The federal trial of a lawsuit launched by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenging the constitutionality of two laws passed by the city of Hazleton, Pennsylvania that make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to live or work in the town ended Thursday. US District Judge James Munley of the Middle District of Pennsylvania [...]
The European Commission (EC) Commissioner on Competition told the European Parliament Thursday that Microsoft continues to use "abusive" business practices which steadily increase the company's domination of the workgroup server market. Commissioner Neelie Kroes reported that Microsoft now has 70-75 precent of the market, a gain of approximately 10-15 percent from when the EC handed [...]
The European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee Thursday adopted a report on draft legislation designed to curtail increases in design piracy by imposing criminal penalties on commercial-scale IP infringement. The committee cited alleged links between pirated goods and organized crime to justify penalties which include fines of up to €300,000 ($400,000 US) and up to 4 [...]
Prosecutors filed papers Thursday in federal court recommending a reduced prison sentence for former lobbyist Jack Abramoff for giving "substantial assistance" in another Washington corruption case. The "nature, extent and value" of his cooperation will be revealed in future filings, according to prosecutors. Abramoff was sentenced to nearly 6 years in prison last March for [...]
Sudan suspended the work of 52 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in Darfur Thursday after allegations that they were not complying with regulations. The Sudanese government said the organizations would be able to resume work after talks with the government's Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC). United Nations Under-Secretary-General John Holmes , scheduled to visit Darfur this week, [...]
British police arrested three men on Thursday in connection with the London transit bombings on July 7, 2005 that killed 56 people, including the bombers, and injured more than 700 others. Two suspects were detained at Manchester Airport while catching a plane to Pakistan, and the third was arrested at his home. According to police, [...]
Egypt's four largest opposition parties – the Tagammu, Karama, Wafd and Nasserist parties – announced Thursday they will boycott next week's referendum on controversial constitutional amendments proposed last year by President Hosni Mubarak and recently approved by lawmakers . The announcement comes one day after Egyptian opposition group the Muslim Brotherhood announced it too planned [...]
Spanish prosecutors on Wednesday dropped all charges against Arnaldo Otegi , the leader of Batasuna , which is alleged to be a front for the illegal Basque separatist militants ETA . Otegi had been charged with glorifying terrorism for praising an ETA member who killed herself while preparing explosives. The Spanish Supreme Court in 2005 [...]
The US Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday authorized subpoenas for former White House Counsel Harriet Miers , Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove , and several DOJ aides to testify and provide documents to the committee regarding the recent US Attorney firing scandal . Last week, the Committee subpoenaed five other DOJ aides [...]
A federal judge on Thursday granted a permanent injunction against enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) , a federal law that imposes civil and criminal penalties on website operators for making sexually explicit materials available to minors over the Internet and require adult websites to verify viewer age with a credit card number [...]
