July 13 (Bloomberg) -- UBS AG, the largest Swiss bank by assets, is in talks with the U.S. government to settle a lawsuit seeking the names of 52,000 American account holders suspected of using Swiss secrecy laws to evade taxes.

The bank agreed with the U.S. and Swiss governments to seek a settlement and postpone an evidentiary hearing today in a Miami courtroom, according to a court filing. The U.S. sued UBS on Feb. 19, a day after the bank agreed to pay $780 million to defer prosecution for helping wealthy Americans evade taxes.

Under that agreement, UBS also agreed to an unprecedented breach of Swiss secrecy laws by giving the Internal Revenue Service data on more than 250 accounts. Switzerland, which supports UBS in the case, said the U.S. push for data on 52,000 other accounts is a threat to its sovereignty and would force the bank to violate Swiss criminal laws protecting bank secrecy.

“This adjournment gives people at very high levels of both governments time to get involved and consider the implications of this litigation,” said Bryan Skarlatos, a tax lawyer at Kostelanetz & Fink LLP in New York. “The symbolic value of this case is huge. It’s King Kong versus Godzilla. It’s the IRS versus bank secrecy jurisdictions.”

Miscarriages of justice are likely to result from proposals to reduce legal aid fees to barristers, the chairman of the Bar Council has warned.

Desmond Browne QC said cutting defence barristers' fees by up to 23% would drive away experienced advocates from criminal trials in England and Wales.

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BBC NEWS | UK | Legal aid cut 'threatens justice'

In Case C-63/08, Virginie Pontin v T-Comalux SA (29 October 2009) the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that a 15 day time bar on claims for wrongful dismissal due to pregnancy was to brief to meet the standard of the principle of effective judicial protection of an individual’s rights under Community law. Articles 10 and 12 of Council Directive 92/85/EEC of 19 October 1992 and Article 2 of Council Directive 76/207/EEC of 9 February 1976 provide the substantive basis for EU* protection of women’s rights particularly with respect to the workplace.* EU Directives set out binding policy goals to be implemented by the Member States leaving the means to those ends to be implemented by the Member States through national legislation. The Directives here set out goals for workplace safety, maternity leave, and prohibitions of dismissal of workers, as well as establishing redress mechanisms. In the case at bar the remedy under national law for wrongful dismissal was time barred after just 15 days from posting of notice of dismissal. The ECJ found that time bar likely too brief to meet the demands of the Pregnant Worker’s Directive, strongly implying the 15 day time limit in Luxembourgeois law failed to meet the demands of the general principle of effective judicial protection and therefore also implying that this very brief time delay was an inadequate implementation by the Member State (Luxembourg) of the EU Directives finding for plaintiff.

For more information:
Synopsis:
Full text of Case C?63/08.

The interim government of Honduras has filed a complaint against Brazil in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Court announced on October 29. The complaint arises from events surrounding the surprise return to Honduras of Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, who entered the country on September 21 and took refuge in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa. Specifically, Honduras charges that Mr. Zelaya and an unknown number of other Honduran citizens have been using the Embassy as a “platform for political propaganda” with the complicity of Embassy staff and thereby “threatening the peace and internal public order of Honduras.” Honduras has requested declaratory and injunctive relief from the ICJ.


The legal bases of Honduras’s complaint are Article 2 (7) of the UN Charter, which reserves to member states matters which are “essentially within [their] domestic jurisdiction,” and the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. As a practical matter, Honduras’s complaint is only one element of a broader political and diplomatic offensive aimed at preventing Mr. Zelaya from returning to power before the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for November 29. It is unclear whether the ICJ will agree to hear the complaint, which was filed by an interim administration that many international observers consider illegitimate. Current efforts toward national reconciliation may also determine whether the case goes forward.


For more information, please click here.

Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization, recently released a statement describing the progress of the Doha Round and outlining plans for the continued negotiations in Geneva. Overall, Lamy reports that while the negotiations remain committed to their ambitions, there has been little tangible progress in the past week.* He also emphasizes that ambitions will be best served in the future through multilateral text-based negotiations.

