Alan Travis | The Guardian The government's own human rights watchdog threatened last night to launch a legal challenge to Labour's plan to introduce a law that would let police detain terror suspects without charge for 42 days. The Equality and Human Rights Commission says the key part of the counter-terrorism bill goes against human rights law and may breach the Race Relations Act. As the ...

WELLINGTON (Xinhua) -- New Zealand and Fiji on Saturday became the first countries to take part in Earth Hour, an event aimed at reducing emissions that contribute to climate change.    A total of 24 cities around the world are officially involved, although people from 370 different towns and cities have registered to be a part of the event.     New Zealand's third largest city of Christchurch and Fiji's capital of Suva kicked off ...

We seem to be entering a distinct second phase of the Ron Paul Revolution. It is arguably the most important phase. At least that is how I see it. The Presidential campaign was the impetus for the explosion of ideas for true liberty in our lifetime. The upcoming release of ...

America's Treasury Department will tomorrow put forward plans for a revamp of US financial regulation in an attempt to curb the lending excesses that triggered the credit crisis. The new blueprint, drawn up by Treasury secretary Hank Paulson, would, if adopted, replace a system that has been built up over more than a century. The Federal Reserve would be given broad powers over financial markets, including a remit to investigate any ...

FANS travelling to Wembley Stadium to watch Cardiff City’s FA Cup semi-final clash next weekend had their plans thrown into chaos yesterday as London Underground workers announced a strike to begin just minutes after the final whistle. The announcement adds further travel misery for fans travelling by train from South Wales, who will also be hit by long-term maintenance work on the Severn Tunnel starting today and carrying on throughout every ...

Chairman John Conyers House Judiciary Committee U.S. House of Representatives U.S. Congress Washington, DC 20510Dear Chairman Conyers: Prominent Constitutional law experts believe President Bush has engaged in at least, five categories of repeated, defiant "high crimes and misdemeanors", which separately or together would allow Congress to subject the President to impeachment under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution. The sworn oath of members of Congress is to uphold ...

Gordon Brown's claim that an inquiry into the war in Iraq would be a "distraction" for Britain's troops on the ground has been repudiated by some of the country's former defence chiefs. The Prime Minister said an inquiry should take place when the soldiers' "work is over", although ministers have denied that means when the last British soldier has left Iraq. But a number of Britain's former leading defence figures have rejected ...

CHICAGO - America has reached a point where almost half its population is described as being in some way mentally ill, and nearly a quarter of its citizens - 67.5 million - have taken antidepressants. These statistics have sparked a widespread, sometimes rancorous debate about whether people are taking far more medication than is needed for problems that may not even be mental disorders. Studies indicate ...

A promise by the biggest broadband provider in the US that it would stop discriminating against users who swap music and video online has failed to quell a grassroots movement demanding legislation to protect equal access to the internet. Comcast, led by chairman and chief executive Brian Roberts, said it would stop interfering with the popular BitTorrent programs used for file sharing, ending a covert practice that was exposed last year ...

Despite last-minute objections from Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy, legislation to expand collection of DNA samples from suspects charged with violent crimes moved a step closer to final passage Friday, as a House committee made only minor changes to the version of the bill that passed the Senate last week. The Judiciary committee voted 18-3 to approve the DNA bill, a top crime-fighting priority of Gov. Martin ...

(AP) - An aide to President Bush has resigned because of his alleged misuse of grant money from the U.S. Agency for International Development when he worked for a Cuban democracy organization.Felipe Sixto was promoted on March 1 as a special assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs and stepped forward on March 20 to reveal his alleged wrongdoing and to resign, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said on Friday. ...

  Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, has extended a deadline to April 8 for Shia fighters to hand over weapons or face "severe penalties". In a statement on Friday, he said: "All those who have heavy and intermediate weapons are to deliver them to security sites and they will be rewarded financially."...

A brain imaging technique called fMRI may be being used as a "lie detector" by US intelligence agencies, despite concerns over unreliability and the possibility of abuse, a leading academic has claimed. Professor Jonathan Marks, a bioethicist at Pennsylvania State University in the US and a lawyer at London's Matrix Chambers, says in an article in the American Journal of Law and Medicine that he believes that the use of ...

George Bush signalled yesterday that he was likely to suspend the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq this summer because of fears that the country might return to the levels of violence witnessed last year. Speaking as a three-day curfew was imposed on Baghdad and as fighting continued for a third successive day in Basra, the US president said there had been gains in Iraq, with overall levels of violence down, ...

Yet another below the belt blow to civil liberties was struck by the Sussex Plod this Monday. The long-awaited world premier of SchMOVIES ‘On The Verge’- the cinematic debut of the Smash Edo campaign - was cancelled after police intervention. In the days that followed, across the country venues due to show the film on the forthcoming tour have received visits from the police and licensing authorities keen to stop ...