WASHINGTON — Two former supervisors at the Winston-Choctaw County Regional Correctional Facility in Louisville, Miss., pleaded guilty today to federal criminal charges relating to physical assaults on prisoners at the facility in October 2001.
Former Captain David Mitchell pleaded guilty to one felony count of violating the civil rights of inmate Jimmy Commer by violently assaulting […]

DALLAS — Allen Wayne Kirby of Abilene, Texas, pleaded guilty this afternoon in federal court in Lubbock, Texas, to one count of interstate receipt of child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper of the Northern District of Texas. Kirby, who has been in a home-confinement program as a condition of his pre-trial release, was […]

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News ServicePAKISTAN (ANS) – Police have arrested a Pakistani Christian woman on false charges of blasphemy against Islam.
Police have arrested a Pakistani Christian woman on false charges of blasphemy against Islam.Martha Bibi, who lives in Kot Nanka Singh, a small village of 400 families in Pakistan’s Kasur District, was accused […]

WASHINGTON  — A U.S. general in charge of missile defense says the system that Washington wants to deploy in Poland and the Czech Republic is not aimed at countering a threat from Russia, but from a potential long-range missile attack by Iran or “rogue nations.”
Air Force Lieutenant General Henry Obering, director of the U.S. Missile […]

WASHINGTON (RFE/RL) — On January 23 the U.S. military announced it had arrested more than 600 fighters from Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia, the Imam al-Mahdi Army. Just four days earlier, Iraqi special forces, backed by U.S. troops, arrested senior al-Sadr aide Abd al-Hadi al-Darraji in Baghdad.
While Washington has often urged Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to […]

CACTUS, TEXAS - On December 12, the United States government carried out the largest nationwide operation against illegal immigrants at their workplaces in U.S. history, arresting 1,300 people at six meat-packing plants owned by the Swift Company. The government later charged some 200 of the people detained with identity theft and other charges, but most […]

PARIS - A week before the Bush administration tries to revive stalled Middle East peace talks, Israeli and Palestinian politicians pledged new efforts Thursday to secure a breakthrough during a high-level conference in Davos, Switzerland.
Israel Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni made an emotional appeal for Israel and Palestinians to live side by side, and pledged her […]

WASHINGTON - An elderly white man in the southern state of Mississippi faces federal charges of kidnapping and conspiracy in connection with the 1964 murders of two African-American men.  The case is the latest in a series of prosecutions brought by the government to solve racially-motivated crimes from the civil rights era of the 1950s […]

CAIRO - At least two people have been killed and at least 20 others wounded at a Beirut university campus in clashes between opposition and government supporters. The army declared a curfew in an effort to restore calm. 
Students said the violence started as a lunchtime fight in the cafeteria, but the quickly spread to the […]

WASHINGTON (RFE/RL) — Army Lieutenant General David Petraeus, U.S. President George W. Bush’s nominee to become the top commander in Iraq, has outlined his strategy to crush the insurgency.
Petraeus laid out his plans for Iraq in detail on January 23 before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, which is considering whether to confirm him.
‘Hard Is […]

WHITE HOUSE - U.S. President George Bush wants Americans to cut their use of gasoline by 20 percent over the next 10 years.  It is the cornerstone of a new energy policy launched in Tuesday’s State of the Union address.
President Bush says America’s dependence on foreign oil is an economic and national security risk that […]

WASHINGTON - Peace activists have announced they will hold an anti-war rally on the National Mall in Washington Saturday, the first since Democrats assumed control of Congress. Organizers say they have given up on swaying President Bush and plan now to take their demands to the halls of Congress. 
The anti-war group United for Peace and […]

BEAUMONT — A 27-year-old Lumberton, Texas, man was sentenced for possessing and distributing child pornography in the Eastern District of Texas, U.S. Attorney Matthew D. Orwig of the Eastern District of Texas announced today. John Toby Walker was sentenced to 97 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Thad Heartfield.
“Child pornography is not a […]

First Christian Holocaust Remembrance Day in Europe 
Hundreds of Churches Remember Jewish Victims of Nazi Atrocities 
By Wolfgang Polzer
Special to ASSIST News Service
BRUSSELS (ANS) – Support for the first Christian Holocaust Remembrance Day is growing in Europe. The idea of a Remembrance Day on January 27, the day when the concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated, was […]

STATE DEPARTMENT - The United States is opening formal negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic about basing elements of a U.S. anti-ballistic missile system in those countries. State Department officials say the system is intended to defend against missiles fired by so-called rogue states and not aimed against Russia and its large nuclear arsenal.
The […]

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. General Assembly is due to vote this week on a resolution condemning efforts to deny the Holocaust.
The U.S. sponsored resolution is brief and to the point. In a half-page text, it notes that in November, 2005, the U.N. adopted by a wide margin a similar measure declaring that remembrance of […]

WASHINGTON - President Bush is urging the U.S. Congress - now dominated by his political opponents - to give his new Iraq war plan a chance to succeed.  In his State of the Union address Tuesday night here in Washington, Mr. Bush offered new proposals on energy, healthcare and immigration, and he reviewed U.S. policies […]

JERUSALEM - Israel’s attorney general says he plans to indict President Moshe Katsav, Israel’s ceremonial head of state, on charges of rape and abuse of power.  Israel’s attorney general, Meni Mazus, says he has notified President Katsav that he will be indicted on charges of rape and other crimes against female employees of the president’s office.  […]

BOSTON  – A Chelsea woman pleaded guilty today in federal court to conspiring to engage in a child prostitution scheme, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher for the Criminal Division; United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan for the District of Massachusetts; Sharon E. Ormsby, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation […]

WASHINGTON — A Florida man was sentenced today to 250 months in prison and a lifetime of supervised release for conspiring to arrange for men in the United States to travel to Honduras to have sex with young teenage girls, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Paul I. […]

PARIS - The European Union called on all countries Monday to enforce United Nations sanctions against Iran and announced a series of measures it would take against Tehran’s efforts to develop a nuclear program.
European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels said their sanctions targeted the most sensitive parts of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. They […]

JERUSALEM - Israel’s government has selected a retired army veteran as chief of the Israeli Defense Forces, the country’s top military post. It is less than a week since the previous IDF chief resigned following criticism of his leadership during Israel’s war in Lebanon last summer.
Fifty two-year-old Gabi Ashkenazi is a veteran infantry officer who […]

WASHINGTON - President Bush has addressed tens of thousands of anti-abortion activists who have gathered in the nation’s capital.  Monday’s annual “Right to Life” demonstration marked the 34th anniversary of a contentious Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion across the country.
President Bush noted that the U.S. Declaration of Independence cites “life” as the first of three […]

BEIRUT - Much of Lebanon remains paralyzed, Tuesday, as supporters of the pro-Syrian Hezbollah group block Lebanon’s coastal highway and main thoroughfares in Beirut and other cities. This is all a bid to impose a general strike on the rest of the population.
A column of tanks rolls down Hamra Street - one of Beirut’s main […]

SYDNEY - The United States has responded to Australia’s request for international help to cope with its bushfire emergency.  About 100 American firefighters have arrived in Melbourne.  About one million hectares of forest and farmland have been destroyed in conditions described by state leaders in Victoria as some of the worst ever. 
Bushfires in the southern […]