In the area of Agriculture, members are discussing market access issues with regard to tariff caps and tariff-rate quotas, while also developing a template for scheduling commitments. Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) deliberations are occurring in several different formats, with both text-based debate and open-ended discussion over non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to trade.

Services discussions will now focus on domestic regulation through intensified text-based negotiations. Meanwhile, the Rules Group is honing in on anti-dumping and subsidies guidelines as well as regional trade agreements (RTAs). Deliberation on geographic identifications (GIs) for wine and spirits will also be more focused as members address four specific questions posed by the chair to encourage progress.

A new trade facilitation agreement is under formulation as members work to consolidate General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Articles for further negotiation. Additionally, the Committee on Trade and Environment Special Session (CTESS) has allowed members to discuss environmental goods and services during a September workshop and is now encouraging members to highlight environmental goods of interest.

Small Group negotiations will continue on the Monitoring Mechanism for Special and Differential Treatment, occasionally requiring open-ended meetings for group debriefing. The Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) will now discuss post-retaliation and compliance, having addresses transparency, amicus briefs and remand earlier this year.

For further information, please click here.

CGPA Takes Legal Action Against UBM: Suing the Host of GDC China for Unfair
Practices in Competition

Howell International Trade Fair Ltd. and the China Game Publishers Association (CGPA) today confirmed that CGPA has sued United Business Media LLC ("UBM", London Stock Exchange: UBM.L) in Beijing for unfair competition. CGPA, the host of the Second China Game Developers Conference ("CGDC"), demands that UBM, who hosts GDC China, immediately cease its unfair practices of competition. On the same day, Howell
International Trade Fair Ltd. sued UBM in Beijing for its violation of the intellectual property rights of the first CGDC event. Both two organizations' lawsuits demand UBM resolve any negative effects brought about by the said practices and violation activities, make an open apology, rehabilitate the reputation of CGDC's host and compensate for the economic losses it has suffered. (Howell International Trade Fair Ltd. partnered with CGPA as managers of the aforementioned Second China Game Developers Conference.)

For more detailed information, please contact:

Mr. Tan Yunpeng
Tel: +86-10-5165-9355 x19
Fax: +86-10-8773-2633
Email: tanyp@howellexpo.com

SOURCE Howell International Trade Fair Ltd.; China Game Publishers Assoc.

Mr. Tan Yunpeng, +86-10-5165-9355 x19, +86-10-8773-2633, tanyp@howellexpo.com

The legality of the U.S. Government’s use of unmanned Predator drones to target militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan has recently come under increasing scrutiny, as a prominent U.N. representative called the American refusal to discuss the program “untenable”. Philip Alston, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, made his remarks while reiterating requests for the U.S. to provide information on the legal rationale for its use of the drones, the mechanisms it uses to review the program, and the precautions it takes to make sure its air strikes conform with international law.


The debate over the legality of remote-controlled air strikes turns largely on the question of whether the American pursuit of terrorists represents an active armed conflict analogous to a conventional war between nations. As such, the debate over the drones is one example of the broader disagreement which has resulted from the application of international humanitarian law (IHL) to the “war on terror.” IHL, which regulates armed conflict between states, requires the existence of an active conflict, and only applies within the geographic limits of that conflict. Within these limits, IHL authorizes the killing of enemy combatants, including remotely, subject to limitations meant to assure that the use of force is necessary, minimally injurious to civilians, and proportional to expected military gains. Outside a zone of active conflict, however, IHL does not apply, and the U.S. ability to kill individuals without according them due process of law is restrained by a 1976 executive order against assassinations and, arguably, by international human rights law.


While some observers would call Afghanistan a zone of active conflict, far fewer would apply that description to Pakistan, and drones operated by the C.I.A. have been active in targeting militants there, including Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in August. American drones have also targeted militants in Yemen. In extending IHL to cover these strikes, supporters of the program have argued for the application of IHL wherever terrorists are found, not merely within geographically bounded zones of conflict. This is a novel argument, and as such, the use of Predators to target individuals outside the “war zones” of Afghanistan and Iraq arguably represents a violation of international law. It also represents a sharp departure from pre-9/11 U.S. policy, when C.I.A. drones were limited to conducting surveillance and the U.S. Government criticized Israel for conducting targeted killings of Palestinian militants.


