Recent Updates
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Costa Rica court blocks gay civil union referendum
Legal World 08/11/2010Costa Rica's top court has blocked the electoral tribunal from holding a referendum that would have let voters decide if same-sex civil unions should be allowed in the Central American country.The Constitutional Court's 5-2 decision released Tuesday ...
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Mexican court upholds capital's gay marriage law
Legal World 08/06/2010Mexico's Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a law allowing same-sex marriages in Mexico City is constitutional, rejecting an appeal by federal prosecutors who argued it violated the charter's guarantees to protect the family.The justices' 8-2 ruling h...
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Polish court orders alleged Israeli spy extradited
Legal World 08/05/2010A Polish appeals court on Thursday upheld a lower court's decision to hand over to Germany an alleged Mossad agent wanted in the slaying of a Hamas leader.The decision means that the alleged agent, known as Uri Brodsky, must be handed over to Germany...
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Singapore arrests British writer for defamation
Legal World 07/19/2010Singapore has arrested a British author as part of a criminal defamation investigation related to his book on the city-state's death penalty policy, police said Monday. Alan Shadrake, 75, was in Singapore to promote the book and was arrested Sunday, ...
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Appeals court sides with Iranian dissident group
Legal World 07/19/2010An Iranian opposition group has won a round in its long legal fight to get the State Department to stop classifying it as a terrorist organization. A federal appeals court on Friday ordered the State Department to reconsider its decision to keep the ...
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UK court fines 5 firms for massive 2005 explosion
Legal World 07/16/2010A British court fined five companies a total of 9.5 million pounds ($14.6 million) Friday for a massive 2005 explosion at a U.K. oil depot that sent a huge smoke plume drifting across the European continent.Total UK, a subsidiary of French oil compan...
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US transfers Gitmo prisoner to Yemen
Legal World 07/15/2010A Guantanamo Bay prisoner has been transferred to his homeland of Yemen, the U.S. Defense Department announced on Tuesday, after a U.S. district court ordered the longtime detainee's release.The release of 26-year-old Mohammed Odaini after eight year...
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Immigration to rich countries fell during crisis
Legal World 07/12/2010Immigration to rich countries dropped during the global economic crisis, reversing five years of annual increases as the demand for labor fell, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Monday.A report showed that 4.4 million peo...
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Germany slams jailing of Syrian rights lawyer
Legal World 07/07/2010Germany condemned Wednesday the jailing of a 79-year-old prominent human rights lawyer by a Syrian court and demanded his immediate release.The German government's human rights commissioner, Markus Loening, said he was "shocked" by the sentencing of ...
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Chinese court sentences US geologist to 8 years
Legal World 07/05/2010An American geologist detained and tortured by China's state security agents over an oil industry database was jailed for eight years Monday in a troubling example of China's rough justice system and the way the U.S. government handles cases against ...
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Court rejects Pfizer appeal of Nigerians' lawsuits
Legal World 07/01/2010The Supreme Court is staying out of a dispute between Nigerian families and Pfizer, Inc., over the drug maker's use of a new antibiotic on children during a deadly outbreak of meningitis in the mid-1990s.The justices on Tuesday rejected the pharmaceu...
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Court: same-sex marriage is not universal right
Legal World 06/28/2010European nations do not have to allow same-sex marriage, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled, though gay rights groups claimed a partial victory Friday because the court acknowledged growing agreement that their relationships should be recog...