Cybersmart.in launches New Look Cyber Law and Technology website

Cybersmart.in has upgraded and expanded its free online resource center Cybersmart.in launches New Look Cyber Law and Technology website.

Do you like to keep up-to-date on news and articles related to Internet and Technology Issues India and International? Do you like to be updates about hot topics related to Cyberspace and upcoming workshops.

Cybersmart.in has upgraded and expanded its free online resource center to include News, Articles, Videos, Seminar and Workshop details moderated by Internet Researcher and Psychologist Maninder Singh Walia. Cybersmart.in's new website/blog is designed to be more user-friendly and extensive by incorporating interactive polls, providing access to volumes of archives, supplying streaming video clips and keeping a live feed on news that is regularly updated.

In addition to its resource center, Cybersmart.in also provides counselling with support of CIPFO (Cyberspace and Intellectual Property Foundation) to attorneys, professionals and students by a team of specialists in both Technology and Law.

Visit Cybersmart resource center including the new look website at http://www.cybersmart.in

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International Cyber Law Treaty And India

Recently Alexander Seger, Head of Economic Crime Division, Council of Europe, asked India to be a part of the Convention on Cybercrime. Although the intentions seem to be good yet the end result would be a big failure. This is so because an action without proper planning and preparation can never fetch the desired result. India is presently suffering from weak cyber law, ignored cyber security and absence of cyber forensics capabilities. The Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act, 2000) is the sole cyber law of India that is regulating all the aspects of cyber law, cyber security and cyber forensics. Undoubtedly, the legal enablement of ICT systems in India is missing. Surprisingly, Seger thinks that the Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2008 now provides with a "fairly complete" legal framework. He opined that now the most important step is to follow it up with steps that will enable India to cooperate internationally in an effective manner. Here lies the catch.
According to Praveen Dalal, the Leading Techno-Legal Specialist of India, India is currently not equipped to sign any International Convention or Treaty regarding Cyber Law and Cyber Crimes. If the very base is defective we cannot get the result we are carving for. The IT Act, 2000 is weak, cyber security is missing and cyber forensics capabilities do not exist. There are no efforts in these directions in India except by private sector. Private Initiatives like Cyber Law Working Group are very important for bringing “Harmonisation” of cyber law. The Working Group of Perry4Law is trying to leverage the opinion and expertise of specialists in their respective fields. Further, among many laudable objectives of the Group, one of it pertains to providing assistance in the formulation of “International Cyber Law Treaty”. We are in the process of formulating a draft that must be considered by the Indian government before acceding to any Convention in this regard”.
It is clear that India is not yet ready to sign any international treaty or convention. Signing of the same would only increase pressure upon the law enforcement and Indian government. The proper course of actions is to improve its position regarding cyber law, cyber security and cyber forensics. Once that is achieved, we must proceed towards analysing the draft of European Union or any other institution.

Sources:http://www.webnewswire.com/

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Why we aren't prosecuting pirates

There is panic in the voices. Screams across the ocean. The radio on the bridge of HMCS Winnipeg is crackling with desperate calls from cargo ships under fire, assaulted by bands of pirates off the coast of Somalia.
The 46 warships patrolling these waters, including the Winnipeg, often thwart pirate attacks by catching up to their speedboats and boarding them with heavily armed commando-like teams.

Despite their successes, though, very few pirates have been charged.
In fact, these boarding teams keep coming across many of the same young men they've seen, disarmed and then freed before.
Why is this being tolerated?
Because these interventions are coming about before pirates actually break the law and, when they do, it's too late.
Loitering with intent
Take two examples, witnessed by our CBC crew while on board HMCS Winnipeg this month.
In the first, the warship's helicopter spotted a speedboat carrying weapons and a ladder (often used to board and hijack merchant ships).
There was no question in anyone's mind what the speedboat operators were up to: they were waiting for a target ship to pass and to attempt to seize it.

Even so, that's little more than loitering with intent — not a crime under international law.
In the second instance, the skiff was actually spotted attempting to board a vessel. But "attempting" is not illegal either.
In both cases, the Somali pirates had their weapons seized — which is allowed under international law — and are thus temporarily disabled.
But in both cases, these alleged pirates go on their way.

New laws needed
If the world is serious about combating piracy, countries will have to alter international laws to define new crimes and new ways of prosecuting.

As the Law of the Sea currently reads, "every state may seize a pirate ship or aircraft, or a ship or aircraft taken by piracy and under the control of pirates, and arrest the persons and seize the property on board."
But then it is up to the courts of the apprehending country — in the case of HMCS Winnipeg, Canada — to judge the crime and apportion the penalties, something few Western countries are prepared to do.
One of the new crimes the international community might contemplate is "belonging to a pirate group," much as membership in or association with organized crime is illegal in many Western nations.
But even that definition might be problematic for certain countries and there are other problems as well.
For example, pirates often dump the evidence (ladders and weapons) overboard when a warship is giving chase and military helicopters don't always arrive on the scene early enough to catch photographic or video evidence of an attempted hijacking.
Then there is the fact that the mostly transient crews of cargo ships aren't much interested in leaving their jobs and its pay to testify in some far away court.
Piracy will always be a legal matter and without evidence you can't prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Catch-22
Never mind that, until fairly recently, very few people had been charged with piracy, or "sea robbery," as it was called in a 17th century law, in 150 years. It's not an area many lawyers, judges or jurisdictions have much expertise in.
That raises questions about where pirates will be tried. At the moment, Kenya seems to be the answer, largely because it is willing and not far from the centre of the action. Britain, the U.S. and the European Union have now signed agreements allowing pirates to be brought to the Kenyan city of Mombasa for trial.
The Americans have also brought one Somali pirate to the U.S. to face prosecution. But they had a vested interest in that case as it involved the hijacking of an American ship and the hostage-taking of an American captain.
The French had a similar situation with the yacht Le Ponant last year and the legal run-up to that case has become something of a gong show in France.
The Russians caught 26 pirates and threw them into the brig of a warship. After several weeks, they're still there. No one knows what to do with them or how to prove exactly that they were involved in piracy.
The Netherlands nabbed a couple of pirates who are, apparently, quite pleased with their arrest: they told a Dutch newspaper that life with a flushable toilet and three meals a day is utopia and that they hope for long prison sentences.
Navies patrolling the Gulf of Aden off Somalia hope word of this doesn't get out. If it does, Somalian speedboats may be surrendering en masse.
Of course, all this legal confusion is very frustrating for the Canadian sailors working their patch of the Gulf of Aden. This fight is not unlike trying to prosecute a street gang — until they do something illegal, you can't throw them in jail.
And most governments — including Canada — have told their navies not to intervene once a hijacking has actually taken place, out of fear for the lives of any hostages.
It's almost the classic Catch-22. Pirates can't be prosecuted until they hijack, but once they hijack, it's unlikely anyone will try to stop them.