Supporters of the C.I.A. program have argued that, whether or not IHL applies to the air strikes, they are lawful under both the UN Charter and the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) as a form of “anticipatory self-defense.” But opponents point to the principles of sovereign equality and non-intervention in the affairs of other states, arguing that individuals outside active war zones should be brought to justice through domestic processes of law. The question of whether the air strikes are proportional under IHL is also debated; the New Yorker reports that the effort to kill Baitullah Mehsud involved a series of 15 air strikes killing more than 200 other people. Finally, the loosening of geographic restrictions on state-sanctioned lethal force raises the uncomfortable prospect of an amorphous, global definition of conflict, which other states or non-state actors could potentially use to target Americans.


The practical value of the C.I.A. program is also debated. While the use of Predators has been credited with eliminating numerous Al Qaeda leaders and sowing confusion within the organization, it has also led to many civilian casualties, which has rallied anti-American sentiment in the very places where the U.S. is trying hardest to win “hearts and minds.” Another criticism of the program is that electing to kill terrorists rather than capture and interrogate them reduces the intelligence the U.S. can gather on its enemies; proponents of this argument point to the potential information value of Saad bin Laden, one of Osama’s sons, who was killed by a Predator strike in Pakistan. Finally, the recent inclusion of prominent Afghan drug traffickers on the list of acceptable targets has led critics to wonder whether there is any coherent policy limiting the use of the drones to individuals who pose a direct threat to the United States.


Whatever the legal and practical arguments for or against the use of unmanned air strikes against non-state actors, they are unlikely to end in the near future. In the rugged, inaccessible areas where many militants operate, the U.S. Government often believes that it has no good alternatives to the drones. Facing resistance to its plans to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, the Obama administration may make remote-controlled warfare an ever more central part of its counterterrorism strategy.


For further information, please click here and here.

by Dr. Jur. Eric Engle LLM

In Case C-386/08, (1) Advocate General(2) Bot delivered his advisory opinion to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Bot argues that the ECJ should not extend full faith and credit (3) to the Israeli customs authorities as to the authenticity of documents of origin of goods from the occupied territories. As a consequence, Bot would impose no legal duty to accept as presumptively true(4) statements of the Israeli customs authorities regarding goods originating in the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank.(5) Israel asserts that goods originating in the occupied territories are Israeli and entitled to the benefits of the customs union agreement between Israel and the E.U. Though the E.U. has a customs union agreement with both Israel(6) and the P.L.O.,(7) the benefits of those agreements cannot extend to goods originating in the occupied territories unless certified by the P.L.O. Essentially, the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories fall outside of Israel-EU agreements coverage – and within the Israel-PLO agreement’s coverage. Had the certificate of origin issued from the relevant Palestinian authority the goods would almost certainly have enjoyed the exemption from custom’s duties.(8)

The case arose out of a preliminary reference to the ECJ from the German tax court (Finanzgericht) for Hamburg. Brita GmBH, a German company, contested the customs duties imposed by Germany on imported goods from settlements in the occupied territories.(9) The German court specifically asked whether the goods could be granted the benefit of the the EC-Israel or the EC-PLO agreement when certified as of Israeli origin by Israel.(10) The referring court believes that the goods, whether originating in Israel or Palestine, should be subject to the exoneration of customs duties.(11) The advocate general disagrees first, on the terms of the treaty,(12) and second because to do so would not respect the sovereignty of the relevant Palestinian authorities. The Advocate General analogizes this case to early E.C. caselaw(13) (Cyprus(14)) where a result similar to the one he advocates was found.

