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Wisconsin court accepts wind farm challenge
Industry News |
2011/12/15 11:36
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The state Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Wisconsin regulators properly approved a huge wind farm in southern Minnesota.
Regulators in Wisconsin and Minnesota gave Wisconsin Power amp; Light permission in 2009 to build the $450 million farm just north of Albert Lea.
Two Wisconsin groups representing energy consumers contend the Wisconsin Public Service Commission should have applied stiffer approval criteria to the project. The commission has countered that such standards don't apply to out-of-state facilities.
The 4th District Court of Appeals asked the Supreme Court to take the case directly. Online court records indicate the high court has accepted the case, with the first briefs due in mid-January. |
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Court tells UK to release Pakistani in US custody
Legal Business |
2011/12/14 13:04
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An appeals court issued a landmark ruling Wednesday ordering the British government to free a Pakistani detainee who has been held in U.S. custody for nearly eight years without charge.
It was unclear whether Yunus Rahmatullah would be released as required, however, because the U.S. government is not bound by the ruling. It announced that it was reviewing the ruling.
Britain has seven days to produce Yunus Rahmatullah, who is being held by American forces in Afghanistan, according to the Appeals Court's ruling.
Although Rahmatullah, 29, is not a British national, the UK-legal charity Reprieve filed a habeas corpus petition claiming that his detention lacked sufficient cause or evidence, and that British forces violated international law when they rendered him to U.S. custody.
British forces in Iraq seized Rahmatullah in 2004, but then handed him over to the Americans who sent him to the U.S. Air Base in Bagram, Afghanistan — a sprawling base that includes the Parwan detention facility where some 1,900 detainees are being held.
Wednesday's ruling marks one of the first times that a habeas corpus petition has been successful for a detainee at the U.S. base. It puts the United States and Britain in an awkward position — Britain is bound by the ruling, but the United States is not because the decision was handed down by a foreign court. |
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Egyptian military court jails blogger for 2 years
Legal Business |
2011/12/14 13:03
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An Egyptian military court has sentenced a political activist to two years in prison after convicting him of criticizing the armed forces and publishing false information.
Maikel Nabil Sanad was arrested in March and sentenced to three years, but the case was appealed and sent for retrial.
Sanad was arrested following posts on his blog comparing the military to the former regime of President Hosni Mubarak, toppled in February by a popular uprising. He also charged he was tortured by military police during an earlier detention.
He is one of 12,000 civilians who have faced military trials this year, a practice critics say deprives the accused of their rights.
Amnesty International considers Sanad a prisoner of conscience, and the U.S. has expressed concern about his detention. |
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Next ICC prosecutor warns against sex crimes
Industry News |
2011/12/14 13:03
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The next chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court pledged Tuesday to strengthen efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of sexual and gender crimes.
A day after her election by the 119 countries that support the tribunal, Gambian lawyer Fatou Bensouda said too often gender crimes go unreported and unpunished and the victims are trivialized, denigrated, threatened and silenced, which enables the abuses to continue unimpeded.
In its first cases, she said, the ICC has sent the message that this is no longer acceptable and must stop.
The International Criminal Court, which began operating in 2002, is the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal. It is a court of last resort, stepping in only when countries are unwilling or unable to prosecute alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
At the moment, the ICC is dealing with cases from Congo, the Central African Republic, Uganda involving the Lord's Resistance Army, the Darfur conflict in Sudan, the recent Libyan uprising, and post-election violence in Kenya and Ivory Coast.
At present, crimes such as rape, sexual slavery, and forced prostitution and pregnancy are alleged in some cases before the court in all of these situations except Libya, where an investigation of alleged gender-based crimes is still under way. |
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