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 Mickey Mouse made his debut at the Colony Theater in New York 80 years ago! You wouldn’t say, wouldn’t you? Steamboat Willie was the movie which projected Mickey into the hearts of every human being. It didn’t matter how old you were, you still enjoyed the funny little mouse. November 18, 1928, is the birthday of Mickey Mouse and people...
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 The Halcyon Company, which acquired all rights to the dormant Terminator franchise for an undisclosed, though likely eight-figure, sum, has announced plans for at least three more films. Production is to start on "Terminator 4" as soon as possible.Apparently, Halcyon founders Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson want to make a...
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Zimbabwe's health services, once regarded among the best in Africa, are "in a state of collapse" with its main hospitals closed and a cholera epidemic raging, a leading medical body said Wednesday.
The country's four main hospitals, in the capital Harare and the western city of Bulawayo, were "virtually closed,"...
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Cambodian human rights groups accused the government and military Wednesday of brutally evicting hundreds of families and torching their homes in a rural southern village early in the week.
Rights monitors said at least three people were seriously injured by beatings when soldiers, police and forestry officials forcibly evicted up...
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Emergency aid is not reaching many of the tens of thousands of civilians displaced by fighting between rebels and government troops in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned Wednesday.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has provided food to the displaced living in refugee camps around Goma, the...
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An outbreak of cholera, the deadly diarrhoeal disease that doctors say has claimed dozens of lives in crisis-hit Zimbabwe in recent weeks, has spread to the city's crowded townships, state media reported Thursday.
One person died in the city's Budiriro township and 20 more from across the city were being treated for the disease in...
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Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has been banned by leaders of the only Ugandan tribe that carries out the practice, a month before the seasonal tribal ritual begins, press reports said Thursday.
Elected councillors representing the Sabiny tribe at their main district seat in Uganda's eastern town of Kapchorwa have vowed to have...
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At least 13 civilians died and more than 35 were wounded during the latest round of heavy fighting between Islamic insurgents and African Union (AU) peacekeepers in the Somali capital Mogadishu, witnesses and officials said Wednesday.
Islamist forces attacked the Ugandan KM4 base in Mogadishu late on Tuesday night, prompting AU troops...
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Nigeria's National Human Rights Commission called on the government Wednesday to examine why so many Nigerians are facing the death penalty worldwide.
"More than 50 Nigerians are currently on death row across the globe," the commission's spokesman, Lambert Oparah, said.
"The situation should be a worry to the...
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Cambodian human rights group Licadho released 1,700 white balloons outside a prison in the capital Tuesday to draw attention to the plight of two men it said were wrongly convicted of the 2004 murder of a union leader.
The number of balloons represented the total days that Sok Sam Oeun and Born Samnang have served in jail for the...
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A German man and his Somali wife were abducted by armed men in northern Somali region of Bossaso, an official reported Sunday.
According to Yusuf Ahmed Jama, head of local rights agency Action Against Human Trafficking, the couple were kidnapped at gunpoint on late Saturday while visiting relatives in the area, and were taken away to...
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Almost 9,500 Somali civilians have been killed since early 2007 as the government battles a bloody insurgency, a human rights body said Tuesday.
Ali Sheikh Yasen, deputy chairman of the Mogadishu-based Elman Peace and Human Rights Organization, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that a total of 9,474 civilians had died in the...
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South African President Thabo Mbeki was the man of the hour in Africa Friday after clinching a hard-won power-sharing deal between Zimbabwe's rivals of nearly a decade - President Robert Mugabe and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Welcoming Thursday's agreement on the formation of a government of national...
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Britain's role in tackling militants in the restive oil-rich Niger Delta will be limited to training Nigerian forces, Britain's minister for Africa Mark Malloch-Brown said during a visit to Nigeria.
"We want to make sure that the security forces operating in the Niger Delta are properly trained," he said in Abuja after...
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Nigeria is to create a new ministry to oversee the oil-rich Niger Delta, where militant groups have been attacking oil installations and kidnapping expatriate workers, Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua has announced.
Secretary to Government of the Federation, Alhaji Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, said the new ministry, which would have two...
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The Democratic Republic of Congo's armed forces are undermining the prospects of peace by working alongside rebel groups to mine tin and gold in the east of the resource-rich African nation, independent watchdog Global Witness said Wednesday.
The DR Congo's army (FARDC), supported by the United Nations peacekeeping force, is supposed...