The Opinion, which seems persuasive, will likely influence the ECJ’s impending final decision. It is not without implications for regional stability. Free trade makes war less likely by encouraging prosperity and interdependence, by breaking down isolation. To that end, the E.U. established a partnership with the countries of the Mediterranean basin to create free trade and encourage democracy and human rights’ protection(15) via bilateral agreements following a uniform model providing for free trade.(16) For the ECJ to grant the exemption of customs duties based on Israeli rather than Palestinian authority would be an act of de facto recognition of the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation as well as ignoring the plain meaning of the treaty. Hopefully the Israeli and Palestinian authorities will coordinate and resolve their differences, somehow.

Notes

(1) Brita, GmbH v Hauptzollamt Hamburg Hafen, 29/Oct./2009 Available at: http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bi...umaff=C-386/08 (Opinion) (Hereafter: Brita, A.G.)


(2) The Advocate General is a post which has no real parallel in U.S. law. The Advocate General writes advisory opinions which can be analogized to an “amicus curiae” brief. The ECJ may or may not take the Advocate General’s opinion into account and may or may not use in reaching its final verdict. The Advocate General’s opinion has no binding authority.


(3) Brita, A.G., para. 75-77. The decision does not however use the U.S. term “full faith and credit” however the conceptual shorthand analogy holds.


(4) Brita, A.G., Para. 83-84.


(5) A similar analysis would apply to goods originating in the Gaza strip.


(6) OJ 2000 L 147, p. 3, the ‘EC-Israel Agreement’.


(7) OJ 1997 L 187, p. 3, the ‘EC-PLO Agreement’. Article 73 of the agreement states that it is to apply to the territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.


(8) Brita, A.G., para. 134.


(9) Brita, A.G., para. 2.


(10) Brita, A.G., para. 5.


(11) Brita, A.G., para. 106.


(12) Brita, A.G., para 108, citing Article 83 of the EC-Israel Agreement.


(13) Anastasiou, Case C 432/92 [1994] ECR I 3087.


(14) Agreement annexed to Council Regulation (EEC) N° 1246/73 of 14 May
1973 (OJ 1973 L 133, p. 1, the ‘EEC-Cyprus Agreement’).


(15) Brita, A.G., para. 9, 10.


(16) Article 8 of the EC-Israel Agreement provides that ‘customs duties on imports and exports, and any charges having equivalent effect, shall be prohibited between the Community and Israel. This shall also apply to customs duties of a fiscal nature’.

On Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) released its ruling on three cases concerning disappearances in Chechnya. In one of the cases, the victim, Mayrudin Khantiyev, had been abducted from his home by a group of masked men. In the other two cases, the victims, Yusup Satabayev and Kazbek Vakhayev, disappeared while in Russian detention. In all three cases, the Court rejected Russia’s arguments that the men had not been under Russian control at their time of disappearance and awarded the victims’ families a combined total of 130,540 euros for Russia’s violations of the victims’ rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.

These cases fall in a steady stream of petitions to the Court concerning events in Chechnya—by some estimates up to 400. The Court has already issued judgments in over 100 of these cases and has developed evidentiary presumptions for the Chechen context, which it applied to the cases at hand.

For example, the Court has before held that it will draw a negative inference from Russia’s refusal to turn over investigative reports—despite the fact that Russia’s domestic law bans the government from doing so. The Court relied on such an inference to reject Russia’s claims that Satabayev and Vakhayev had been released from Russian detention before they disappeared. Furthermore, the Court made reference to factual presumptions arising from Russia’s “exclusive control” of the area from which Khantiyev was abducted—as well as Russian guards’ “blatant passivity” in response to the event—in rejecting Russia’s contention that Khantiyev’s abductors had not been Russian agents.

In analyzing claims relating to the victims’ right to life, the Court referred to a much stronger evidentiary presumption, which it first developed in the 2006 case of Imakayeva v. Russia: “[I]n the context of the conflict in the Chechen Republic, when a person is placed in detention without any subsequent acknowledgement of the detention, this can be regarded as life-threatening.” In other words, the Court will presume someone dead when it is established that they disappeared under Russian control.