Sources:http://www.cbc.ca/

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Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Compliance Remains Elusive

Most nations have signed an international treaty banning the testing of nuclear weapons. But nine key states with nuclear capabilities are preventing the ban from entering into force.

Those nine have yet to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Among them, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Israel and the United States have signed the treaty. But North Korea, India and Pakistan have not.The Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty prohibits all nuclear testing everywhere on the planet - above and below the ground, in the air and underwater. All 44 countries with nuclear technology capabilities (at the time of the treaty's final negotiations in 1996) must sign and ratify the treaty before it can take effect. Until then, the ban is merely a suggestion that countries not develop or test nuclear weapons.Worldwide, 180 states have signed the treaty, of which 148 have actually ratified the ban. Fifteen countries have not signed the treaty.While the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was open for signature between 1945 and 1996, more than 2,000 nuclear tests were conducted. The U.S conducted more than 1,000 tests, while the former Soviet Union held more than 700. France ran more than 200 nuclear tests, and the United Kingdom and China each conducted 45.Three countries have broken the unofficial ban on nuclear tests since 1996. India and Pakistan each tested nuclear weapons in 1998, while North Korea tried out its nuclear capabilities in 2006 and 2009.

Sources:http://www.voanews.com/

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North Korea fires sixth missile and restarts nuclear plant

North Korea is reported to have restarted its nuclear plant and fired another short-range missile in defiance of warnings from the United States that it would "pay the price" for its actions.

A South Korean official told Yonhap, the news agency, that a night-time missile launch had been carried out on Tuesday and that there are signs of imminent further launches along the rogue state's West coast. The latest missile brings the total number of launches to six in the past three days. The North has warned that it may continue to launch missiles until Saturday.
"The North appears to have launched a ground-to-ship missile into the East Sea shortly after 9pm Tuesday," said the unnamed defence official. Pyongyang had already launched two missiles from its east coast earlier on Tuesday, after firing three on Monday.

It is unclear whether the missiles are test-launches, or whether North Korea is seeking to dissuade South Korean and US spy planes from hovering over its military installations in order to verify its claim of a nuclear test.
According to the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, spy planes have detected steam coming from the nuclear reprocessing facility at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear plant, suggesting that North Korea has once again begun to extract plutonium for its weapons programme.
The North has already warned that it intended to being turning its spent nuclear fuel rods into plutonium in protest at the international criticism of its rocket test on April 5. Yongbyon is thought to be capable of processing 200 to 250 tons of spent fuel each year and harvesting around 100kg of plutonium. In the past, the US has warned that reprocessing fuel is an action that could lead to a military strike on the country.
Pyongyang triggered global condemnation on Monday after detonating a nuclear bomb in a bunker six-miles underground, in the country's north east. Experts are now scaling down their estimates of the size of the nuclear device, and a precise analysis will take days or weeks. However, a senior White House official said the explosion was "several kilotons", a major advance on the North's test in 2006.
The United Nations Security Council met on Tuesday to begin work on a response to North Korea's actions, and Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN said a new resolution "will indeed take some time". Mrs Rice said the US wanted "a strong resolution with teeth. Those teeth could take various different forms. They are economic levers, they are other levers that we might pursue."
The Security Council is expected to produce its plan in the next fortnight, although it is likely to face opposition from China on any major sanctions, especially since only China has any major economic ties with the pariah state.
The Chinese government said that it was "resolutely opposed" to the nuclear test, but weakened the tone of its statement from the strong words it issued in response to North Korea's first nuclear test in October 2006. It also called for a "calm response" to the crisis and expressed hope that the issue would be resolved through dialogue. China is North Korea's biggest source of food and fuel, but receives access to North Korean minerals in return.
With tensions on the Korean peninsula high, South Korea said it would join a US-led initiative to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction, a move that Pyongyang has previously warned it would consider "an act of war".

Sources:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

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The naming it a “War on Terror” creates a problem

Several years ago, I wrote of our proclivity to use the term “war” when we really mean focusing our resources to address a societal problem. Thus we have had a “war on poverty”, a “war against drugs”, a “war against inflation” and others. These are not real wars in the conventional sense; no one seriously expects to totally eradicate drugs or poverty, for example but there is no real harm in using the term.

The use of the term, “war on terror”, however, causes all manner of difficulties and creates a conundrum that has the President taking a position that is clearly outside of the country’s values. To his credit, President Obama has not reversed all of the prior administration’s policies and he is insisting that these policies be modified so as to make them consistent with American values of judicial review. For example, military tribunals will continue but procedures before those tribunals will have traditional civil rights attached.
However, President Obama used a term last week that I find disturbing, “prisoner of war”.
There are no individual or groups that would argue that the United States and other western nations are not threatened by groups that find our freedoms and values inconsistent with their values. There is, further, no rational doubt that those groups wish to undermine and destroy western countries replacing them with regimes consistent with their beliefs. The Muslim fanatics-terrorists have attacked this country and there is little doubt in my mind that more acts of destruction and horror will follow. In response to this very real threat, the United States declared a "War of Terror". I submit that this terminology is misleading and, more is counter-productive. It has led to indefensible positions and arguments.The conflict we now face is one that has become prevalent since the Vietnam era. In fact, the Vietnam experience has, apparently, taught us nothing about the changing nature of war and international conflict. We are engaged in a different kind of war, one where the opposition is an ideology and not another country.Conventional "war" is a fight between nation-states; it has a definite start and a definite conclusion, the latter being the surrender by or utter destruction of the losing entity. War, in its classical definition, was fought by formal military forces. Warring parties capture and hold territory, which they can win or lose; and each has a leading person or organization which can surrender, or collapse, thus ending the war. The War on Terror has none of these attributes; our adversaries are part of no nation-state, albeit some nations give them financial and logistic support. Terrorists are not part of a formal army or military unit. And, far more important, there is no central authority which could end the war.
It is accepted under United States and international law that “prisoners of war” are enemy combatants who may be incarcerated, detained, whatever the word, until the war has ended.How will we know when the War is over? When the last persons bearing animus against western civilization has died?In discussing the status of "detainees" at Guantanamo, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield had said, years ago, that some detainees even without judicial or quasi-judicial oversight or even if acquitted in criminal proceedings, may remain in detention "for the duration of the conflict." When asked to specify when, in his view, this would be, he replied, "when we feel that there are not effective global terrorist networks functioning in the world." President Obama, last week, said the same thing. The President said that the detention could last, perhaps, ten years.
This policy has at least an arguable basis in the laws of war. According to the Geneva Conventions, captured combatants may be detained without charges until the end of active hostilities. The justification for this rule is that a government involved in an armed conflict has an obvious interest in ensuring that enemy soldiers are kept away from combat for the duration of the conflict.
In an ordinary war, it is fairly easy to determine when hostilities have ended. This current conflict, however, as least as framed by the Pentagon, is no ordinary war. There has been enormous debate over when the war began - was it with the attacks on New York and Washington, the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center during the Clinton administration, or with the commencement of the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan?.In other words, at what point must the "war on terrorism" be understood simply as a rhetorical formula, like the "war on drugs" (or, back in the idealistic past, the "war on poverty")? And an even more preliminary question is whether terrorism, even in its most extreme manifestations, should be recognized as a form of conventional war.As Rumsfeld's comments suggest, the Bush administration's views on this issue were unequivocal. U.S. officials claim that the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were acts of war; that the war on terrorism is a real war, not a rhetorical device; and, apparently, that the Guantanamo detainees may be held without trial until the war on terrorism is over.Georgetown Law Professor David Cole puts it, to say that we will hold the Guantanamo detainees until the war on terrorism is over means that "we're going to keep them for eternity because there are going to be terrorist organizations as long as there is a common cold."
This is different from, but certainly related to, the issue of preventative detention, where the detainee may indeed have has an independent review of his or her
I suggest that the issues posed by the “war” terminology are unnecessary. I further suggest that combating acts of terror as a “war crime” creates more trouble than it’s worth.
Especially since there is an alternative, one that has been successful in this and other countries, one in which we have history and traditions.
The following post will explain that, if the investigation of criminal acts were made the province of non-military law enforcement agencies, our safety would not be compromised, those who would attack us would lose prestige and standing in their world, and would be deprived of a recruitment device.
Many agencies agree and my following post will discuss those benefits
Sources:http://www.examiner.com/

