The Sri Lankan emergency laws have been in a state of flux in recent years. Sri Lankan lawmakers voted in May 2010 to extend the state of emergency [JURIST report] for another month, but reduced some of the toughest provisions. Parliament lifted certain restrictions [BBC report] on assembly and distributing literature and reduced the power of soldiers to conduct searches. In March of the same year, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa [official website] announced [JURIST report] that the then-dissolved Sri Lankan Parliament would reconvene to ratify a one-month extension to the current state of emergency. Variations of the security measures have been reintroduced since 2005 when foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was allegedly assassinated by LTTE rebels.

Besigye's prosecution garnered international attention. Earlier this year, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] urged [JURIST report] Uganda's government to stop using what she called excessive force against Besigye and other protesters. Pillay also criticized [Reuters report] the government's treatment of Bezigye during one of his arrests, where a video showed government forces breaking into his SUV [BBC report], shooting pepper spray directly into his face and forcing him into the back of a pickup truck. Besigye is the leader of Uganda's most prominent opposition party, the Forum for Democratic Change [part website]. He lost to incumbent President Yoweri Museveni [BBC profile] in elections held this past February. The elections were criticized by the opposition as fraudulent [Guardian report]. Besigye also ran for president [BBC report] in 2002 and 2006, and, prior to that, he was Museveni's personal doctor. In October 2010, Uganda's Constitutional Court unanimously dismissed treason charges [JURIST report] against Besigye and 10 co-defendants, ruling that there was insufficient evidence and that the state had violated the defendants' rights. Besigye had been charged [JURIST report] with plotting to forcefully overthrow the Ugandan government between 2001 and 2004 but had always maintained his innocence, calling the charges against him politically motivated.

Banda is not the only Zambian leader to face legal troubles. Chiluba was acquitted [JURIST report] in August 2009 of charges of stealing money from the country's treasury while in office from 1991-2001. In a separate case, Chiluba was ordered by a London court in July 2007 to pay $58 million in fines [JURIST report] to Zambia to compensate for other funds stolen during Chiluba's decade in power. The suit was brought in Britain [BBC report] by Zambian officials because Chiluba and his associates held the assets in the UK and other European countries.

This latest investigation is the most recent installment in Apple's patent dispute with HTC. Last month, the USITC ruled against HTC [JURIST report] for patent infringement on patents 5,946,647 and 6,343,263 [texts], both of which relate to cell phones that run the Android operating system. That was the second suit against HTC by Apple. Last year, Apple filed suits [JURIST report] in the US District Court for the District of Delaware and with the USITC alleging patent infringements. HTC later also filed a suit [JURIST report] against Apple for infringement related to portable electronic devices. In addition, the USITC announcement comes days after South Korean regulators fined [JURIST report] Apple USD $2,855 for collecting location information from its iPhone and iPad users. It is the first time Apple has been punished for collecting location information [Reuters report] from users of its widely popular mobile computing products.

Campaign finance regulation has been in a state of flux since Citizens United was decided [JURIST report] in January of last year, easing restrictions on political campaign spending by corporations. In June, the US Supreme Court ruled [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] in Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett [Cornell LII backgrounder] that an Arizona campaign finance regulation that provided publicly financed candidates with additional government subsidies, which are triggered by independent expenditure groups' speech against such candidates or by the candidates' privately financed opponents, violates the First Amendment [text]. The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit [official website] upheld [opinion, PDF; JURIST report] a Minnesota campaign financing law prohibiting direct contributions to candidates and affiliated entities in May. In April, a judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin [official website] dismissed two challenges [JURIST report] to campaign financing schemes for Wisconsin Supreme Court elections. In June 2010, the US Senate [official website] failed to pass campaign finance reform legislation [S 3628 materials] that would prohibit corporations receiving federal contracts worth more than $7 million from spending money on "electioneering communications" and would also prohibit foreign-controlled domestic corporations from financing campaigns [JURIST report].

The UK is absolutely committed to eradicating the trade of conflict diamonds. We played a leading role in creating the [KP], which has helped reduce the proportion of conflict diamonds to a tiny fraction of world trade. We pressed for Zimbabwe to adhere to the principles of the KP. Two Marange mines currently meet these standards; it is only from these locations that we support exports, subject to ongoing monitoring. From all other Marange mines, the UK and the EU continue to strongly oppose the resumption of exports until independent, international experts deem them to comply with the KP.