Ole Solvang, the Executive Director of Russian Justice Initiative, suggests that such victim-friendly evidentiary presumptions have developed in the Chechen disappearance context due to the fact that “[t]he frequent lack of evidence concerning the fate of the victim and the identity of the perpetrators makes it difficult for a court to hold individuals responsible for the disappearance of a person.” The problem is also widespread, with a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report from 2005 already estimating that some 5,000 people had disappeared in Chechnya at the hands of military and security forces since the outbreak of hostilities in 1999—occurrences that in the aggregate HRW calls a crime against humanity.

HRW’s allegations, based not on human rights law but rather on the laws of armed conflict or international humanitarian law (IHL), remind us that the line of Chechen cases before the ECtHR are part of a larger trend of victims of wartime atrocities turning to human rights tribunals to air their claims in the absence of effective enforcement for the laws of war. Last summer’s armed conflict in South Ossetia, for example, has given rise to a flurry of additional cases before the ECtHR as well as a claim by Georgia before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Russia’s actions violated the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination—a case that the ICJ accepted on the bases of the Convention even though it would not have been able to hear it without Russia’s consent had it been brought under IHL.

There are different views on the merits of translating wartime activities into claims under human rights instruments designed for peacetime, but one result of the trend is clear from the ECtHR’s treatment of the Chechnya cases. While IHL generally applies different law to different individuals based on their status as a civilian or member of an armed group, human rights courts seem generally willing to substitute their functional tests that look beyond membership to the individual characteristics of the victim. In the present three cases, for example, the Court made no distinction between Satabeyev, who had been a member of a rebel group, and the other two victims, who had not.

In other cases, the Court has further proved willing to enforce the protections provided by human rights law even when IHL would explicitly have offered lesser protection. For example, in the 1996 case of Bazorkina v. Russia, the Court found that a rebel detained while in active combat enjoyed the extensive procedural rights afforded by the Convention—as opposed to the low level of protection provided to combatants in non-international armed conflicts by Article 3 common to the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

With some 300 cases still pending before the ECtHR on the Chechen conflict alone, as well as new cases from the South Ossetian conflict now on the dockets of the ECtHR and ICJ, it is unlikely we will soon see the end of war victims turning to human rights law for reparation. Hopefully international human rights law can help to prevent such incidents in the future.


For further information, please click here.

By Daniel Purisch, edited by Eric Engle

Many of the acts that the former Serb leader in Bosnia, Radovan Karadzic, is accused of committing happened over fifteen years ago. No reason, it seems, we can’t wait another day to start the genocide trial against him, eh?

The one-day delay for the trial’s opening — from Monday to Tuesday — was the result of Karadzic’s boycott of the trial’s opening. That said, the court said the prosecution would open its case on Tuesday, regardless of whether Karadzic showed up. Click here for the WSJ story; here for the Bloomberg story; here for the AP story.

Karadzic has been in detention in The Hague since he was discovered in Belgrade last year, in disguise and practicing alternative psychiatric medicine. He has refused to be represented in court by a lawyer.

He is charged with 11 counts of war crimes, including two of genocide. The charges relate to Srebrenica, the site of a 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims; the siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo between April 1992 and November 1995; and the taking of United Nations hostages in 1995 to dissuade the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from air strikes.

The judge made it clear in a statement that he had already warned Karadzic he would either continue the trial without him, sending transcripts and tapes to his cell, or would impose counsel if he continued to insist he will only attend the trial when he feels he is ready.

So what is likely to be Karadzic’s strategy? According to the Journal, Karadzic looks set to try to string the proceedings out and turn them into an inquest into the role of the West in the war, according to lawyers familiar with the case. The strategy was applied by former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic, who stalled proceedings and used the courtroom as a bully pulpit to showcase his views on the wars in Balkans. The Journal reports that such political theater played well on television back home in Serbia.

“Karadzic is playing for the pages of history. His audience is in Bosnia and Serbia, he doesn’t care about the judges,” said Marko Milanovic, a lawyer with the Belgrade Center for Human Rights, who closely follows the trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

That said, in pretrial submissions and hearings, Karadzic has already given some hints that he plans to challenge prosecutors’ assertions on the number of people allegedly killed at Srebrenica. .

