Gay marriage opponents file legal request to delay unions until November election

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(05-22) 16:47 PDT San Francisco - --

Groups that fought San Francisco's lawsuit seeking matrimony for same-sex couples have got asked the Golden State Supreme Court to detain its determination to let the marriages.

The organizations, including the Proposition 22 Legal Defense Fund and the Alliance Defense Fund, filed a petition with the tribunal Thursday afternoon seeking the hold until after the November election. That's when the state's electors will likely make up one's mind a projected constitutional amendment to restrict matrimony to opposite-sex couples.

"Permitting this determination to take consequence immediately - in the visible light of the realistic possibility that the people of Golden State might amend their fundamental law to reaffirm matrimony as the labor union of one adult male and one adult female - hazards legal mayhem and uncertainness of immeasurable magnitude," the filing states.

A spokesman for San Francisco City Lawyer Dennis Herrera said they would struggle any hold in issuing the matrimony certifications to cheery couples. Lawyers for the metropolis are expected to register a legal response as early as Friday.

Many county clerks believe the cheery labor unions could get as early as June 16. And although the projected gay-marriage prohibition have got not functionaries been set on the November ballot yet, protagonists have obtained the necessary signatures.

It is ill-defined what would go on to cheery couples who get married between June and November if the enterprise passes.

"It is to no one's benefit to redefine matrimony for four or five months," said Saint Andrew Pugno, legal advocate for the Proposition 22 Legal Defense Fund.

Also Thursday, state Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, announced she had received an unwritten sentiment from the Golden State Legislative Council, the lawyer for the state Legislature, stating that same-sex couples make not necessitate to resolve their domestic partnerships in order to marry.

Read the petition for a hold at .

E-mail James Wyatt James Buchanan at .

Real estate listings settling into Web / Competition, weak market and legal pressure lead to rise in online access

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Arsenic if place purchasers make not have got it good adequate already, finding a house for sale on the Web is becoming easier.

The ternary menace of a weak market, legal pressure level and increasing competition have compelled existent estate people to offer their information more freely online, putting clefts in a walled garden of information that stood strong while the industry enjoyed its breaking away growth. It also bodes an end to the years when Sellers must name their places with a agent so purchasers can see them.

The tendency goes around around the nation's roughly 900 multiple listing services, or MLS, where local agents station information about places they are selling. In old age past, these services were highly restrictive about where and how that information could be distributed - for instance, frequently not permitting Web land sites to expose Master of Library Science lists alongside for-sale-by-owner homes, depository financial institution foreclosures or other places not represented by existent estate agents.

Now these organisations are connecting more than freely with land sites like Zillow, Terabitz, ZipRealty, Redfin and others. And while these land sites make not have got got all the Master of Library Science data, they have enough to give users more of a one-stop site for existent estate shopping than ever before.

"It's a natural development of competition and what consumers want," said C. Henry Martin Robert Nathan Hale III, main executive director of the Houston Association of Realtors, which runs the area's MLS. "The consumer desires to see everything."

Nathan Hale have for old age distributed his members' lists to independent Web land sites that station brokered lists as well as those from owners. While agents can choose out of such as sites, Nathan Hale said none had. "So this isn't as large a alteration in Houston lately as it's been in other countries of the country," he said.

Take Massachusetts, for one. The state's dominant database of available homes, the Master of Library Science Place Information Network, recently agreed to feed its information directly to Zillow, the online existent estate site, even though Zillow also names for-sale-by-owner homes, and will soon add foreclosure listings.

Kathy Condon, main executive director of the Master of Library Science Place Information Network, states agents are more than than comfy giving up control of their lists not because they are despairing for sales, but because they are simply more comfy with the Web. This is not to state all of Condon's 6,000 members encompass the Zillow partnership. Although the trade is still new, just one-quarter of them have got opted to direct their information to Zillow.

Which is good with Zillow, as long as the tendency holds. Jorrit Avant Garde der Meulen, a Zillow frailty president, said: "This industry is steeped in tradition, so the development have been gradual. But I believe it's definitely snowballing now."

