Africa

Attorney Avatars Create Virtual Bar, Virtual Law & Virtual CLE Courses

In many ways, it looked like a standard bar association meeting. But the woman clad in an orange tutu and thigh-high black stockings offered one clue that the attorneys attending the Oct. 20, 2007 meeting in the Second Life Bar Association’s conference room were actually avatars—animated characters created to represent…

Jan 8, 2008 8:29 PM CST

Teacher Pardoned for Teddy Bear Naming

Updated: Sudan’s president has pardoned the British teacher convicted of insulting religion for allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad. Gillian Gibbons, sentenced to 15 days in jail, has been released and transferred to the British embassy and is preparing for her trip home, the Daily Express reports.…

Dec 3, 2007 1:08 PM CST

Teacher Sentenced to 15 Days in Jail for Teddy Bear Name

Updated: British teacher Gillian Gibbons has been found guilty of insulting religion for allowing her Sudanese students to name a teddy bear Muhammad. She was sentenced to 15 days in jail. Defense lawyer Ali Ajab announced the verdict today at the end of her one-day trial, Reuters reports. He told…

Nov 29, 2007 7:26 PM CST

Teacher Accused in Teddy Bear Naming Appears in Court

Legal proceedings got under way in Sudan today against a British teacher charged with insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear after the prophet Muhammad. Gillian Gibbons looked “dazed and tired” as she waited to appear in court, Times Online reports. A Khartoum judge will decide…

Nov 29, 2007 1:33 PM CST

Teacher Charged for Naming Teddy Bear

Updated: A British teacher arrested in Sudan for allowing her children to name a teddy bear after the prophet Muhammad has been charged with insulting religion and inciting hatred, CNN reports. The charges follow statements by a spokesman for the Sudanese embassy that teacher Gillian Gibbons would probably be cleared…

Nov 28, 2007 3:45 PM CST

Teacher Who Let Children Name Bear Muhammad Faces Lashing

A British teacher is under arrest and faces lashing and deportation from Sudan, where she is accused of insulting the prophet Muhammad by allowing children at an affluent school to name a teddy bear after him. Gillian Gibbons was taken into custody in Khartoum on Sunday after parents complained that…

Nov 26, 2007 9:00 PM CST

Cops Plead in Apartheid Underpants Case

A top cop, three other police officers and the former South Africa justice minister have pleaded guilty to poisoning a prominent black activist’s underpants in an attempted murder in 1989 that nearly succeeded. Under a plea bargain, they received suspended sentences of between five and 10 years. The controversial case…

Aug 17, 2007 10:51 PM CDT

Liberia Declares War on Rape

Throughout Africa, rape reportedly has been used as a weapon of civil war in many countries by militiamen, rebels and government armies. The crime has rarely been punished, even when children are the victims. But that is changing in Liberia, whose female president publicly says she herself was the victim…

Aug 14, 2007 6:13 PM CDT

Millionaire Gets Extradition Delay

A U.S. millionaire wanted in connection with an alleged stock option backdating scheme has secured another delay in his extradition hearing in Namibia. Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, founder of Comverse Technology Inc., is seeking recusal of the judge appointed to hear his extradition case. His lawyer, Louis du Pisani, said the…

Aug 13, 2007 4:25 PM CDT

Pfizer Defends Nigerian Drug Tests

Pfizer claims its drug tests on Nigerian children saved lives in court papers filed in one of four legal actions being pursued by the country. Nigeria has filed criminal charges and $8.5 billion in civil claims against Pfizer, contending the company’s tests of the antibiotic Trovan led to the deaths…

Aug 8, 2007 2:49 PM CDT

Chaos in Zimbabwe Over Price Controls

Chaos has resulted in Zimbabwe from draconian price controls imposed a month ago by the government of Robert Mugabe under threat of criminal sanctions. So far, some 6,500 workers including executives of major retailers have been arrested as a result of widespread resistance to the price controls, and executives are…

Aug 2, 2007 9:34 AM CDT

Libyan Medics’ HIV Sentences Now Life

Libya’s High Judicial Council has commuted to life imprisonment the death sentences initially imposed on six foreign medics convicted in a controversial case of having intentionally started an HIV epidemic in a children’s hospital. The commutation today was prompted by a foreign financial settlement of $460 million to be paid…

Jul 17, 2007 9:47 PM CDT

Ghana: British Girls, 16, Smuggled Drugs

Two 16-year-old girls in London told their parents they were taking a short trip across the English Channel to France in late June for a six-day school trip. In fact, they went to Ghana, where they are now being held on charges of having attempted to smuggle $300,000 pounds worth…

Jul 12, 2007 8:13 PM CDT

HIV Death Sentences Affirmed

The Libyan Supreme Court has rejected the results of an investigation that found unsanitary hospital medical conditions are to blame for the infection of more than 400 children with the AIDS virus. The court affirmed death sentences for five nurses and a physician convicted of charges they intentionally infected the…

Jul 11, 2007 4:12 PM CDT

First Banana Workers Get US Court Trial

It has been some 30 years since thousands of banana workers in Central America claim to have been exposed to carcinogenic pesticides on plantations there. Intended to kill worms infesting the roots of banana trees, the pesticides dripped from the leaves onto unprotected workers and leached into the water supply…

Jul 9, 2007 6:00 PM CDT