“The true death toll at Srebrenica was five times less than what people say, and those who died were military,” said Svetozar Vujacic, who leads Mr. Karadzic’s defense team. Asked how he knew that information without access to the DNA data, Mr. Vujacic said: “we have proof.”

AP - A father of two from Nepal who thought he was going to America wound up in Iraq, forced to work at a U.S. airbase. A 14-year-old Ugandan girl kidnapped by rebels spent nearly eight years in captivity as a sex slave and human shield. And a young Venezuelan woman lured to New York by the man she loved wound up in a brothel his family was running.

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Further losses of EU development fund to Fiji likely if junta prolongs return to democracyfrom Raw Fiji News by rawfijinews


The Council of the European Union which last week extended its suspension of development assistance to Fiji by another six months, says this will be resumed gradually if Fiji were to fulfil its commitment to the EU.

These commitments related to the restriction of human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for democratic principles and the rule of law, and steps proposed regarding their implementation.

In its latest review of the situation in Fiji the Council noted that there had been a series of regressive developments, in particular following the events of 10 April 2009, resulting in a breach of a range of commitments the regime here had given the EU in consultation talks held in Brussels in April 2007.

The Council met in Brussels on 24 September and issued the following statement at the end of its meeting:

“Today the Council extended by six months appropriate measures for the Fiji Islands in order to assist the country’s return to democracy, the respect for human rights and the rule of law (13087/09). This decision follows the violation by the authorities of key commitments Fiji made to the EU, as well as further regressive developments such as the abrogation of the Constitution, human rights violations and a further substantial delay in holding elections.

The European Union regards the extension of the measures as a window of opportunity for a possible new political dialogue. Should these consultations result in new credible commitments from Fiji, the EU is ready to review its measures positively.

The package of measures for the the Fiji Islands had initially been adopted on 1 October 2007 for a period of two years. This marked the conclusion of consultations under Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement, which were held in 2007. They came in the wake of the military takeover in Fiji on 5 December 2006, which the EU considered a violation of democracy and the rule of law, both essential elements of the Cotonou Agreement.

The appropriate measures currently in place are designed to assist the assist the Fiji Islands in the transition: the development cooperation would gradually be resumed if Fiji were to fulfil its commitments concerning human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law. As Fiji’s authorities have decided to break a number of the commitments, this has led to losses for Fiji in terms of development funds. Humanitarian aid as well as direct support to civil society are not affected by the appropriate measures.

The measures taken today will expire on 31 March 2010.”

The authorities here have been notified that the EU is prepared to engage in new formal consultation talks. However, the EU has emphasised the importance of the interim government committing itself to inclusive political dialogue and to flexibility with regard to the time frame for a roadmap to return to democracy and constitutional rule.

The EU has stressed that should new consultations result in substantial commitments from the regime, the EU may undertake an early review of the appropriate measures it has instituted. However, the EU has warned that should the situation in Fiji not improve, then further losses of development funds for Fiji are set to continue.

Scottish Law Chief Denounces Convicted Lockerbie Bomber's Posted Documents

Scotland's chief prosecutor has denounced convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi for posting the first of hundreds of documents onto his Web site. Megrahi - who is terminally ill with cancer - says the documents will prove his innocence in the 1988 attack that killed 270 people.

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of bombing Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, posted the 353-pages of legal arguments on the Internet Friday.

The documents come from an appeal against his 2001 conviction, which was dropped just before he was released from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds last month. He is dying of prostate cancer.

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VOA News - Scottish Law Chief Denounces Convicted Lockerbie Bomber's Posted Documents

Hungary will accept a prisoner from the Guantanamo Bay U.S. military detention center, which President Barack Obama has pledged to close, Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai said Wednesday.

Bajnai said Hungary would choose from a short list of Guantanamo prisoners in the coming days and that he would participate in an 18-month integration program.

"According to our current expectations ... the chosen candidate will be a Palestinian man who will be able to start a new life in Hungary," Bajnai told reporters.

"I ask my fellow citizens to consider the difficult circumstances in which the detainee spent his latest years and help his future integration."