Zillow's existent estate lists stand up at about 2.2 million - about one-half of the 4.4 million of Realtor.com, which pays the National Association of Realtors an unrevealed fee for the right to station all the Master of Library Science listings, but cannot post those lists alongside non-MLS homes. Zillow, however, just started posting places for sale late last year.

Zillow, Realtor.com and most other lists land sites gain money by merchandising advertisements to run alongside places for sale, or by merchandising more outstanding arrangement to those who desire to advance certain place listings. But the tendency toward more than progressive statistical distribution of Master of Library Science places is also benefiting online existent estate companies with other concern models, like Redfin, a practical brokerage firm of kinds that is based in Seattle.

Redfin automatizes parts of the existent estate dealing procedure - for example, facilitating house hunts and coordinating place circuits online - in exchange for low committee fees for purchasers and sellers. The company had been cautious about posting Master of Library Science lists in the respective metropolises in which it operates. But recently Northwestern United States Master of Library Science of Seattle, among others, agreed to administer all of its lists to Redfin even though prospective place purchasers would also be shown for-sale-by-owner stock list and foreclosure places owned by Banks but not yet listed on the MLS.

Uncle Tom Hurdlebrink, main executive director of Northwestern United States MLS, said his service's displacement was meant to "create a balance of giving consumers what they desire while promoting the best involvement of our agent members."

That alteration recently allowed Redfin to present a vicinity map screening all the places for sale, regardless of whether they were listed with an MLS. Redfin also now stations the figure of years a place have been on the market, as well as its terms history - two spots of information previously held closely by agents and agents in the Master of Library Science system.

John Glenn Kelman, Redfin's head executive, said that non-MLS lists are particularly of import in the current existent estate market, since many more than places are being sold by Banks after a foreclosure legal proceeding but before they are listed in MLS. In marketplaces like San Diego, he said, foreclosure-related transactions have got in recent calendar months accounted for 40 percentage of sales.

Errol Samuelson, president of Realtor.com, A division of Travel Inc., noted that many Banks ultimately listing foreclosed places through MLS, and he said he would not desire to listing for-sale-by-owner places even if he were not contractually barred from doing so. Owners who sell their ain places have got no inducement to take them off the marketplace after a sale, Samuelson said, leaving a Web land site with inaccurate listings.

Many in the existent estate field are fighting the industry's glasnost because they simply make not desire the competition. The Department of Justice and the Federal Soldier Trade Committee have got got continuing enforcement actions against Master of Library Science that have tried to maintain their lists from competing Web sites. And executive directors at some existent estate sites, like Trulia, fearfulness that if they offered for-sale-by-owner listings, agents would no longer listing their places on the site.

But Hale, of Houston's MLS, surmises that opposition will wane. "Their mental attitude have got been, 'Just because the consumer desires it doesn't intend we have to give it to them,' " he said. "It's the certain manner to your demise."

South Africa: Doctors' Body to Probe Legal Unit After Arrest - AllAfrica.com

Sibongakonke ShobaJohannesburg

THE Health Professions Council of Sturmarbeiteilung (HPCSA) is investigating all lawsuits being handled by its legal section after its legal advisor was arrested for alleged corruption.

The council's prosecutor, Gershon Mosiane, was arrested after he was allegedly caught taking a payoff from a physician the council had establish guilty of malpractice.

The council's legal services GM, Tshepo Boikanyo, said the council had started looking into lawsuits handled by Mosiane, who had since been suspended pending an investigation.

"We have got establish a demand to scrutinize all substances being handled by the legal department, starting with those handled by Mosiane, to happen if there was anything untoward," Boikanyo said.

Mosiane was leading the grounds in the lawsuit against plastic operating surgeon Dr Saint Luke Gordon , who was charged with failure to exert sensible criteria of care, failure to expect possible complications, and failure to set up adequate, appropriate screen during an operation.

He pleaded guilty to the complaints and was establish guilty of nonprofessional behavior on two charges. He was suspended from pattern for one year, wholly suspended for three old age on status that he may work only in a state infirmary or clinic under supervising for six months.

