The European Commission said Tuesday that it was examining the safety of Apple iPhones and iPods, after news reports said that several of the devices had exploded.
"Tweet" might be a word that has been popularized by Twitter, but that doesn´t mean that the social network will be able trademark it.
As Justice Sonia Sotomayor [JURIST news archive] takes a seat on the US Supreme Court - the first Hispanic and only the third woman to do so - the federal judiciary as a whole continues to be heavily dominated by white males, according to a new report [text, PDF] released by the Brookings Institution [think tank website]. As of early August 2009, 70 percent of federal judges were white men, 15 percent were white women, 10 percent were minority (African-American and Hispanic) males, and 3 percent were minority females. According to the report, however, recent appointees have included proportionately fewer white males and, perhaps in a related trend, fewer private practitioners. The trend has been toward appointing district judges from previously sitting judges and then appointing circuit court judges from the ranks of district judges. The report concludes:
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [official website] acknowledged Monday that 11 deaths in immigration detention had gone unreported [press release]. ICE added 10 names to the official roster of immigration detainee fatalities [text, XLS] and acknowledged an eleventh death [press release] that occurred last week. The revelation of the additional deaths came in response to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [text] lawsuit seeking documents pertaining to detainee deaths. ACLU staff attorney David Shapiro said:
The specially-established Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission [official backgrounder] on Monday awarded damages [press release, PDF] "resulting from violations of international law" that occurred during the nations´ 1998-2000 border war. The five-person panel established under the Permanent Court of Arbitration [official website] at The Hague awarded USD $174,036,520 to Ethiopia and $161,455,000 to Eritrea [awards, PDF], not including an additional $2,065,865 granted to individual Eritrean claimants. The nations had agreed to enter into binding arbitration on damages, and on Monday the Commission:
A Swiss court has denied an appeal by the family of former Haitian president Jean-Claude Duvalier [BBC backgrounder] to claim money hidden in Swiss banks by Duvalier while he led the island nation.
Honduran Interim Deputy Foreign Minister Martha Alvarado said Monday that she expects a biased report from the international panel that arrived Monday to investigate alleged human rights abuses. A delegation from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH), which is part of the Organization of American States (OAS) [official website], arrived in the Honduran capital of Tegucigulpa Monday to assess the human rights situation in the wake of the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya [BBC profile; JURIST news archive].
Five people have filed a suit against Facebook, charging the social-networking company with violating California privacy laws and false advertising.
Honduras suspended diplomatic relations with Argentina on Tuesday in retaliation for having its ambassador expelled from Argentina last week.
Video from the protest in Phoenix, Arizona, shows the man standing with other protesters, with the rifle slung over his right shoulder.
The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday ordered [text, PDF] a federal court in Georgia to consider the case of death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis [defense website]. Davis had filed an original writ of habeas corpus [cert. petition, PDF] directly in the Supreme Court. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Antonin Scalia filed a dissenting opinion [text, PDF], joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, writing:
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] said Monday that it was required to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) [text] as long as "reasonable arguments can be made in support of [its] constitutionality" despite the administration´s belief that the law is discriminatory. Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer, a California couple, filed suit [case materials] alleging that DOMA, which denies federal recognition for same-sex marriages performed by states, unconstitutionally infringes on their civil liberties.
Live video streaming service Ustream is being sued by Square Ring, Inc, a boxing promotional company owned by professional boxer Roy Jones, Jr. The suit alleges that Ustream has committed “massive and blatant copyright infringement” by allowing 2,377 users to view a broadcast of the fight Roy Jones Jr. vs Omar Sheika free of charge. Furthermore, the suit says that Ustream has ignored repeated requests by Square Ring Inc. to gather more information about the infringement. From the suit:
Canadian Bar Association (CBA) [association website] President Guy Joubert [profile] Saturday urged [press release] the Canadian government to seek the repatriation of Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr [JURIST news archive] rather than appeal Friday´s Federal Court of Appeal´s decision [JURIST report] directing repatriation efforts. Joubert said the CBA was "very pleased" with the court ruling, in keeping with the CBA´s past appeals to Canadian officials and to the American government to expedite Khadr´s repatriation so he can stand trial under Canadian laws.
Federal and state officials toured a prison in rural Michigan Thursday in anticipation that it could eventually hold inmates [JURIST report] currently detained at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. Officials have not yet decided [Detroit Free Press report] whether the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility (SMF) [official website] will one day house some of the 229 Guantanamo detainees. Michigan officials are also considering using the SMF to hold out-of-state inmates with overcrowded prisons when SMF closes on October 1. Many local residents prefer [Detroit News report] the latter option, not wanting to have Guantanamo detainees nearby. The US Penitentiary in Leavensworth, Kansas [official website] appears to be the other leading candidate [Miami Herald Report] to house the detainees when the government closes Guantanamo Bay. Also this week, federal officials said that terrorism trials for some inmates could be held at a new high-security courthouse in Newport News, VA [Washington Post report] if the Obama administration sends cases to federal courts [JURIST report].
The Honduran Office of the Prosecutor of Common Crimes indicted 24 supporters of ousted president Manuel Zelaya [JURIST news archive] on charges of sedition and damages Friday. All 24 were accused [La Prensa report, in Spanish] of robbery, sedition, damages to private property, and illegal demonstrations stemming from protests on Wednesday. Eleven of the protestors are still detained at the National Penitentiary and 13 have been released conditionally. The National Organization Against the Coup d´Etat (FNCGE) [advocacy website, in Spanish] said Tuesday that if Zelaya is not reinstated over the next few day the organization will escalate government resistance actions and peaceful demonstrations that it has been carrying out since Zelaya was ousted [JURIST report] on June 28 following a judicial order [Honduras Supreme Court press release] asserting he had broken Honduran law by attempting to conduct a controversial referendum on constitutional reform contrary to a Honduran Supreme Court ruling.
Japan´s economy grew 3.7 percent on an annualized basis from April to June this year, the first time the world´s second largest economy has seen positive growth in 15 months.
A South Korean court on Friday found the former chairman of the Samsung Group guilty of a breach of trust in illicit bond transactions and sentenced him to a suspended 3-year jail term and a fine of 110 billion Korean won ($89 million), South Korea´s Yonhap News Agency reported.
Chinese officials retreated on Thursday from a plan to install so-called anti-pornography software on every computer sold here, saying instead that Internet cafes, schools and other public places must use the program, but that individual consumers will be spared.
The Supreme Court of the Republic of Kazakhstan [official website] on Thursday affirmed the conviction of publisher Ramazan Esergepov, sentenced to three years in jail for revealing state secrets in his newspaper. Esergepov was convicted on Saturday [AP report] for publishing communications purporting to show a connection between the Kazakh business community and the country´s intelligence bureau, the National Security Bureau (KNB) [official website]. Miklos Haraszti, Representative on Freedom of the Media at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) [official websites] said that revealing public corruption [press release] is "the main duty of the journalists acting in the public interest," and that "[c]riminal sanctions for ´breach of secrecy´ should only apply to the officials whose job descriptions stipulate the duty to protect sensitive information, but not to citizens."
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