TIME sat down with Sudan's President Hassan Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum two weeks ago. In March, the International Criminal Court indicted Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the conflict in Darfur, where at least 200,000 people have died since 2003. The interview — his first with the American newsmedia since the ICC's arrest warrants were issued — was conducted in collaboration with "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" on PBS. Here ...

Crying "Death to the dictator!" supporters of Iran's opposition movement charged once more into the breach on July 30, defying a government ban on protests by gathering in the thousands at Iran's largest cemetery to honor slain victims of the government's crackdown. The protest was timed to coincide with the traditional Shi'ite practice of observing the 40th day of mourning following a death — the deceased in this case being Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman whose videotaped shooting at ...

Had the government not delayed its controversial order that all computers be equipped with Green Dam by July 1, the result would have been the same -- Chinese computer retailers were far from ready. PC sales representatives at Bainaohui, one of Beijing's largest electronics retailers, say their merchandise is not pre-installed with Green Dam, a Web filtering software the government said was necessary to prevent children from viewing pornography and other harmful content. Some retailers were unclear as to when ...

China's last-minute decision to postpone a controversial content-filtering application on computers sold there is the latest example of the trouble that Western technology companies face doing business in the world's fastest growing economy. The software application, called "Green Dam Youth Escort," unleashed a flood of complaints toward Beijing, making strange bedfellows of human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Chinese "netizens" and trade groups representing the largest international businesses in China. Groups representing some of the largest companies in the ...

The United States said Thursday it was "deeply disturbed" over well-known Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo's arrest for alleged subversive activities and pressed for his release. The former university lecturer and literary critic was arrested this week for alleged agitation activities aimed at subversion of the government, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported Wednesday, citing Beijing's Municipal Public Security Bureau. "The U.S. government is deeply disturbed by reports that Liu Xiaobo has been formally arrested and charged with serious crimes," said ...

Five senior citizens are behind bars in Germany after they allegedly kidnapped and beat a man because he owed them money, police in southern Germany said Wednesday. Liu, a former university lecturer and literary critic, was arrested for alleged agitation activities aimed at subversion of the government, the Xinhua agency reported Wednesday citing Beijing's Municipal Public Security Bureau. Lui was arrested Tuesday, a police statement printed by Xinhua said. "Liu has been engaged in agitation activities, such as spreading of ...

When people on the government's terrorist watch list have tried to buy guns or explosives in recent years, the government has let them the vast majority of the time. That's the finding of a new report by the Government Accountability Office, sent to lawmakers last month and released publicly Monday. From February 2004 to February 2009, 963 background checks using the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System "resulted in valid matches with terrorist watch list records; of these matches, ...

The Sri Lankan national flag is everywhere in Colombo these days. In the last months of the Sri Lankan government's 26-year war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam , the national flag — a sword-bearing lion on a deep red field — was flown at rallies each time the Sri Lankan army gained ground against the LTTE. With the army now victorious and the LTTE's leadership — including the notorious Velupillai Prabhakaran — wiped out, every vehicle on ...

Shell-shocked and scarred both inside and out, they huddle in tents, water and medicine in short supply -- hundreds of thousands of people, civilian victims of Sri Lanka's recently-ended civil war. "We suffered a lot because shelling was coming from everywhere," said a 38-year-old man identifying himself as Vishwamala. "Firing, shelling -- many, many people have died ... there was nobody there to carry the dead. A lot of dead were left on the road." Another survivor, Krisha Duray, recalls ...

Will investors regret rooting for TARP paybacks? Recently, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and others have said they plan to repay the tens of billions of dollars they received last fall as part of the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program as soon as possible. Investors immediately cheered the news. Shares of Goldman and JPMorgan are up 80% and 117%, respectively, since the market bottomed in early March. It seems clear that bank executives will benefit from the return of government ...