The council ruled that a reputable plastic and reconstructive operating surgeon would have got to describe to the wellness commission of the HPCSA on whether Gordon was competent to drill privately and independently.

Gordon have appealed against the penalty, apparently saying that he was unduly influenced to plead guilty. Reports said he claimed he was made to believe he would acquire a lighter sentence and be able to go on with his practice.

His entreaty is pending.

Boikanyo said after the determinations against Gordon were handed down, police force told the council Mosiane had been arrested.

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HPCSA registrar Boyce Mkhize said Mosiane was arrested for allegedly accepting a R60000 payoff in tax return for him agreeing to "minimise the injury that the practician would be exposed to".

Mkhize said the council did not act upon people's pleas.

He said in a lawsuit where the public prosecutor and the lawyers had decided on a sentence, the substance would still necessitate to be approved by the profession's behavior committee.

Rudd Takes Legal Advice Over Court Action Against Ahmadinejad

Australian Prime Curate
said his authorities is taking legal advice on whether it can
take Persian President to the International
Court of Justice for inciting force against Israel.

Ahmadinejad have repeatedly called the Holocaust a myth and
sparked international disapprobation in 2005 when he said the
Jewish state should be ''wiped off the map.''

The comments are ''dangerous'' and the human race must unite
against such as remarks, Rudd told Sky News today. ''We volition take
careful and considered advice on what is possible on the
international legal front.''

Rudd, who won business office in November, promised Australia's
Jewish community before the election that he would take legal
proceedings in the ICJ against Ahmadinejad, the Australian
newspaper reported today. , the former defense
minister who is now leader of the opposition, at the clip called
the pledge a ''stunt.''

Ahmadinejad's remarks are ''not just hyperbole from the
bully dais of Tehran,'' said Rudd. ''It's the roll-on effect
across the Muslim world, particularly those who listen to Iran
for their guidance.''

Iran hosted a conference in December 2006 that gave a forum
to Holocaust deniers who disregard as fiction or hyperbole the
killing of 6 million Jews by the Nazis during World War II.

Germany's Nazis killed two-thirds of Europe's 9 million
Jews between 1939 and 1945 in a ''systematic, bureaucratic and
state-sponsored campaign,'' according to the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum in Washington.

Proof of the Holocaust have come up from subsisters of Nazi
death camps, encampment guards, authorities written documents and testimony in
the 1945 Nuremburg warfare law-breakings hearings.

To reach the newsman on this story:
in Sydney at
.

Kenya: Seal Legal Gaps in Coalition - AllAfrica.com

Last weekend while visiting Kisumu and his topographic point territory of Bondo, the Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, once again said resistance political relation have got no place in the alliance government, especially from members of his Orange Democratic Motion and by extension those of President Kibaki's PNU.

By so doing, the Prime Curate was raising cardinal inquiries that should be addressed quickly. The chief 1 is the function of Resistance in this country.

We are living in the dawning of an epoch and witnessing the shaping of a new nation.

The current alliance is a testing clip for this state and it will inform the hereafter of the multi-party democracy which, regrettably though not surprisingly, have got turned to be a competition of folks rather than a competition of thoughts and principles.

At the political space provided, the success of the alliance will constitute a foundation on which hereafter national political relation will be played.

There are many inquiries that have not been answered in our current state of affairs neither by the Fundamental Law nor by our politicians. What would be the function of Resistance in a alliance government?

Who among the members of parliament should fall in the Opposition? Are back-benchers from a political party in authorities taken as being in authorities too? Are it clip we allowed mugwumps into Parliament?

Traditionally, the Resistance is a government-in-waiting. But in our current situation, we do not have got that extravagance in topographic point given our post-election force past.

Ababu Namwamba, the military policeman for Budalang'i and his Lugari counterpart, Cyrus The Younger Jirongo, experience that the state necessitates a 'grand opposition' to maintain the Thousand Alliance on its toes.

To an extent, they make sense. This is because for the alliance to work, it necessitates principled opposition. But who among the mononuclear phagocyte system can bell the cat?

These are substances that Parliament must turn to and sealing wax all the legal loopholes that were left during the hurried crafting of the National Reconciliation Act and which goes on to have got got got some teething, though surmountable, problems.