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The civil rights group Human Rights Watch sharply criticised Wednesday the use of
special courts in the Sudan, saying they were a 'charade' and fell
short of 'even minimal fair trial standards.' In a statement,
HRW called attention to the special courts which were set up to combat
rebels, and which at the end of July sentenced 30...
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 13 people were killed in an outbreak of violence targeting foreign workers in the poorest communities in Johannesburg’s Cleveland area, South Africa. 200 people had been arrested on charges ranging from rape to robbery and public violence, police said. More than 50 victims of the attacks were taken to hospitals with gunshot and stab...
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 In a couple of days, Zimbabwe will be holding its
national elections, which include the presidential, parliamentary, senate and
local elections. In March 2005, the last election was marked by state violence
against both the civil society activists as well as the voters.
The three main presidential candidates are President...
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 More than 12 persons were killed Friday after dozens of men belonging to opposing ethnic groups clashed on the streets of Nakuru, the provincial capital of Kenya's Rift Valley.Media reports said groups of young men armed with machetes, bows and arrows attacked each other and set fire to numerous buildings in the strife-torn city.The...
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 Kenya’s main opposition party said Thursday that a deal with
the government led by Mwai Kibaki has not been reached.
After Ugandan presidential press secretary, Tamale Mirundi
announced that rival camps reached a consensus on the establishment of a commission
to analyze the controversial election results, Salim Lone, spokesperson...
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Sudanese President Omar El Bashir on Monday brushed off criticism of
the appointment to his personal staff a Janjaweed leader suspected of
involvement in ethnic cleansing in Darfur saying that allegations he
was involved in murders was blatantly wrong.
"These allegations (against Musa Hilal) are untrue and we
definitely do...
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 The United States on Saturday said all sides must recognize "serious flaws" in the vote-counting process of Kenya's disputed election, and urged ruling and opposition leaders to meet immediately and "without preconditions" to break the cycle of violence.
Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African...
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 Kenya's opposition party, the Orange Democracy Movement (ODM), called a
three-day mass rally in 24 Kenyan cities next week to protest against
President Mwai Kibaki after international mediation talks failed, an
ODM spokesman said Friday.
The mass rally, originally scheduled for Tuesday this week was
cancelled to create a...
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 Ghanaian President John Kufuor on Thursday ended his mediation efforts
in the Kenyan election dispute without any visible success as
newly-elected President Mwai Kibaki began swearing in his new cabinet
in Nairobi.
Further talks would be chaired by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, Kufuor said before flying back to...
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 Rival politicians traded accusations of inciting violence Wednesday, as
unrest sparked by disputed presidential polls continued across Kenya,
leaving at least 300 people dead.
President Mwai Kibaki and defeated opposition candidate Raila
Odinga blamed each other for the brutal violence that has seen nearly
300 people killed since...
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 Violence erupted around the Kenyan capital Nairobi as voters demanded
the electoral commission reveal the presidential election tally and
charged that the results - which put the top two contenders a few
hundred thousand votes apart - were rigged.
Mwai Kibaki, the incumbent, closed the margin Saturday between
himself and...
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 Kenyans headed to the polls Thursday in the country's closest-ever
elections that provoked fears of fraud and violence in a country known
for relative stability, but were generally calm with only minor
violations.
Most polling stations closed down around 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) except
for a couple in Kibera, East Africa's largest slum,...
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 Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe during a congress of his ruling
ZANU(PF) party on Thursday became its sole presidential candidate in
elections due next year.
There was no vote or debate among the 10,000 delegates. The
chairmen of each of the party's 10 provincial organizations read out
reports in which they said he had been...
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 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with leaders from troubled
African nations Wednesday, calling for greater vigilance in keeping out
"negative forces" from Congo and a robust peacekeeping force for
war-torn Somalia.
Rice's 24-hour visit to the vast Horn of Africa nation was meant to
spur movement on...
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 British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has confirmed in a
recent statement that he will not attend next month's European Union-Africa
summit if Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is there.
Brown spoke Tuesday
shortly after President Mugabe told the Portuguese news agency Lusa that he
will attend the summit in Portugal's capital,...
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 South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has termed the divisive
race for the leadership of the ruling African National Congress an
"unedifying spectacle" and urged ANC members not to choose leaders who
"will make us hang our heads in shame."
The popular Anglican archbishop was writing in the weekly...