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Anti-piracy conference opens in Cairo

An international conference is being held in Cairo to discuss the growing problem of piracy.
The meeting brings together experts in security, shipping and insurance as well as government representatives from 20 countries.
At the same time, another anti-piracy conference is being hosted in London.
It is a clear indication that concerns remain over the threat to shipping, not just in the Gulf of Aden, but in trade routes and waterways around the world.
The latest figures from the International Maritime Bureau show that there have been 114 attempted attacks in the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia's east coast so far this year.
Twenty-nine resulted in hijackings and 478 hostages were taken.
Streamlined response
The Cairo event is not officially sponsored by the government of Egypt, but is more a response from the private sector to the persistent attacks.
They will discuss short-term solutions - such as improving security on board ships - as well as a host of longer-term policy proposals which they hope will streamline the international response.
For instance, several countries have suggested creating an international court to try suspected pirates.
For now, procedures vary greatly between countries as to what they do with the pirates they capture.
The broad message from the conference is that piracy affects all of us.
In the past year, the insurance premiums for ships passing through the Suez Canal have soared - a cost that must eventually be passed to the consumer.
Sources:http://news.bbc.co.uk/

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WHAT TO DO ABOUT PIRACY?

By Mackubin Thomas Owens, Foreign Policy Research Institute Senior FellowReviewed by James L. Abrahamson, Contributing Editor
According to the International Maritime Bureau, 293 incidents of piracy or armed robbery occurred in 2008, almost half of them along the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden coasts of Somalia. Writing for Orbis, which he edits, Naval War College Associate Dean of Academics Mackubin Thomas Owens assesses the threat of that Somali piracy, describes possible responses, and from a review of international law’s history draws insight into that issue as well as modern terrorism.
With but three exceptions, the world’s principal response and that of its shipping companies has been to gain the release of crews and ships by paying million dollar ransoms to pirates and larger fees to insurers, which drives up the cost of global seaborne commerce. As Somali pirates succeeded in only 50 of their attempts last year, as compared to 21,000 passages through Somalia’s seas, many regard those as costs worth paying. With 1300 miles of Somali coast line and a sea area four times the size of Texas to patrol, no mélange of a few dozen ships from the United States, the EU, NATO, Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia can hope to overcome the pirates at sea. Even arming the merchant ships, training their crews in weapons, or protecting them with armed detachments onboard seem costly and ineffective.
Turning to history, Owens argues that piracy – like African slavery – has only been wiped out when the world’s sea powers attacked the bases from which the pirates – and the slavers – operated. From the seventeenth through the nineteenth century, international law facilitated such armed action. Not so today. As modern international law began to emerge in the sixteenth century, it borrowed from Roman law distinguishing between bellum (war with legitimate enemies) and guerra (war against pirates, brigands, outlaws, and other common enemies of mankind). The former conflicts defined the standard for interstate conflict, its rules, and protections for participants and civil populations alike. None of those applied to the guerra, all those using illegitimate or informal violence in a predatory manner and without lawful (state) authority. As Grotius wrote in Mare Librum, “all peoples or their princes in common can punish pirates.”
Reviving that distinction and its remedy suggests a twenty-first century means to defeat and deter piracy – and perhaps terrorism as well. As the United States in the early nineteenth century dealt with the Barbary pirates and the brigands who raided its territory from Spanish Florida, every government should be free to strike the bases and territory of any nation that fails to control pirates and other predators operating out its territory. Only modern “legalism and moralism” have twisted the rule of law in ways that preclude meaningful and rightful self defense against those who operate outside the law and with no regard for its limitations on the use of violence. Americans, Owen urges, must develop a new “mindset” and energetically attack “‘the common enemies of mankind,’ which include not only pirates but also terrorists.”

Sources:http://www.unc.edu/

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International Law, and Order