The diamond trade in Zimbabwe has been the subject of much criticism. Last year, the US-based Rapaport Diamond Trading Network [corporate website] took a stance against the sale of Zimbabwe diamonds [press release; JURIST report] associated with human rights violations. In a letter to their members, Rapaport stated they would expel members who knowingly traded the tainted diamonds and that they would publish the names of members who traded the stones. Rapaport noted that KP certification may have allowed the stones to be sold in certain jurisdictions, but warned that it was illegal for citizens from the US, EU and UK to knowingly trade diamonds from the Marange diamond fields. They also cautioned that KP certification did not guarantee that the diamonds were not associated with human rights violations and that KP did not have a mandate to deny certification for diamonds involved in human rights violations. In June 2010, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] called for the removal of Zimbabwe [report materials; JURIST report] from KP, echoing similar sentiments from rights groups who urged KP to suspend Zimbabwe's international diamond trade [JURIST report] in November 2009 due to the human rights violations [Telegraph report] allegedly committed by the Zimbabwean army against civilians and illegal workers in the Marange diamond fields.

Federal Medicaid statutes and regulations give States broad discretion to craft the rules applicable to their Medicaid programs. Congress left intact the States' authority to determine what makes an entity qualified to provide Medicaid services, while ensuring that Medicaid recipients may utilize any practitioner deemed to be qualified under State law. Since HEA 1210 does not limit a beneficiary's ability to choose among providers that are deemed to be qualified, it is consistent with federal Medicaid law.

In May, a federal judge refused to block the law [JURIST report] upon passage. But the June ruling from the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana [official website] granting the injunction is in line with a recent US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] brief that urged the court to grant an injunction [brief, PDF] to stop the enforcement of the Indiana law [JURIST report]. The brief echoed arguments made earlier this month by the Obama administration, which argued against the law [JURIST report] in a letter to the state—one of several to have acted recently to tighten restrictions on abortions. In May, Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] challenging a South Dakota law requiring women to seek counseling at a pregnancy center and wait three days before obtaining an abortion. Earlier that week, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton vetoed a pair of bills [JURIST report] that would have restricted state funding for abortions and banned them altogether after 20 weeks. Also in May, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed a bill that requires women seeking an abortion to first get a sonogram [JURIST report]. Multiple states have acted to ban abortions after 20 weeks, when some studies suggest a fetus can begin feeling pain, including Missouri, Indiana, Alabama, Ohio, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas and Idaho [JURIST reports].

[T]his case is not about constitutional rights, against torture or otherwise—the defendants readily acknowledge that the type of abuse alleged by the plaintiffs would raise serious constitutional issues. Rather, this case centers on the appropriate remedies for that abuse and who must decide what those remedies will be. ... [B]oth circuits confronted with allegations of constitutional violations in war zones have refused to recognize a Bivens remedy. ... The court vaults over this consensus and, for the first time ever, recognizes a Bivens cause of action for suits alleging constitutional violations by military personnel in an active war zone.

The appeals court ruling comes days after a judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] ruled that Rumsfeld can be sued [JURIST report] by a former US military contractor who claims he was tortured while imprisoned in Iraq. The last several years have seen a rise in the number of suits brought against Bush administration officials. Earlier this year, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] upheld the dismissal [JURIST report] of a torture suit against Rumsfeld brought by four Afghan and five Iraqi citizens alleging they were illegally detained and tortured. Also this year, the US Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] in Ashcroft v. al-Kidd [Cornell LII backgrounder] that former US attorney general John Ashcroft [JURIST news archive] is immune from suit [JURIST report] by a witness detained in a terror investigation.

Otto Perez Molina, Torres' main opposition and leader of the Patriot Party, accused the two of fraud [BBC report] for divorcing in an effort to circumvent the constitutional ban. Torres and Colom are not the only Guatemalan leaders to face legal trouble. A Guatemalan judge ruled [JURISt report] last August that former president Alfonso Portillo [CIDOB profile, in Spanish] and two of his former ministers would stand trial on charges of embezzlement. Portillo, president of Guatemala from 2000-2004, is accused of diverting approximately USD $15 million in funds from the Ministry of Defense.