Bajnai said he had called U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday to inform her of Hungary's decision.

Daniel Fried, the U.S. government's envoy in charge of closing the Guantanamo prison, thanked Hungary and said all detainees who had been included as candidates for resettlement have been cleared of "any residual security questions which may remain."

PROPOSED 'FIJI TRUTH COMMISSION' MATERIALS. [Must Read from REALFIJI.]

Synopsis of Breach by Frank Bainimarama of International Law

· Freedom of Conscience, Religion and Belief [Art 18 ICCPR, Art 18 UDHR]

· Freedom from Discrimination on Religious Grounds [Art 26 ICCPR, Art 1,6,7 UDHR]

· Freedom from Torture, Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading treatment [Art.5 UDHR]

· Rights of arrested or detained persons [Art. 9 UDHR]

· Rights of charged persons [Art.11 UDHR, Art 14(2)-(7) ICCPR]

· Right to Fair Trial [Art 14 ICCPR, Art 9,10,11 UDHR]

In my view the most fundamental right is the Right to a ‘Fair Trial’ and what that means, or more precisely why NOBODY tried for an offence under the current illegal military appointed judiciary will have a fair trial.

Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states:
“All persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals. In the determination of any criminal charge against him, or of his rights and obligations in a suit at law, everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law”

I wish to regurgitate an analogy from Raw Fiji News (18th June) that summarised what this means in non-legal terms so that even Frank can understand as it would be futile to quote from the House of Lords in the UK or cite local coup conspirators’ judgments, including Nazhat Shameem and Anthony Gates.

“Now here is a story of a case in Wales: A simple, clear, straightforward case. On the evidence given no jury could acquit the accused.

The defence lawyer asked the trial judge if he could address the jury in Welsh. The judge agreed.
The defence lawyer took three minutes. The jury retired and came back five minutes later with a “not guilty” verdict. The judge had no choice but to release the prisoner.

The judge was so suprised that he asked the Welsh speaking usher, what the defence lawyer had said.

“Well my Lord, said the usher, “the defence lawyer had said to the jury: ‘look at the situation: the judge is an English man, the arresting police officer is an English man, and the prosecutor is an English man. The accused is Welsh, you members of the jury are Welsh, and I the defence lawyer am Welsh. I rest my case.’”

In Fiji we will not be as lucky as the Welsh prisoner.

In Fiji the Police Commissoner is a coup apologist, the Director of Public Prosecutions is a coup apologist, the Director of the Legal Aid Commission is a coup apologist, the Chief Justice, Judges and Magistrates are all coup apologists, and the Chief Registrar that selects the jury (assessors) is a coup apologist.

Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done.

I rest my case”

No doubt all soldiers currently under the misdirected psychotic command of Frank Bainimarama have also being misled, and their oath of allegiance misplaced, they must not condone illegality, in fact, Frank Bainimarama should be arrested and Court Martialled under the 1955 Army Act by the Commander in Chief and Military Council, and if found guilty he must be executed by firing squad as the 1997 Constitution does not accord a treasonous soldier to have the death penalty commuted.

Synopsis of Breach by Frank Bainimarama of International Law | realfijinews on Xanga

* Bill suggests voters pick candidates, not just parties

* Elections a key test of Iraq's security gains

Iraq's cabinet has approved a draft law paving the way for national elections in January, including a shift to an open list allowing voters to pick candidates, not just parties, the government said on Saturday.

The draft legislation, an amended version of the law used to hold Iraq's last national elections in 2005, would now be submitted to Iraq's 275-member parliament for discussion, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.

The new proposal would abandon the closed list system used in 2005, in which voters selected only political parties. Since then, the United Nations and other foreign officials have lobbied for an open list system allowing voters to select individual candidates, providing more choice and transparency.

The open list system was used in January provincial polls. It is seen as favourable to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is seeking a second term and may be facing off against erstwhile allies from Iraq's Shi'ite Arab majority.

Dabbagh made no mention of how, under the proposal approved by the cabinet, elections would be held in Kirkuk, the northern oil hub disputed by Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs.