Everyone waxing outraged about the big Medellín decision yesterday is focusing on the death penalty, but the Supreme Court did something else entirely: It insulated American law from the international variety. And this modest and limited ruling should help restore those two qualities to U.S. courts, which is no doubt one of the reasons the Roberts Court's political opponents are so livid.
Though the case became a global cause célèbre, its sordid origins trace to 1993, when José Medellín, a Mexican national, murdered two Houston teenagers. He was sentenced to death by a Texas jury, but his lawyers argued on appeal that he hadn't had access to Mexico's consulate before he confessed to his crimes.
This was a violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention, which holds that diplomats are supposed to be notified when their nationals are arrested. In response, the U.S. government took steps to ensure states better comply in the future, both to fulfill its treaty obligations and serve the reciprocal interests of U.S. citizens detained abroad.
But Mexican authorities made the case a referendum on capital punishment and international legal norms, ultimately suing the U.S. in the International Court of Justice at The Hague. The ICJ ruled in Mexico's favor, ordering states to give Medellín and some 51 other nationals new hearings. The question before the Supreme Court was whether such international dictates must be enforced by sovereign state courts. An affirmative answer might have gone a long way toward validating the expansive claims of liberal legal theorists that U.S. courts take instruction from the U.N., among other moral oases.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the 6-3 majority, ruled that the ICJ finding was not binding because the Vienna Convention is an understanding between governments, a diplomatic compact. It was never intended to automatically create new individual rights enforceable domestically by international bodies. Texas's violation was of diplomatic protocols, and calls for a diplomatic remedy.
Treaty obligations, in other words, do not necessarily take on the force of law domestically. Rather, Congress must enact legislation for whatever provisions -- such as consular notification -- that it wants to make the formal law of the land. This distinction matters because it establishes a fire wall between international and domestic law. It also protects the core American Constitutional principles of federalism and the separation of powers. As Justice Roberts points out, the courts must leave to the political branches "the primary role in deciding when and how international agreements will be enforced."
Medellín v. Texas also swatted away a claim of Presidential power. While the Bush Administration did not agree with Mexico's choice of venue, or the intrusion on U.S. sovereignty, it attempted to allay the diplomatic ruckus by directing states to comply with the ICJ ruling in a 2005 executive order. The Court ruled that the President's power, too, was limited by the Constitution. The authority to make treaty commitments did not extend to unilaterally asserting new state responsibilities or legal duties. Again, the executive could only make new laws in conjunction with the legislature.
Devotees of using foreign law to overrule American politicians will squawk. But the Medellín majority has delivered a victory for legal modesty and the U.S. Constitution.

(Source:http://online.wsj.com)

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Afghan Law That Legalizes Rape Poses Problem for Obama and Clinton

WASHINGTON -- As first lady, senator and then Democratic candidate for president, Hillary Clinton was vocal in her fight for the rights of women in Afghanistan.
But, as President Obama's secretary of state, Clinton now finds herself in the uncomfortable position of watching as the U.S.-backed Afghan president signs a law that critics say gives Shiite men the right to rape their wives.
International criticism pressure forced President Hamid Karzai to say Saturday that the law is under review, and he has spoken to Clinton about it.
The developments come as Obama seeks NATO support in Europe for his plan to ramp up the war against terrorists in Afghanistan. Back at home in Washington, administration officials have struggled this week with how to respond to Karzai's signing of the so-called Shia Family Law without debate in the Afghan parliament. The law's most controversial provisions address sexual intercourse in marriage.
"As long as the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night," Article 132 of the law says. "Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband."
Such a law runs contrary to the stated goals of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan -- to pursue human rights and to help liberate women from religious oppression. It is a cause that has been championed by previous administrations, and particularly by previous first ladies.
The details of the law surfaced this week, just days after one of those former first ladies, Clinton, told the International Conference on Afghanistan at The Hague, Netherlands: "Women's rights are a central part of American foreign policy in the Obama administration; they are not marginal; they are not an add-on or an afterthought."
State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Thursday that officials were "reviewing the legislation." He suggested that its legality might be in question.
"We urge President Karzai to review the law's legal status to correct provisions of the law that ... limit or restrict women's rights," Wood said. He added that "President Karzai is well aware of our views with regard to this legislation."
Karzai said Saturday that "measures will be taken," though it is unclear what changes, if any, he has in mind. He said he hadn't seen "any problems" with the law when he previously studied it.
Afghanistan's constitution, which was passed in 2004, calls for equal rights for all men and women. But the constitution also says that no law can contradict the laws of Islam. And in situations where the constitution lacks provisions, courts are allowed to use Islamic law, which critics say does not allow for equal rights.
Reports suggest Karzai pushed through the law on behalf of powerful fundamentalist Shiite leaders, whose support he needs ahead of his country's August elections. The law will affect only Shiites, estimated by various sources to be between 10 and 30 percent of the population. The law will not affect Afghanistan's Sunni majority.
In a written statement, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), said the law "legalizes the rape of a wife by her husband.... The law violates women's rights and human rights in numerous ways."
The law also has drawn fire from women in the Afghan parliament, as well as groups inside and outside Afghanistan, who say it rolls back the gains they made after the U.S. military ousted the Taliban government in 2002.
"All the efforts that were made in the last seven years to enhance women's rights will be undermined," said Afghan lawmaker Fawzia Kufi.
"This law comes as very little surprise to me. It is literally the price we've paid for dealing with fundamentalists," said Sonali Kolhatkar, who co-directs the Afghan Women's Mission in the U.S.
"In order to build a robust civil society in Afghanistan we need to push and pull the Afghans on basic human rights," said Ann Marlowe, an American author who has reported frequently from Afghanistan. She has said Karzai is not "at heart a supporter of women's rights."
Seven years into the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban is clinging to power in swaths of the country and in neighboring Pakistan, and Obama administration officials acknowledge that women are still struggling against violence, illiteracy and poverty. But many believe the U.S. will have to negotiate with Islamist warlords -- or perhaps even the Taliban -- to achieve political or military success.
"The contradiction between political rhetoric and policy reality has often been the American way," columnist Marie Cocco wrote for RealClearPolitics.com. "But now we have Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state. When she was first lady, she championed the rights of women oppressed by the Taliban long before most Americans had ever heard of that radical regime."
David Isby, the Washington-based author of several books on Afghanistan, says it should be no surprise that Shiite fundamentalist leaders want this new law, and that Karzai, seeking re-election, would grant it. He says there was an inherent conflict in trying to impose Western values on the Muslim nation to begin with. As for negotiating with fundamentalists, he said, "If they talked with only people we approve of, you would have six Afghans to work with."
But critics like Marlowe and Kolhatkar aren't buying it. They say there are plenty of progressive Afghans who are unhappy about the shifting tide but never get a seat at the table. They say the Obama administration must be steadfast in its position that Afghanistan needs to honor human rights.
Said Kolhatkar: "Any real power deals done between the U.S. and these forces, neither option really works for women. Women are constantly being subordinated."
"Certainly it is a wonderful thing to champion women's rights," said Kolhatkar, "but put your money where your mouth is."
The Associated Press and State Department producer Nina Donaghy contributed to this report.

