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The UK government has been ordered by three senior judges to secure the release of a Pakistani man, Yunus Rahmatullah, captured by British special forces and held by the US in Afghanistan's notorious Bagram jail without trial for more than seven years.

The judges ruled that Rahmatullah, 29, who was handed over by the SAS to American forces in Iraq in 2004 and then taken to Bagram, is being unlawfully detained. They ordered a writ of habeas corpus to be issued so he can be freed.
Though Rahmatullah is in US custody, the UK is the "detaining authority pursuant to the memorandum of understanding struck between the UK and US" during the Iraq invasion, Leigh Day said. British ministers remained "responsible" for Rahmatullah under the Geneva conventions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/14/bagram-jail-detainee-yunus-rahmatullah?INTCMP=SRCH

The United Nations today called for US$ 7.7 billion for aid agencies to help 51 million people cope with humanitarian emergencies around the world in 2012.

The appeals, issued in Geneva by UN Humanitarian Chief Valerie Amos, and the EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid Kristalina Georgieva, aim to assist people in sixteen of the planet’s most pressing crises, including the world’s largest humanitarian emergency in the Horn of Africa.

“Tens of millions of people will need emergency aid to survive in 2012, and many are among the most vulnerable people in the world,” Ms Amos said.
The appeals reflect a massive coordinated effort by 466 aid organizations - including United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and other international organizations.

The largest appeals came for countries struggling with drought, insecurity and refugee flows in the Horn of Africa, including Somalia ($1.5bn), Kenya ($764m) and Djibouti ($79m).The funding requirements for Ethiopia have not yet been released.

“Much of the Horn of Africa continues to face the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, with four million people needing urgent humanitarian aid in Somalia alone, and 601,000 refugees now in Kenya,” the appeals overview said. “Even as operations continue to scale up, the situation is expected to get worse and the crisis to continue well into 2012.”

Other major crises included Sudan ($1.1bn), South Sudan ($763m), the Democratic Republic of Congo($719m), Yemen ($447m), Chad ($455m), Afghanistan ($437m) and the occupied Palestinian territory ($417m).

Around 800,000 people, mostly from the Tutsi ethnic group, were killed in just 100 days in 1994. Theoneste Bagosora, a senior figure in Rwanda's ministry of defence at the time, was seen as a key organiser of the Rwandan genocide. He was convicted of  genocide and crimes against humanity by the UN-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 2008. He has now had his sentence reduced from life to 35 years. 

A Russian aid convoy has been halted at a crossing between Serbia and Kosovo, raising tension in the volatile region.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16185850

The Ethics Committee is seeking the views of British Columbia lawyers on a new version of some of the conflicts rules developed for the Federation of Law Societies Model Code and the adaptation of those rules for British Columbia the Committee is considering recommending to the Benchers. 

http://www.lawsociety.bc.ca/page.cfm?cid=2348&t=BC-Code-of-Professional-Conduct-consultation-on-new-version-of-some-conflicts-rules

The United Nations envoy for Iraq has encouraged the Government, the Council of Representatives and citizens to continue to promote and protect human rights, stressing that it is their responsibility to make the respect of human rights a reality in their country.

“The Government must do all it can to ensure that its human rights obligations are met – and in particular that journalists and human rights defenders are protected,” said Martin Kobler, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), at an event in Baghdad yesterday to mark Human Rights Day, which is observed globally on 10 December every year.

“Eleven civil society activists were killed in 2010 and this shows that there are still challenges that hinder the enjoyment of freedom of expression and that must change,” said Mr. Kobler.

The Government must do all it can to ensure that its human rights obligations are met – and in particular that journalists and human rights defenders are protected.

He emphasized the importance of social and economic rights, including right to education employment and access to social services. “These rights, together with political [and] civil rights, are of crucial importance for the youth of the country, who represent more than half the population and they represent its future,” he added.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40711&Cr=iraq&Cr1=

More than 5,000 people have died in the nine-month-long Syrian uprising, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said on Monday. At least 300 children are among the dead, and there are thousands of people in detention.

Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, told reporters on Monday that she told security council members of the dramatic increase in deaths during an afternoon briefing. She recommended that the council refer Syria to the International Criminal Court, the permanent war crimes tribunal, for investigation of possible crimes against humanity.

She noted that the last time she briefed the council on Syria, in August, the death toll was at about 2,000.

US ambassador Susan Rice said Pillay's briefing "underscores the urgency of the present moment."

"Through condemnations issued by the UN general assembly and human rights council and bold steps taken by the Arab League and the government of Turkey, international bodies are starting to match their severe disapproval of Syria's bloody crackdown with concrete steps to bring it to an end," Rice said.

"It is past time for the UN security council to do the same."

The representatives of France, Britain and Portugal also said it was time for the council to take strong action on Syria.

"Today, Navi Pillay placed security council members on notice of the scale of the tragedy unfolding in Syria," said Philippe Bolopion, UN director for Human Rights Watch.

"History will judge harshly those who still choose to look the other way," he said. "Inaction is not an option any more."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/12/syria-5000-dead-violence-un

Canada and U.S. Steel Corp. have settled a court case that started when Ottawa sought to fine the firm in 2009 for breaking job-protection promises made when it bought Canadian steelmaker Stelco, Industry Minister Christian Paradis said on Monday.

http://business.financialpost.com/2011/12/12/canada-u-s-steel-settle-court-case/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Yoga poses such as head-to-knee stretches and the sequences of the moves are “exercises” rather than “choreography” and can’t be copyrighted in the U.S., regulators said.

The U.S. Copyright Office previously permitted yoga poses and their sequences to be registered, even if those exercises were in the public domain.

The office reviewed the legislative history of the copyright law and decided that exercises, including yoga, “do not constitute the subject matter that Congress intended to protect as choreography... We will not register such exercises (including yoga movements), whether described as exercises or as selection and ordering of movements.”

http://business.financialpost.com/2011/12/12/yoga-poses-cant-be-copyrighted-u-s-regulator-says/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter