that could have tipped off law enforcement or military officials to the Fort Hood shooter before he went on his deadly rampage, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Friday. The U.S. government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric. They were passed along to two Joint Terrorism Task Force cells led by the FBI, but a senior defense official said no one at t

Had it been gathered on one desk, someone might have said 'Nidal Malik Hasan is dangerous,'   -Joe Lieberman

 

Sri Lanka says it plans to let war-displaced civilians move freely in and out of internment camps ahead of completing their planned re-settlement in two months. The announcement on Saturday comes amid strong international pressure on Colombo to release tens of thousands of civilians held in the camps. Some 136,328 men, women and children still remain inside camps across the island's north, down from 280,000 at the end of the fighting in May with the defeat of Tamil Tiger guerrillas.

We will allow complete freedom of movement   -Basil Rajapakse

 

Sri Lanka says it plans to let war-displaced civilians move freely in and out of internment camps ahead of completing their planned re-settlement in two months. The announcement on Saturday comes amid strong international pressure on Colombo to release tens of thousands of civilians held in the camps. Some 136,328 men, women and children still remain inside camps across the island's north, down from 280,000 at the end of the fighting in May with the defeat of Tamil Tiger guerrillas.

We will allow complete freedom of movement   -Basil Rajapakse