Sources:http://www.foxnews.com/

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Islamic law to be imposed in parts of Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — The government agreed to implement Islamic law across a large swath of northwest Pakistan on Monday in a concession aimed at pacifying a spreading Taliban insurgency.
The decision was announced after talks with a pro-Taliban group from the Swat Valley, a one-time tourist haven in the northwest where extremists have gained sway through brutal tactics including beheadings and burning girls schools.
Officials gave few details on the what kind of Islamic or Shariah law they were planning to implement in Malakand region, which includes Swat, but said laws that do not comply with Islamic texts had been suspended effective from Monday.
"This was the peoples' demand. There was a (legal) vacuum," said Chief Minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti, saying the change would not violate the constitution — which stipulates a secular legal system — or human rights in the region.
Several past deals with militants in northwest Pakistan have failed, including one in Swat last year. The U.S. has warned such pacts simply give insurgents time to regroup, but the country's civilian government insists force alone cannot defeat the extremists wreaking havoc in Pakistan and attacking U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan.

Also Monday, three missiles believed fired from a U.S. unmanned aircraft destroyed a house used by a local Taliban commander in the Kurram tribal region of the northwest, witnesses said. It was the first known such strike in Kurram. Most of the strikes have occurred in South and North Waziristan, other tribal regions considered major Taliban and al-Qaeda strongholds.
Rehman Ullah, a resident of the targeted village of Baggan, said drones were seen in the sky before the attack and that he saw 30 bodies dug up. An intelligence official said field informants reported that militants showed up at the village bazaar and ordered 30 caskets. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.
The United States has stepped up missile strikes in the border region since August, killing some suspected top militants. Pakistani officials routinely protest the strikes, saying they undercut the fight against terror when they kill civilians.
Regaining the Swat Valley from militants is a major test for the Pakistani government. Unlike the semiautonomous tribal regions where al-Qaeda and Taliban have long thrived, the former tourist haven is supposed to be under full government control and lies less than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the provincial capital, Islamabad.
A 30-member delegation from a banned pro-Taliban group in Swat took part in the discussions Monday in the provincial capital Peshawar.
The group, the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi or the Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law, has a long history of agitating for imposition of Islamic or Shariah law in the staunchly conservative region of the Muslim country. It is led by Sufi Muhammad, who Pakistan freed last year after he agreed to renounce violence.
Muhammad is father-in-law to Maulana Fazlullah, leader of the Taliban in Swat. Muhammad has pledged to visit Swat and persuade his son-in-law to stop the violence there.
Government officials have indicated they would focus on adjusting the area's judicial system to include provisions such as letting religious scholars advise judges or having speedier courts. Many civilians in the region support an Islamic justice system, and some of the regulations under discussion have been on the books but never implemented.
Muslim scholars themselves have different interpretations of what it means to be under Shariah.
Many extremists in northwest Pakistan apparently favor the exceptionally strict brand the Taliban imposed in Afghanistan before the U.S. invasion in 2001, where female education and music was banned. The Swat Taliban have declared a ban on girls' education.
Swat Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said Sunday that the militants would lay down their arms if Islamic law is actually imposed. He also announced a 10-day cease-fire as a positive gesture.
But provincial law minister Arshad Abdullah said the deal would require the militants to first give up violence.
"They have to succumb to law," Abdullah said. "They have to put down their arms."
President Asif Ali Zardari has been indirectly involved in the dialogue after growing increasingly concerned about civilian casualties in Swat, said an official in the president's office who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
Zardari has spoken for the need to forcefully combat extremists in Swat and elsewhere in the northwest.
Troops have been deployed to Swat, but residents and local officials say they seem powerless against the extremists, while many police no longer show up for work.
Overall security is deteriorating in Pakistan, and several foreigners have been attacked or abducted in recent months.
Also Monday, a spokesman for kidnappers holding American John Solecki captive in Pakistan said the deadline to negotiate for his release was extended for a "few days" after appeals from "some international organizations." On Friday, the captors said they would kill Solecki, a United Nations official, in 72 hours if their demands were not met.
Solecki was abducted on Feb. 2 in Quetta, a major city in the southwest near the Afghan border. On Friday, his kidnappers threatened to kill him within 72 hours and issued a 20-second video of the blindfolded hostage.
Shahak Baluch, who claims to speak for the little-known Baluch United Liberation Front, announced the extended deadline in a call to the Quetta Press Club.
The group's name indicates a link to separatists rather than Islamic extremists. Its demands include the release of 141 women allegedly held by Pakistani authorities, but Pakistan has denied it is holding the women.
The U.N. has been trying to establish contact with the kidnappers, officials said.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

(Sources:http://www.usatoday.com/)

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The End of the Rockefeller Drug Laws: A Hip-Hop Victory

NEW YORK, Mar 27, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Thirty six years ago, the State of New York passed into law the Rockefeller Drug Laws, which required mandatory long prison terms, up to 15 years to life, for possession or sale of small amounts of drugs.
Today, the Rockefeller Drug Laws era is finally over and the contribution of the hip-hop community can't be denied. Finally, an agreement by the key decision makers, from Governor David Paterson to Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith and State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been consummated to dismantle the Rockefeller Drug Laws once and for all.
"Ending the Rockefeller Drug Laws is a great victory for the hip-hop community," declared Russell Simmons. "We worked hard, turned up the volume on this issue and rejuvenated and broadened the coalition, but it was hip-hop artists like Diddy, Jay Z and 50 Cent that gave this movement for change the power to wake people up and to get the politicians to do the right thing."
It began on the thirtieth anniversary of the Rockefeller Drug Laws in 2003, when the hip-hop community joined together with the drug policy reform activists. Russell Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), working with the Drug Policy Alliance and Randy Credico's Mothers of the NY Disappeared, built an unprecedented national coalition. That coalition, called Countdown To Fairness and based out of the HSAN offices, drew a level of mass awareness previously unseen, to the thousands of non-violent first time drug offenders languishing unfairly in prison. On June 4, 2003, HSAN and that coalition, brought together Andrew Cuomo, Tom Golisano and other elected officials, along with hip-hop stars Jay Z, Diddy, 50 Cent, Mariah Carey, Rev Run, Damon Dash, Busta Rhymes, Erykah Badu, the D.O.C., Capone-N-Noreaga, Fat Joe, The Beastie Boys, Fabolous and M-1 from dead prez, and Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, to a rally in front of New York's City Hall which drew over 60,000 people with the purpose of educating and mobilizing around this issue for which they were and are still passionate. Most of these artists had seen, firsthand, the devastating impact the Rockefeller Drug Laws have had on their own families and communities. In the state of New York, 94.5% of all those incarcerated under the Rockefeller Drug Laws are black and Latino. This event, which was extensively covered by the national media, made the reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws a national issue. In July of 2003, in an unprecedented action on behalf of the hip-hop community, Russell Simmons, Dr. Benjamin Chavis and HSAN filed a complaint in the United States District Court Southern District of New York against the New York State Temporary Commission on Lobbying, seeking First Amendment protections guaranteeing freedom of speech and protecting their right to raise public awareness about the Rockefeller Drug Laws. In 2006, filmmakers Rebecca Chaiklin and Michael Skolnik made a documentary film called Lockdown USA, set on the front lines of the dramatic campaign to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws. In 2007, hip-hop star Jim Jones released a single and video of the same name to further draw attention to this issue. In 2008, hip-hop voters went to the polls in record numbers across the country and helped change the balance of power, so that issues like the Rockefeller Drug Laws could be readdressed.
One of the main offenses of the Rockefeller Drug Laws was taking discretion in sentencing away from the trial judges and putting the power into the hands of the District Attorneys. As a consequence, thousands of people who needed treatment were unfairly sent to prison. The New York Times reports, "The new deal would repeal many of the mandatory minimum prison sentences now in place for lower-level drug felons, giving judges the authority to send first-time nonviolent offenders to treatment instead of prison. The plan would also expand drug treatment programs and widen the reach of drug courts at a cost of at least $50 million...But in the long run, the changes are expected to save money because sending offenders to treatment is less expensive than spending $45,000 a year to keep them confined."
At a long-awaited press conference in Albany this morning, Governor Paterson announced the details of the agreement, saying these changes "will forever eliminate the regime of the Rockefeller Drug Laws." The reforms include full judicial discretion for first time non-violent drug offenders as well as many repeat non-violent, addicted offenders. The State will utilize a system of drug courts to handle drug-related cases, which will give the judges the option to send offenders to treatment rather than prison. Many of the current prisoners who are serving under the Rockefeller Drug Laws will be eligible for re-sentencing retroactively.
"Our job in the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network continues to be to raise public awareness about issues that affect the quality of life of people," emphasized Dr. Benjamin Chavis. "The Rockefeller Drug Laws for thirty six years ruined the quality of life in too many of our homes, families and communities. We are grateful to Governor David Paterson, Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith and State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver for their responsiveness to the cry of the people to end the Rockefeller Drug Laws."
Russell Simmons sees this as the first step to taking the campaign national. "We have achieved a great victory for the people of New York and are inspired by the courageous leadership of Governor Paterson, Senator Smith and Assemblyman Silver. However, we must now go to work around the country to end the unjust drug laws in numerous other states and on the federal level. This is about changing the direction in this country for a more just and fair judicial system."
SOURCE: Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (http://www.marketwatch.com/)

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US defying international law: Amnesty

THE United States is shirking its duty to provide the world with moral leadership and China is letting its business interests trump human rights concerns in Myanmar and Sudan, a human rights group said Wednesday, The New York Times reports quoting an American news agency.

Amnesty International's annual report on the state of the world's human rights accused the U.S. of failing to provide a moral compass for its international peers, a long-standing complaint the London-based group has against the North American superpower.

"As the world's most powerful state, the USA sets the standard for government behaviour globally," the report said. It charged that the US "had distinguished itself in recent years through its defiance of international law."

As in the past, the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay came in for criticism. Irene Khan, Amnesty's Secretary-General, appealed for the American President elected in November to announce the jail's closure on Dec 10, 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.

The State Department had no immediate comment on the report, but said the US was justified in detaining enemy combatants at Guantanamo to prevent them from returning to the battlefield.

The European Union came in for criticism for "complicity" with the US-led rendition programme of "secret and unlawful detentions", while Russia was attacked for being "increasingly intolerant of dissent or criticism".

Emerging power China came in for a few punches, too. The report said China had continued shipping weapons to Sudan in defiance of a UN arms embargo and traded with abusive governments like Myanmar and Zimbabwe. It said that China's media censorship remains in place and that the government continues to persecute rights activists.

The report also accused China of expanding its "re-education through labour" programme, which allows the government to arrest people and sentence them to a manual labour without trial.

But Amnesty said it detected a shift in China's position: In 2007, China persuaded the Sudanese government to allow UN peacekeepers into the Darfur region and pressured Myanmar to accept the visit of a UN special envoy.

Irene Khan told the American news agency that it was much easier to grapple with human rights problems when the West and China worked together.

"China has the leverage to work with certain governments," she said ahead of the report's release. But she said China needed to use that leverage responsibly.

"China is clearly a global power. With that comes global responsibility for human rights. It needs to recognize that economic growth is not enough," Irene said.

Amnesty International said people are still tortured or ill-treated in at least 81 countries, face unfair trials in at least 54 and are denied free speech in at least 77. But the report also highlighted an increase in mass demonstrations around the world, citing that as a positive sign of a growing willingness by people to fight for their rights.
Pressing issues for 2008 were Darfur, Zimbabwe, Gaza, Iraq and Myanmar, she added, calling on governments to recommit to the founding principles of the UN treaty forged in the aftermath of bitter conflict in World War II.
"The powerful must lead by example," she added.
And emerging economic powers like India, Mexico, South Africa and Brazil, need to become role models, it added.
The Amnesty decried what it called a "wave of racism" against immigrants in Italy, which the human rights group alleged has been encouraged by politicians.
"We are facing a wave of racism affecting all immigrants in Italy, including those who are documented and those who are not," said Daniela Carboni, an official of Amnesty's Italian section.
Sources:http://www.nation.com.pk/

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Israel must abide by international law

Witnesses tell of Israeli jets bombing apartment blocks in which children are playing. Schools, fruit markets, hospitals and universities have been targeted. Tanks fire into crowded cities such as Gaza City and Khan Younis. In one of the world's most densely populated strips of land, massive civilian casualties are inevitable.

As with Lebanon in 2006, Israel is instituting collective punishment of a people for what it sees as the crimes of a militant group. A year ago, the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, warned that the people of Gaza would suffer for democratically electing the "terrorist" regime of Hamas, and instituted harsh power cuts for hospitals, light, heat and cars. Food cuts followed, and now indiscriminate bombing.

The use of collective punishment of a people is illegal under the fourth Geneva Convention. With 600 or more Palestinians killed already, 200 of whom are said to be civilian, we already have a civilian death toll equivalent to the Bali massacre. And still Israel ignores the entreaties from French and British leaders, the European Union, the United Nations, the Arab League, not to mention the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, and others, to cease its war on Gaza.

As we have seen on the television news, phosphorus bombs, used by the Israeli Air Force in southern Lebanon to devastating effect on the bodies of ordinary Lebanese, are now in use in the crowded streets of Gaza. Terrible injuries will result. Israel continues to defy international legal standards.

It has ignored a series of United Nations resolutions over time, including one allowing the return of refugees, one requiring it to withdraw from the lands it occupied in 1967. It ignored the decision of the International Court of Justice in 2004 declaring its huge concrete wall dividing it from Palestine illegal. It continues to ignore international requirements to declare its stock of nuclear weapons and open them for inspection.

