The US Department of Justice (DOJ) will amend proposed investigation guidelines to comport with the concerns of Congress and civil liberties groups, according to testimony by Assistant Attorney General Elisebeth Cook given Tuesday before the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence . The proposed rules, referred to as the Attorney General Guidelines, are intended to [...]
An en-banc panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Monday clarified the test to be used to determine whether a design patent has been infringed. The issue came before the court in a dispute over an alleged infringement of US Design Patent No. 467,389 , a design for a four-sided [...]
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the execution of Georgia death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis "pending the disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari." Davis had been scheduled to be executed at 7 PM EDT on Tuesday. According to his lawyers, key witnesses who claimed they saw Davis kill an off-duty [...]
Agnieszka Bienczyk-Missala : "In August 2008 the Public Prosecutor's Office in Poland started an investigation on the existence of secret CIA detention facilities in Poland. It happened three years after the revealing information published by the Washington Post and Human Rights Watch. So far, all consecutive Polish governments have neglected the issue, denying the CIA [...]
Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHRP) chair Leila de Lima said Tuesday that torture is prevalent in the country's prison system and that her organization has documented over 300 cases of abuse in the past three years. De Lima said that in an effort to end the mistreatment, her office has tried to [...]
Myanmar state media outlets announced Tuesday that the state's ruling junta released 9,002 prisoners for good behavior, including U Win Tin , a founder of Myanmar opposition group the National League for Democracy (NLD) and the state's longest-incarcerated political prisoner. Officials for the state newspaper New Light of Myanmar wrote: The government terminated the prison [...]
Corlett Letlojane : "First and foremost, many people are saddened by the unceremonious departure of the President of South Africa, when his term of office is only ending in April 2008. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who chairs the group known as The Elders, is an elder statesman playing a major role in reconciliation, a leading [...]
A US district judge in enjoined the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch on Monday from enforcing an ordinance that prohibits illegal immigrants from occupying leased property. US District Judge Jane J. Boyle of the Northern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction, replacing a temporary restraining order entered earlier this month, as she set an [...]
A spokesman for South African President Thabo Mbeki said Tuesday that Mbeki has challenged in the county's Constitutional Court allegations that he interfered with a case against Mbeki's political rival and current African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma , calling the accusations unjust. Earlier this month Judge Chris Nicholson of the Pietermaritzburg High Court [...]
Complaints filed with a Senegal prosecutor last week by fourteen Chadian and Senegalese citizens alleging that former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre was responsible for war crimes and torture are merely "judicial persecution," lawyers for Habre said in a statement Tuesday. Habre counsel Francois Serres of France and El Hadj Diouf of Senegal called the latest [...]