The confusion that we witnesser today, however, had earlier been noticed after the scrapping of Section 2 (a), which saw us follow a multi-party system.

Interestingly, we then retained a single political party construction that still had an all-powerful presidency backed by an equally-powerful Provincial Administration.

We have to larn from that failure and move fast to rectify the clauses that do the Alliance weak in fictional character and substance.

This is because we have adopted a alliance construction and would wish it to run within a multi-party structure. The two systems cannot work in bicycle-built-for-two and there is demand to pass some of the laws and ordinances to do the alliance work.

The issue of national integrity cannot be taken for given and Mister Raila was well meaning when he said that it should take precedency of all other things.

By categorically stating that he stand ups for a incorporate nation, the Prime Curate have shown that he is a national leader.

But he should travel to solidify the Alliance by proposing alterations in our legislative acts that volition also make room for bank checks and balances while giving room for the alliance to succeed

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As we have got said before, Democracy must be place grown and should accommodate a national agenda. Multi-party democracy, however sweet, have its downside too in delicate states that are still ethnically divided and where the rival blocks soon turn to be tribal blocks.

When multi-party democracy falls to those levels, a state must craft a system that tin clasp the state together rather than hammer on a destructive path.

What are we saying? That our multi-party democracy necessitates to be looked at afresh. We can only prove the alliance machine if we do all the parts work. That is what national integrity is all about.

UK Guantanamo inmate in legal bid - BBC News

A British occupant facing a military trial in Guantanamo Bay have launched a legal effort to do the United Kingdom authorities release grounds for his defence.

Lawyers playing for Binyam Mohamed, who was detained in Islamic Republic Of Pakistan in 2002, state the authorities have cogent evidence that his testimony was obtained under torture.

They are also seeking grounds he was subjected to "extraordinary rendition" - conveyance abroad for interrogation.

Mr Mohamed's legal squad state he could confront the decease punishment if convicted.

They lodged document at the High Court in Greater London on Tuesday seeking a judicial review.

British intelligence

Mr Mohamed was detained in April 2002 as he tried to go back to the United Kingdom from Pakistan.

He states he was taken from there to Islamic State Of Afghanistan and Kingdom Of Morocco for questioning before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

His lawyer, Robert Clive Stafford Smith, said it had been established that Mister Mohamed was questioned by British People intelligence for three hours in Pakistan.

The existent issue here is some magnet of fearfulness that have drawn the moral compass of the United Kingdom authorities far from the way of human rights

Robert Clive Stafford SmithLaywer for Binyam Mohamed

Mr Mohamed states a British security service military officer indicated to him that he was to be taken to an Arab state - something his lawyers state turns out British government knew of a rendering plan.

Mr Stafford Ian Smith desires inside information of this interview to be released.

He is also seeking entree to flight records from the UK-dependent territory of Diego Garcia, which he states could set up that airplanes used for "extraordinary rendition" refuelled there.

And he states the authorities have cogent evidence that Mister Mohamed's genitalia were repeatedly slashed with a razor leaf blade while he was being held in Morocco.

Mr Stafford-Smith said on Tuesday: "The issue here is whether the British authorities have an duty to assist us, as Mister Mohamed's lawyers, turn out that torment grounds have been extracted from him and that is effectively the lone grounds that the United States armed forces is trying to utilize to convict him.

"The existent issue here is some magnet of fearfulness that have drawn the moral compass of the United Kingdom authorities far from the way of human rights."

Charges 'imminent'

The United States authorities have insisted the military courts at Guantanamo are fair, but critics disagree.

They state the criterion of cogent grounds required to convict is much less and those on trial only have got limited entree to the evidence used against them.

Mr Stafford Ian Smith said the substance was now pressing as he understood complaints against his client were "imminent".

Mr Mohamed came to United Kingdom as an refuge searcher in 1994, when he was 16.

Although his refuge claim was never finally determined, he was given leave of absence to remain, and went on to work as a cleansing agent in West London.

But in 2001 he travelled to Islamic State Of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he was later detained.