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 The war crimes trial of the former Liberian President, Charles Taylor, was postponed by the Special Court for Sierra Leone to allow Taylor's new defense team more time to prepare. The trial was set to start on Monday, but the Court only held a hearing to decide whether to allow the postponement.The new court date is January 7, 2008....
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 Several members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are being investigated by the authorities, as one of the group’s top leaders received a interdiction to leave the country. The leader of the world-wide Sunni Islamist movement, Essam el-Erian was stopped at the Cairo airport by the police to embark in a plane that was heading for...
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 Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft, along with several human rights groups have announced the launch of the Global Network Initiative: Protecting and Advancing Freedom of Expression and Privacy in the Information and Communication Technology Industry (GNI). The agreement comes after giants as Google and Yahoo faced criticism for working with...
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 According to two US representatives, information about Chinese
dissidents and human rights have been accessed illegally from US lawmakers’
computers.
It all started in August 2006, when four of the computers owned by the
House State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee were cracked down for
information regarding casework on...
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 In the case of the two jailed Chinese dissidents that have charged Yahoo Inc. of committing human rights abuses by helping China with information that led to the arrest of the two men, the families of Wang and Shi reached a deal with Yahoo, according to a statement released by Yahoo.The company will provide the two families legal,...
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 A British human-rights watchdog recently accused Google of being the worst company out there concerning the protection of its users’ privacy. And you could say Google has some users…In a report published on Saturday, June 9, Privacy International accuses Google of being "an endemic threat to privacy", despite the company’s...
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 Google said it will have an answer ready for EU’s concern about data retention and server logs at Mountain View by June 19.In March, increasing concerns voiced by human rights groups about the security of data gathered from users on the Web have determined Google to change their privacy policy, meaning that Mountain View server-logs will...
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A Moroccan schoolboy has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for linking King Mohammed VI with the Spanish football club Barcelona, local media reported Friday.
Yassine Belassal, 18, slightly changed the national slogan when writing it on a school blackboard in the village of Ait Ourir near Marrakesh.
"God, fatherland,...
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A political row has erupted in Spain over attempts to investigate alleged human rights crimes during the 1936-39 civil war and General Francisco Franco's dictatorship, according to press reports Friday.
Far-left parties are accusing Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government of having helped to block a judicial...
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Myanmar was the only country that used landmines in the past year, an international coalition reported Friday, adding that Turkey, Greece and Belarus failed to meet their deadlines to destroy stockpiles of the weapon.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines also said Russia was still considered a violator as it had not reported...
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Spanish judicial experts expect no major new investigations into alleged human rights abuses during the 1936-39 civil war and General Francisco Franco's ensuing 36-year dictatorship, the daily El Pais said Thursday.
High-profile judge Baltasar Garzon's decision to drop the first such inquiry on Tuesday was described as a big blow by...
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The extent of support in Britain for the far-right British National Party (BNP) was revealed Wednesday with the publication of the personal details of more than 12,000 members and supporters on an internet site.
The list, published on the website Wikileak, gave the names, addresses, and in some cases the professions, of members who...
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Swedish heavy-vehicle maker Scania Wednesday said it has inked a deal to assemble trucks and buses with the government of Iraq.
The deal was announced in connection with a visit to Iraq by Swedish Trade Minister Ewa Bjorling and a delegation of Swedish businesses, including Scania and telecommunications equipment maker...
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Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon on Tuesday unexpectedly gave up his inquiry into alleged human rights crimes committed during the 1936-39 civil war and General Francisco Franco's ensuing 36-year dictatorship.
Franco and his collaborators could no longer face legal responsibility for crimes, Garzon, a magistrate at the National Court,...
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Five United Nations experts condemned Tuesday what they said were "severe convictions and the unfair trials" of prisoners accused of involvement in last year's anti-government protests in Myanmar.
Last week, a dozen detainees were each given 65-year prison sentences and more than 20 others, including five monks, received...
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A new ceiling artwork meant to inspire dialogue, human rights and global solidarity was unveiled Tuesday at the United Nation's Geneva offices.
The work, created by Spanish abstract painter Miquel Barcelo, graces a room where groups like the UN's Human Rights Council and the High Level Group of the Alliance of Civilizations...
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Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon on Tuesday suddenly gave up his investigation into human rights crimes committed during the 1936-39 civil war and General Francisco Franco's ensuing dictatorship.
Franco and 44 of his collaborators could no longer be held legally responsible for the crimesbecause they are dead, Garzon said in a judicial...