The lower house of the Czech parliament approved a constitutional change on Friday that will allow an early election to be held by early November.

The Czech political scene was thrown into chaos after the Constitutional Court struck down an election planned for Oct 9-10 on legal grounds, prompting the main parties to seek a quick alternative path to the vote.

The constitutional law is expected to be approved by the upper house, the Senate, possibly later on Friday, and signed by President Vaclav Klaus immediately after.

The amendment would allow the lower house to dissolve itself next week, and Klaus could then call an election, possibly for November 6-7.

The new amendment could however still be challenged at the Constitutional Court.

AP - Aid groups were joining together Wednesday to highlight the growing danger their staff members face in crisis zones around the world, where kidnappings and killings of humanitarian workers are on the rise.

Some 122 aid workers were killed last year, most of them local. The figure is greater than the number of U.N. peacekeeping troops killed in 2008, and compares with only 36 aid worker deaths a decade earlier, according to the U.N.'s humanitarian coordination office.

"We are targeted more and more," U.N. spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said in an interview ahead of World Humanitarian Day. The event, being held for the first time Wednesday, coincides with the sixth anniversary of the bombing of the U.N.'s main offices in Baghdad on Aug. 19, 2003.

The rapid increase is blamed partly on a growth in aid operations in the most lawless parts of the world, with Afghanistan, Darfur and Somalia accounting for almost two-thirds of all attacks.

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If Hamas crushed an attempt by an al-Qaeda linked group from imposing Shariah law in Gaza, does this mean they have suddenly become moderates? Abdel-Latif Moussa, an imam with radical ideas, was seen on al-Jazeera TV, giving a sermon, gesticulating with force, and apparently was attempting to impose Shariah law militarily. He spoke in Rafah, during a noon sermon on Friday, and was surrounded by armed gunmen.

Hamas government security forces would have none of it. A two day battle ensued between Hamas, the imam and his followers which ended with his death as well as 27 other people. The imam took refuge in mosque with his entourage, eventually sneaked out of there to hide in various homes, and died when an explosion hit his hideout. Unconfirmed reports indicate that he or one of his aides detonated a suicide belt.

Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Ihab Ghussein was reported as saying that Hamas took care to educate people in proper and 'moderate' Islam. He added that the deceased imam had been preaching a perverted version of Islam, and had purportedly planned to blow up internet cafes and other social venues.

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Hamas rejects Islamic law for Gaza; what's next?

NASSAU, Bahamas — Lawmakers are debating a bill that would make marital rape a crime in the Bahamas, overturning the current system in which consent to sexual intercourse is presumed in a legal marriage.

Legislator Loretta Butler-Turner, who drafted the bill, said the attitude that wives are subordinate to husbands has put some women at risk of violence in the socially conservative archipelago.

"There is a constituency of our community that is not protected against rape," she said. "That is the bottom line."

Under current Bahamian law, a man can be charged with raping his wife only if the two are in divorce proceedings or living apart.

The bill already has caused debate on radio talk shows, with some islanders saying women could file false rape charges as leverage for alimony, child support or custody. Others have said the bill contradicts traditional Christian values.

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The Associated Press: Bahamas bid to outlaw marital rape stokes debate

AFP - A US federal judge here ordered the deportation of a Yemeni Muslim cleric originally sentenced in 2005 to 75 years in prison for supporting terrorism.

Judge Dora Irizarry on Friday sentenced Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, 60, to time served and kicked him out of the country. His assistant and bodyguard, Mohammed Zayed, 34, also originally sentenced to a lengthy prison term, was sentenced to time served and also deported.

The move comes after a US Court of Appeals in October overturned al-Moayad and Zayed's convictions, stating that the judge in the 2005 case allowed evidence during the trial that tainted the jury against the defendants.

Al-Moayad and Zayed pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide support to a foreign terrorist organization -- in this case Hamas -- and were sentenced to time served.

Al-Moayad, former imam of the main mosque in Yemen's capital Sanaa, and Zayed were arrested in Frankfurt, Germany in 2003.

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