An air passenger was stunned to find a handgun in his luggage after a flight with Israel’s national carrier El Al. Security officers sometimes put replica guns in luggage to keep bag checkers on their toes. In theory, the weapon would be discovered during checks and removed, leaving passengers none the wiser. This handgun, however, appears to have slipped through the net — via Darren Barefoot
The UN-backed war crimes court in Sierra Leone has barred its president, Geoffrey Robertson QC, from judging cases involving rebels because of the appearance of bias against them. The ruling at the weekend defied calls to dump the London-based human rights lawyer but it sidelined him from the court’s most important cases because of a book he wrote lambasting rebel atrocities in the west African nation’s decade-long civil war
The Swiss government approved draft legislation to end a ban on absinthe, the mythical herbal liqueur beloved of turn-of-the-century artists and blamed for driving some of them mad
California’s Supreme Court has ordered San Francisco officials to immediately suspend same-sex marriages. The move was made pending a legal review on the issue later this year and comes amid conservative outrage and calls for a constitutional ban. More than 3,000 ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples have been performed in San Francisco since the city began issuing marriage licences last month. The court has yet to rule on the legality of these existing marriages — via Die Puny Humans
An Electronics Frontiers Australia board member has critically assessed the proposed Free-Trade Agreement between the United States and Australia released on 1 March, concluding that the document presents absolutely no benefit to Australia in the IP sections
The spineless Prime Minister has been accused of taking his electoral cues straight from Washington following his announced intention to overturn new ACT laws that allow homosexuals to adopt children
Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s move to raise Haiti’s minimum wage was the last straw for American corporations and elitist US
On the eve of Mardi Gras, Cunningham MP Michael Organ has declared he will introduce a Private Member’s Bill recognising same sex marriage within the next 3 weeks of Federal Parliament. Legal recognition for same sex marriage is long overdue. For our legal system to have any credibility, people must be treated equally, regardless of sexuality or anything else,
Michael Organ said
Under the Free Trade Agreement, Australia has agreed to the US takedown notice regime where copyright owners can force an ISP to remove material such as music, video or text files by serving written notice
The Criminal Code Amendment (Terrorist Organisations) Bill 2003 passed the Senate today, backed by Labor, hands the Attorney-General an unnecessary and dangerous new power to ban organisations in Australia. For the first time in Australian history people and organisations can be criminalised by the Attorney-General labelling them terrorists
Portland, Oregon is about to begin issuing marriage licences to same-sex couples. Oregon law states that marriage is between consenting males and females aged at least 17, but does not state that a marriage requires one of each — via HogBlog
California’s Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a 1999 injunction favouring the DVD Copy Control Association, which had filed a lawsuit against California resident Andrew Bunner, accusing him of violating its intellectual property rights by posting DeCSS (De-Content Scrambling System) software on his web site
Disputing a speed-camera fine could soon be a thing of the past. Toyota’s Sportivo Coupe concept car takes away the guesswork when it comes to identifying the leadfoot in the family. Finding the rightful recipient of the ticket could be as simple as sliding in a mobile phone-style SIM-card instead of a key. The card would contain details of the driver’s licence and address. Wireless technology would allow the car to communicate with the speed camera, and the fine could be deducted from the driver’s credit card before he or she even made it home. But would anyone buy such a car?
Britain faced deep international embarrassment last night after the former cabinet minister Clare Short claimed that its security services spied on Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, in the run-up to last year’s Iraq war
Twenty-one gay couples exchanged wedding vows on the steps of village hall Friday in a spirited ceremony that opened another front on the growing national debate over gay marriage. Mayor Jason West, 26, elected on the Green Party ticket last year in this village north of New York City, joined Gavin Newsom of San Francisco as the country’s only mayors to marry same-sex couples
Cunningham MP Michael Organ has released an exposure draft of a Bill of Rights [PDF] which will be introduced as a Private Member’s Bill in the Federal Parliament this year. The Bill aims to confer certain rights and responsibilities on the people and Parliament of Australia. It entrenches within the law the basic rights and freedoms we all hold dear; rights including freedom of speech, public assembly, freedom of religion and legal rights such as the presumption of innocence and equality under the law
An elderly Illinois couple, saying they are unable to pay as much as $1,000 each month for prescriptions, plans to venture into the war over drug imports today by filing a lawsuit against the government, arguing it is unconstitutional to prevent them from purchasing life-saving drugs at a lower price in Canada
Modern-day slavery is alive and well in Florida, the Centre for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University said as it released a report on people forced to work as prostitutes, farm workers and maids across the state
Aspects of the controversial Total Information Awareness DARPA program, officially shut down by the US Congress in September 2003 after a public outcry, seem to have survived. Some projects from Poindexter’s TIA effort were transferred to US intelligence offices, congressional, federal and research officials. In addition, Congress left undisturbed a separate but similar $64 million research program run by a little-known office called the Advanced Research and Development Activity, or ARDA, that has used some of the same researchers as Poindexter’s program
Chemical companies Bayer and Monsanto are prepared to risk farmers’ GM-free contracts overseas to ensure a stockpile of GM canola seed is ready for sale after the next growing season
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