Amid turmoil over the treatment of post-election detainees and controversy over the mass trials of political figures, Iran's supreme leader on Saturday appointed a new judiciary chief, Iranian media reported. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tapped Sadeq Larijani -- brother of Iran's powerful parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani -- to replace Hashemi Shahroudi, a vocal hardliner against the opposition movement, who finished his 10-year term, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported. Another brother, Mohammad Javad Larijani, is the secretary-general of the judiciary's human ...

Three independent United Nations human rights experts have accused Iran of torturing confessions from detainees charged with fomenting political unrest, the international organization said Thursday. "No judicial system can consider as valid a confession obtained as a result of harsh interrogations or under torture," said Manfred Nowak, who is the U.N. special rapporteur on torture. The treatment of detainees at Iran's prisons has increasingly become a divisive issue within Iran's Islamic leadership, as reformists continue to accuse the hardline government ...

Iran's influential parliament speaker dismissed allegations that post-election detainees were raped while in custody, calling the claims by an opposition leader "sheer lies," state-run media reported Wednesday. Ali Larijani said that a special panel of Iran's parliament, or Majlis, conducted a "precise and comprehensive inquiry" into the treatment at Tehran's Evin and Kahrizak prisons, and found "no cases of rape or sexual abuse," Press TV reported. Larijani's fiery response was to accusations made by opposition candidate Mehdi Karrubi who, along ...

Iran's influential parliament speaker has called for an investigation into allegations that post-election detainees were raped while in custody, state-run media said. Ali Larijani said that a special parliamentary panel "had carried out investigations into the situation in [Iranian] jails and the treatment of detainees and it should also look into whether jail rape allegations are true or false," Press TV reported, citing Tabnak, a Web site associated with opposition politician Mohsen Rezaie. Meanwhile, Iran's Intelligence Ministry, the government body ...

The battle raging over President Obama's health care plan has spread from across the aisles in Congress to across the country. Senators this week joined their colleagues from the House at town hall meetings as they spent their August recess in their home districts. But disruptive protests are turning town hall meetings into shouting matches and drowning out discussion over what is and isn't in health care plans in the House and Senate. Videos of the protests have been circulating ...

A series of bombings mostly targeting day laborers killed 46 people and wounded 215 in Iraq on Monday, the Ministry of Interior said. Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karrubi, along with former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, should be tried for attempting to lead a Western-backed "velvet revolution" that aimed to topple the regime, the official said. "If Moussavi, Khatami ... and Karrubi are the main suspects believed to have been behind the velvet coup in Iran, which ...

A senior official with Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard is calling for the prosecution of two key opposition leaders and a former president, accusing them of fanning the protests that have gripped the nation since its disputed presidential election two months ago. Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karrubi, along with former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, should be tried for attempting to lead a Western-backed "velvet revolution" that aimed to topple the regime, the official said. "If Moussavi, Khatami ... ...

The United States believes Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a drone attack last week, President Obama's national security adviser said Sunday. "We think so," Gen. Jim Jones told NBC's "Meet the Press," adding, "We put it in the 90 percent [likelihood] category." Pakistan's foreign and interior ministers said Friday the government was still waiting to conduct DNA analysis to confirm the identity of a man killed Wednesday in an unmanned aerial vehicle strike. The suspected U.S. drone ...

New signing Samuel Eto'o scored but Serie A champions Inter Milan were beaten 2-1 by Lazio in the Italian Super Cup which was staged in the Bird's Nest in Beijing on Saturday night. The continued experiment of staging the curtain raiser to the Italian season overseas again proved a success with a near-capacity crowd in the Olympic stadium seeing an action-packed encounter. Jose Mourinho's Inter, with Eto'o going close several times, had largely dominated the game, but Lazio's Brazilian midfielder ...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered his ambassador Saturday to go back to Colombia amid tense diplomatic relations between the two countries. The staffer was identified as locally employed political analyst Hossein Rassam. A Foreign Office spokesperson told CNN: "This is completely unacceptable and directly contradicts assurances we have repeatedly been given by Iranian officials. "We deplore these trials and the so called confessions of prisoners who have been denied their basic human rights. Our ambassador in Tehran has demanded ...