Israel argues, simplistically, that it has a "right to defend itself" against the rocket attacks of Hamas. Of course it does. But a disproportionate war against Palestinian people is not the solution.

In the first place, we must recognize the roots of this conflict, which began with the illegal military occupation of Gaza from 1967 to 2005 and the devastation this inflicted on the economy and civil society of the people of Gaza.

In 2005 Ariel Sharon ordered illegal Israeli settlers to leave Gaza but continued a blockade of the Gaza Strip. At the time, the World Bank estimated that 65 per cent of Gazans lived in poverty. Most had problems with access to education and health services, and half lived below subsistence levels and were dependent on international food aid.

Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections and, in response, the US and the EU cut off all aid to Palestine and Israel froze Gaza government access to tax revenues collected from its people. Electricity was cut, food aid slashed and all movement in and out of Gaza slowed to a trickle. The Israeli army arrested 27 Hamas MPs of the new government. It assassinated others.

The Hamas government responded with rocket attacks on the Israeli city of Sederot just across the border. The rockets were largely ineffective and killed no Israelis. Meanwhile, attacks on Palestinian civilians by Israeli fighter jets continued to climb, in one instance killing 19 (including four women and seven children).

An informal "truce" or "Hudna" was agreed between Olmert's government and Hamas. Under its terms, a cessation of the rocket attacks would ease the siege on Gaza. The rocket attacks declined dramatically but as of December last year, no end to the siege was in sight. Hamas declared it would resume rocket attacks. Israel has struck back with its terrible cruelty.

Palestine has no air force, tanks or gunships to counter such an onslaught. The tiny strip of Gaza, with its 1.5 million people, only has its human resources to resist an attack from the region's most powerful army.

It is easy to understand why Israel continues to ban foreign journalists from seeing the results of its war crimes in the Gaza Strip. And why it relies on statements such as "we have the right to defend against rockets".

Israel is not interested in abiding by international legal norms which would require it to demolish the apartheid wall, end the occupation, cease the use of illegal weapons and allow the people of Gaza the freedoms most world citizens expect.

Such actions require a mindset of peace, justice, dialogue and freedom for Palestinians in their own state.

Let's end the war, end the rocket attacks, end the siege of Gaza and begin with dialogue.

Izzat Abdulhadi is the head of the General Delegation of Palestine to Australia.

Sources Description:http://www.smh.com.au/

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China: U.S. ship broke international law

BEIJING, March 10 (UPI) -- China said Tuesday a U.S. Navy vessel conducting activities in the South China Sea violated international and Chinese maritime laws.

The Pentagon a day earlier said five Chinese vessels blocked and surrounded the Impeccable, a U.S. surveillance ship, in international waters Sunday.

"China has lodged a solemn representation to the United States as the ... Impeccable conducted activities in China's special economic zone in the South China Sea without China's permission," the country's state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu as saying. "We demand that the United States put an immediate stop to related activities and take effective measures to prevent similar acts from happening."

The spokesman said the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and several Chinese laws regulate foreign vessels' activities in China's exclusive economic zones.

The United States and other nations consider most of the South China Sea to be international waters, but China claims an economic exclusion zone extending about 230 miles from its coast, The New York Times reported.

The Pentagon said the confrontation occurred about 75 miles from the island of Hainan, where China has an underground naval complex.

"It's not clear what the Chinese intentions were," Capt. Jeff Breslau, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command, sai

Sources:http://www.upiasia.com/
© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Sen. Kerry looks for window to ratify Law of the Sea

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) is crafting a strategy to ratify the long-stalled Law of the Sea Treaty this year -- a move that ocean and foreign policy experts say is increasingly important as climate change reshapes the Arctic.

Kerry said this week that he is working to find time for a hearing and votes on the treaty, which governs navigation, fishing, economic development and environmental standards on the open seas.

"I hope we're ready to ratify it. I am going to do everything in my power, but I want to do it on the right schedule," Kerry told reporters. "We're sort of working through that process carefully."

His remarks came after a "roundtable" that the Foreign Relations Committee hosted to get advice on the Arctic from experts on the region, ocean conservation advocates and foreign policy strategists. Among the panelists' many recommendations to address the drastic changes in the Arctic economy and ecosystem, they listed the Law of the Sea as paramount.

"The sea ice is melting faster than policy can keep up with it," said Scott Borgerson, a former Coast Guard instructor who is now a visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "First and foremost, my strongest recommendation is to finally get on with it -- it is high time that the U.S. finally accedes to the Law of the Sea."

He added: "At all the conferences we go to we have to defend -- and it's impossible to defend, why the U.S. is not party to this treaty."

More than 150 other nations have ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. U.S. leaders have signed onto the agreement and the George W. Bush administration supported it, but several Senate conservatives have stymied its ratification.

Becoming a party to the 25-year-old international treaty would allow the United States to claim rights to mineral-rich portions of the Arctic seafloor. Experts told the Foreign Relations Committee that will be even more important as nations rush to make new claims in the Arctic.

"It is very clear the U.S. has to be a part of the Law of the Sea," said David Carlson, director of the International Polar Year program office.

Recent studies have shown that Arctic sea ice has receded rapidly in recent years, leading to concerns about conflicts over environmental protection, control of recently opened waterways and access to natural resources as nations scramble to exploit the resource-rich region.

Nations bordering the Arctic are already making claims on the oil, gas and mineral-rich territory, but several disputes have already arisen over competing claims and witnesses warned lawmakers that more disputes would likely arise if stronger international policies are not developed.

Getting the votes

The treaty, first negotiated in the 1980s, has garnered an impressive, wide-ranging list of supporters -- including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all living former chiefs of naval operations, four former secretaries of state, the heads of the American Petroleum Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the governors of seven coastal states.

The treaty's backers are hopeful that after years of delay, the Senate may finally approve it this year.

Potentially helping it on that path is the solid Democratic majority in the Senate and advocates in the Obama administration. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said ratification is "long overdue" and will be a top priority. And Vice President Joe Biden was a major proponent of its ratification when he chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

While the Bush administration gave its support to the treaty, lobbyists and lawmakers who support the Law of the Sea said they expect the Obama administration might be more active in pushing for its approval.

"[Biden] understands it, and I hope he's going to be very -- part of the game plan," Kerry said.

The treaty also has a major advocate on the Republican side in Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). At the roundtable earlier this week, the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee urged Kerry to schedule hearings on the treaty "expeditiously" and push the issue with the White House.

"I will help you," Murkowski told the chairman.

Kerry replied: "I hope you are going table to table in the Republican caucus."
Sources Description:http://www.nytimes.com/

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Fast law, bad law?

