INTERNATIONAL LAW

The sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise ship will be followed by months of litigation, with families of victims, wounded passengers and crew members sure to file suit against Carnival. What is the legal precedent for the maritime case?

British government officials are determined to expel Qatada from the country.

A human-rights body of the United Nations has expressed its support for a Sikh man in France in his battle to wear his turban in defiance of French laws against religious headgear.

A federal appeals court's ruling against a proposed constitutional amendment to ban Oklahoma courts from using Islamic Sharia law represents more than a setback to the measure's proponents. Experts say that the decision also reveals how such laws fall somewhere between impractical and unconstitutional.

Japan has joined the U.S. in its economic efforts to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear program by agreeing to buy less Iranian oil.

Several big airlines are taking advantage of European carbon law by snapping up emission allowances at bargain prices, tuning out an outcry against the scheme by many non-EU airlines and shoring up demand in a market that saw prices cut in half last year.

They are apparently on a hunger strike as well.

China has publicly rejected new U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Iran officials have indicated that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 44-year-old woman who was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, could die by hanging instead.

Persian Gulf oil producing nations are prepared to compensate for any loss of oil in the world market, a senior Saudi official said after Iran amped-up its rhetoric Tuesday about blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a key supply route for the world’s oil.

Is the Iran drone real and what does is say about the relationship between the United States and Iran.

Amnesty said it believes hundreds of other prisoners are languishing in death row in the kingdom.

Iran state television showed the first video footage of the RQ-170 Sentinel that supposedly belongs to the United States and was brought down ealier this week.

Initial results of Egypt's first free election in six decades will emerge on Thursday, with Islamist parties expecting to command a majority in parliament, hard on the heels of victories by their counterparts in Tunisia and Morocco.

In a scene of anger that looked like a replay of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, dozens of hard-line Iranian students stormed the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, tearing down the Union Jack flag and flinging documents out of windows.

South Sudan's armed forces on Friday accused Khartoum of orchestrating an attack in the south's Upper Nile border state a day earlier that killed 18 troops.

A refugee camp in South Sudan's Unity state was bombed on Thursday, South Sudan officials and witnesses said, threatening to raise tensions with Sudan.

A $14-million Internet advertising fraud scheme has been brought to a halt by a coalition of American and Estonian authorities, Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for New York's southern district, said during a Wednesday afternoon press conference in Manhattan.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization voted overwhelmingly in favor of granting full membership to the Palestinian Authority, but it will cost the agency the United States' portion of its funding.

Palestine became the 195th full member and will have a vote in the General Conference, which sets policy for UNESCO and elects members of its executive board. But the vote carried greater significance in the context of the Palestinian bid for full membership in the United Nations, something that the Security Council has yet to vote on.

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Friday to condemn Yemen’s bloody crackdown on peaceful protesters and endorsed an initiative aimed at securing President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s commitment to leave office.