Activism News — Topix

The U.N.'s torture investigator said Thursday that European countries should take in those Guantanamo inmates who cannot be sent home when the U.S.-run prison closes.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has said he intends to shut the Guantanamo Bay detention center once he takes office, a move that could see some detainees released and others charged in U.S. courts.

There are now about 250 inmates in the Guantanamo detention center.

U.N. torture expert Manfred Nowak says many of the inmates who would be released would face persecution if they were deported to their home countries. Human rights campaigners have said at least 40-50 inmates would seek asylum in Europe.

Not everyone thinks the Majesco's Cooking Mama is super-cute. Recently, animal rights organization PETA strongly criticized the cooking-themed game for its use of animal-derived ingredients.

The U.N. General Assembly's human rights committee voted Thursday for the second year in a row to urge a global moratorium on the death penalty.

Nov. 20 - Amnesty International is calling for an investigation into alleged human rights abuses blamed on both sides in the recent conflict between Georgia and Russia.

According to an investigation by the Humane Society of the United States, Petland has ties to large scale puppy mill cruelty.

Rising sea levels could swamp coastal farms, higher temperatures wipe out entire species and increasingly violent storms exact a widening human and financial toll.

Sri Lankan troops broke through a strategic front in the country's civil war on Thursday, overrunning an important rebel defense line north of the Tamil Tiger's de facto state, the military said.

While government forces have pushed deep into rebel-held territory from the south in recent months, the rebels have managed to counter repeated strikes launched by the military from the northern Jaffna peninsula.

But on Thursday, after three days of heavy fighting, troops broke through and captured the rebels' first line of defense at Muhamalai, advancing 800 yards, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said. The rebels still maintain two other defense lines.

A court in military-ruled Myanmar sentenced a student activist to 6 1/2 years in jail, a week after his father received a 65-year prison term for his own political activities and a decade after his grandfather ...

Animals and plants in danger of becoming extinct could lose the protection of government experts who make sure that dams, highways and other projects don't pose a threat, under regulations the Bush ...

California's Supreme Court said Wednesday that it will hear the appeal of a challenge to Proposition 8, a voter-approved measure outlawing gay marriage.

Amnesty International Ireland has welcomed the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Pamela Isevbekhai.

Activists who were wrongly branded as terrorists by the Maryland State Police have had a chance to view the agency's files on them.

Sunflower Electric Power Corp. said Tuesday it has asked a federal court to block the state from denying the utility an air quality permit it needs to build two coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said the video, which includes workers stomping on turkeys' heads and twisting their necks to kill them, was shot by an undercover investigator who worked on the ...

The American Civil Liberties Union is criticizing a decision by the U.S. military to assign a new judge to handle the cases against the alleged September 11 conspirators held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

A Palestinian man sits on bags of flour at the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, , warehouse in the Rafah refugee camp, southen Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Nov.

Games:- "Mama gonna make a chef out ofyou," says Cooking Mama, Majesco's Nintendo DS game.

Both Georgia and Russia seriously violated international law during their war in August, rights group Amnesty International charged Tuesday.

Its sweeping 69-page report cites evidence suggesting that Georgian forces indiscriminately fired on civilian targets in Tskhinvali, the capital of the Russian-backed breakaway province of South Ossetia.

The rights group said the use of notoriously inaccurate Grad rockets in the Georgian assault on Tskhinvali resulted in 'scores of civilian deaths' and violated international law on the conduct of war.

Myanmar's junta has sent dozens of political prisoners recently sentenced to up to 65 years in jail to far-flung corners of its gulag, making it hard for family members to deliver food and medicine, relatives ...

An animal rights group says a vegetarian diet could be just the ticket to keeping obese cons behind bars.