Home Secretary Charles Clarke is facing opposition to his latest anti-terror laws on many fronts - not least the fact he is attempting to rush them through parliament in a matter of days.

Conservative spokesman David Davis has expressed dismay at the speed with which Mr Clarke is planning to force through the controversial Bill, declaring: "Parliament needs more time to debate these issues. Our civil liberties and system of justice are worth more than two days of hurried decisions."

It is a view shared by the Liberal Democrats and many on the Labour backbenches, particularly those with long memories who recall other hurried laws that proved deeply flawed.
One of the most notorious rushed laws was introduced by the Tory government in 1991 after a spate of headline-grabbing attacks by the then latest fashion accessory - Pit Bull terriers.
Pictures of children who had been mauled or worse, by the pets were more than any government could stand and they rushed through laws to, in effect, ban a list of dogs deemed dangerous.
Howls of protest followed as owners claimed their harmless pets were being threatened, while breeders and dog lovers found ways around the laws.
And, needless to say, fashions changed and new, equally macho breeds which didn't fall under the laws appeared on what seemed to be an almost daily basis.

Illegal arms

Five years later, ministers acted in the wake of the Dunblane massacre which saw a gunman kill 16 school children and a teacher in the small Scottish town. As the nation recoiled in sheer horror from the massacre, ministers rushed through laws to ban handguns.

There were objections on the grounds the ban simply would not stop similar future atrocities by individuals with illegal arms, or other equally deadly weapons.
There were also serious concerns expressed by sports shooters who claimed the laws would see their legitimate activities banned.
It is now said that the law failed to reduce the number of firearms circulating in the UK and that it has indeed hit the legitimate sport.

The then Tory Home Office minister Timothy Kirkhope is on record stating: "Looking back, this was "knee-jerk legislation". With more debate, and with the benefit of hindsight, we would have approached things differently".

More recently the ban on fox hunting in Scotland, and to an extent the one in England is being held up by critics as an example of legislation being forced through parliament.

Final hurdles

Neither pieces of legislation could be called rushed as they took years to make it to the statute books.

But they were certainly forced through despite massive opposition and, at the final hurdles, pretty speedily.

The experience in Scotland has also suggested there will be problems with enforcement of the law.And only a month ago the parliamentary and health ombudsman Ann Abraham declared the government was rushing through bits of legislation and called for greater scrutiny of planned laws.

"Major policy changes are ill-considered or badly implemented and often fail to take into account the impact they may have on people's lives."
That had led to complaints from members of the public about services, she said, highlighting the 222 complaints her office had received last year about the Child Support Agency - a 5% increase compared to the previous year.
Of course for every critic of these laws there are those who claim they work fine and insist it was right at the time to get them onto the statute books as soon as possible.
Some circumstances require virtually instant decisions, they claim. And Mr Clarke seems in no mood to delay the passing of his controversial measures.

Sources Description:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4289875.stm

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Pilot mutters "die" as run from law ends

CHATTAHOOCHEE, Fla. (AP) - A daredevil money manager whose run from ruin was halted when investigators interrupted his suicide attempt at a Florida campground found his legal problems compounded Wednesday as authorities filed federal charges against him in the three-day ordeal.

U.S. Marshals tracked Marcus Schrenker, 38, to a north Florida campground late Tuesday night, peeling back the flap to his one-man tent to discover him in clouded consciousness with blood-soaked arms, muttering the word "die."

Scott Wilson, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Northern District of Florida, said Schrenker was charged with intentionally wrecking his aircraft and faking a distress call, causing the Coast Guard to launch a search to save his life when it wasn't necessary. Schrenker was resting in a heavily guarded hospital room Wednesday, but was expected to appear first in a Florida court before returning to Indiana, Wilson said.

How U.S. Marshals were able to track Schrenker to the campsite remained a mystery, but he gave them ample opportunity: Officials said he drove a flashy red motorcycle, approached local police after allegedly jumping out of the plane and even sent an e-mail to a friend saying the whole situation was a misunderstanding.

"It's certainly something right out of Hollywood. Someone parachuting out of a plane to avoid capture as a fugitive. It's certainly not the run of the mill case for us," Wilson said.

The campground's owners said he rode into the tree-lined site on the red bike Monday night, wearing a brown leather jacket. He didn't give a name but handed over $25.75 in cash for a tent site, and bought some firewood and a six-pack of Bud Light Lime. They gave him a password for the site's wireless internet connection, said owner Caroline Hastings.

"He said he was going across the country with some buddies. He wanted to stop. He didn't know if they would," said Hastings, 32, who operates the campsite with her husband, Troy.

The next day, the couple grew suspicious when he hadn't checked out by 5 p.m., and had only paid for one night. Hastings' husband went to his tent and saw a red stain on one of the outer flaps.
"Are you OK? Planning to spend another night?" he called out.
Schrenker said he was, he'd be by later to pay. He didn't come.

Later, the Hastings were making dinner when the sheriff called and asked if anything odd was going on. Troy Hastings mentioned the camper, and the sheriff asked if they could come identify him. Caroline Hastings didn't need to look at a picture long to know it was him - and soon, authorities swarmed onto the grounds and found him bloodied and barely conscious.

Schrenker will likely face a parade of legal proceedings in the coming months. Already, he has been charged with acting as a financial manager even though his license had expired in Indiana. State regulators also have filed complaints against him that he unfairly charged seven investors some $250,000 in exorbitant fees he didn't tell them about when they switched annuities.

It wasn't clear if Schrenker had obtained an attorney, and no one answered the door Wednesday at his Indiana home.

When Schrenker took off on his ill-fated flight, he already faced some $9 million or more in court judgments and legal claims, according to a review of court documents by The Associated Press. And according to a letter he wrote in early December, he was planning to file for bankruptcy.

"It needs to be known that I am financially insolvent," Schrenker, with two personal bankruptcies already behind him, wrote in a letter in early December. "I am intending on filing bankruptcy in 2009 should my financial conditions continue to deteriorate."

Things did get worse, and investigators say that's when Schrenker took another way out by apparently trying to stage his death.

On top of his other debts, Schrenker could be forced to pay $5,100 - and possibly much more - for the cost of Coast Guard boats and helicopters used in the search.

"I have personally lost all hope," Schrenker wrote to his attorney in December, regarding an Alabama case in which a man sued him claiming he unknowingly purchased a damaged aircraft from Schrenker in 2002. "I don't think that there is a good person left in this world."

---

Associated Press Writers Devlin Barrett in Washington, Melissa Nelson in Pensacola, Fla., Rick Callahan, Ken Kusmer and Jeni O'Malley in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

Sources From:http://www.kidk.com/news/national/37570744.html

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