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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's plans for a Europe-wide security pact look set to be Russia's priority at the European Union-Russia summit in the French resort of Nice on Friday.
Medvedev first spoke of his desire to create a "treaty on the basic principles for security and intergovernmental relations in the Euro-Atlantic...
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Human rights group Amnesty International has called on the Spanish government to ensure that there is an effective judicial inquiry into crimes committed during the 1936-39 civil war and the ensuing dictatorship under General Francisco Franco.
In a statement released in London and Madrid, Amnesty said Spain should comply with its...
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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's plans for a Europe-wide security pact look set to be Russia's priority at the European Union-Russia summit in the French resort of Nice on Friday.
Medvedev first spoke of his desire to create a "treaty on the basic principles for security and intergovernmental relations in the Euro-Atlantic...
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Roma children continue to suffer discrimination in the Czech Republic's schools, a year after the Europe's human rights court ruled that their segregation was unlawful, a Roma rights group said Thursday.
The Budapest-based European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) said a survey of 20 so-called practical elementary schools, which provide...
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Former world leaders meeting in the Dutch city of Rotterdam this week have urged the leaders of the G20 who will meet in Washington next week, to reform the world's existing financial system.
A statement released on Thursday by the General Assembly of the Club of Madrid said in-depth reform of the global financial...
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday in London that he does not see security worsening in Afghanistan, even as the British death toll in the conflict rose to 124.
"Violence is not getting worse. It is the same level as it was for the past year or two. The whole effort is to make it better and to bring violence down,"...
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As Spanish artist Miquel Barcelo prepares for the unveiling of his most gigantic work so far at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, he is at the height of his artistic glory.
Only a political squabble over the cost of the art work is casting a shadow over the ceremony, which will be attended by UN Secretary-General Ban...
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Gender inequality remains widespread and deep-rooted in many cultures despite manyfold declarations in support of women's rights, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said in a report published Wednesday.
The report, presented in London, said development strategies which were sensitive to cultural values could reduce...
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Amnesty International appealed Monday to Germany and other European nations to provide homes to 50 detainees from the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.
The men cannot return to their home countries "for fear of torture or other serious human rights violations," the human-rights group said in Berlin.
It said it was...
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Spain's National Court on Friday suspended the opening of dozens of mass graves dating from the 1936-39 civil war and General Francisco Franco's ensuing 36-year dictatorship.
The court accepted a complaint by prosecutors trying to block the orders issued by Baltasar Garzon, a judge at the same court.
Garzon has launched Spain's...
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A Spanish judge has ordered the remains of eight people to be exhumed from the Valley of the Fallen, late dictator Francisco Franco's huge mausoleum near Madrid, where many of his opponents were also buried, the daily El Pais reported Thursday.
Judge Baltasar Garzon ordered the exhumations as part of his investigation into human...
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Pope Benedict XVI and the Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Shaykh Mustafa Ceric, clasped hands and then hugged Thursday as the pontiff met participants at historic talks aimed at defusing tensions between Catholics and Muslims.
"I was pleased to learn that you were able at this meeting to adopt a common position on the need to...
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A Spanish judge has ordered the remains of eight people to be exhumed from the Valley of the Fallen, a huge mausoleum near Madrid where many of the opponents of deceased dictator Francisco Franco are buried, the daily El Pais reported Thursday.
Judge Baltasar Garzon ordered the exhumations as part of his investigation into human...
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Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt hosted Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Thursday, and discussed the fallout of the recent war between Georgia and Russia.
Reinfeldt noted that Sweden has pledged large sums to Georgia and contributed personnel to a European Union monitoring team.
The Swedish premier told reporters...
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The Colombian government is trying to paint a positive picture on a deteriorating human rights situation, argued Amnesty International in a report released Tuesday.
"It's impossible to solve a problem without admitting there is one," said Marcelo Pollack, Colombia researcher at Amnesty International. "Denial only...
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An Anglican bishop from Zimbabwe was Tuesday named winner of a Swedish human rights prize for "having given voice to the fight against oppression."
Bishop Sebastian Bakare was also cited for his work to promote "freedom of speech and of opinion in a difficult political situation."
He was due to accept the 2008...
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The European Parliament (EP) defied Chinese warnings Thursday and awarded its prestigious Sakharov Prize to Hu Jia, a Chinese civil-rights activist.
The decision was a rebuke to Beijing, which had said that honouring Hu Jia could "seriously damage" China's relations with the European Union.
Hu Jia was picked from a...
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A judge at Spain's National Court on Thursday authorized the opening of a mass grave dating from the 1936-39 civil war and believed to contain the bones of poet Federico Garcia Lorca.
Judge Baltasar Garzon accepted a request from 22 associations to investigate disappearances of leftist republican victims of the war, which was won by...
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Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan warned on Thursday, World Food Day, that the global hunger crisis is as serious as the current financial crisis and must be tackled with the same urgency.
Speaking at the international Fighting Hunger Conference in the Irish capital, Dublin, along with economist Jeffrey Sachs and...
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The European Union should suspend the visa bans it currently holds against most members of the Belarusian regime, but it is not yet clear whether it should do so for President Alexander Lukashenko, EU foreign ministers and officials said Monday.
"At this moment the Belarusians are looking to the EU. The moderates are hoping that...
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Germany and China have resumed dialogue, with junior ministers leading talks on strategic issues, while consultations on human rights are set for next month, the German Foreign Ministry said Friday.
The resumption of the regular rounds of talks was announced in June by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and his German counterpart...
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Human rights activists from China, Russia or Vietnam topped speculations on the eve of the announcement of this year's Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.
The five-member Nobel Committee advises nominators not to announce their proposals but there are no rules against the procedure, allowing fodder for speculation before Friday's...
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The Spanish parliament Thursday approved a controversial plan to encourage immigrants to return home amid rising unemployment.
The offer provides for jobless immigrants to be paid their unemployment benefit in advance, if they go back to their countries and agree not to return to Spain for three years.
More than 100,000 immigrants...
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About one million children, many of them from minority or endangered groups, are imprisoned around the world, a UN agency Thursday.
Millions of other prisoners have been detained illegally or mistreated in incarceration, said UN Human Rights Commissioner and former South African judge Navanethem Pillay in an event to draw attention to...
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Czech author and former president Vaclav Havel was Tuesday awarded Germany's Point Alpha Prize for the Unity of Germany and Europe in Peace and Freedom.
Havel was honoured as a "representative of the great European revolution for liberty in the Soviet realm," said the former German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher in...
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The European Union on Friday expressed concern over Iran's plans to introduce the death penalty for the apostasy.
Converts to Christianity in the Islamic state were already being detained, the presidency of the 27-member bloc said in Paris.
The followers of minority religious groups such as Christians and Sufi or Sunni Muslims were...
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The French government has climbed down after widespread protests over a new police database, French media reported on Friday.
Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie is to present a new version of the Edvige database later Friday, on the demand of Prime Minister Francois Fillon, who bowed to complaints from human rights groups,...
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Spain's Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the dissolution of Basque Nationalist Action (ANV), the region's third-strongest party at municipal level, on grounds of links with the militant Basque separatist group ETA.
The court also ordered the seizure of property belonging to the ANV, court sources said.
The ANV and the Communist...
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People in Europe and North America are ignorant of China's enormous historical achievements, former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt said Thursday.
Addressing the Hamburg Summit, a meeting of business leaders from China and Germany, the elder statesman said China had made vast economic progress over the past 30 years.
He and...
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Belarusian Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov should not be allowed a visa to visit the European Union headquarters in Brussels next Monday, Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen told the Dutch parliament Wednesday.
Should the Netherlands persist in its position, Martynov will be blocked from visiting Brussels on Monday.
The move...
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Former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who was held hostage for six years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), was Wednesday awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize, regarded as the Spanish equivalent of the Nobel.
Betancourt, who was rescued in a spectacular operation in July, was granted the award...
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Its name is Edvige, but the acronym is the innocuous facade of a new police database that has aroused fear and anger among French human rights activists and provoked divisions in the government.
The inter-governmental spat about the database reached its climax late Tuesday when President Nicolas Sarkozy disavowed his Prime Minister...
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By the time Socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero finishes serving his second term as Spanish prime minister, his country is likely to have undergone a radical transformation.
During the 3.5 years that remain of his term after his re-election in March, Zapatero intends to complete sweeping social reforms that will turn traditionally...
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It was an expensive trip to Salzburg for human rights activist Bianca Jagger, as she lost a ring worth 200,000 euros (293,000 dollars) to the city last weekend, Austrian media reported Wednesday.
Jagger, in town for the Salzburg Festival, asked police officers to help her look for her platinum ring with a 15-millimetre aquamarine...
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