The Florida Supreme Court unanimously ordered the acquittal of a death row inmate Thursday, saying prosecutors had not proved he killed two neighbors.John Robert Ballard, 37, has served nearly three years for the 1999 murders of his friends Jennifer Jones and Willie Ray Patin Jr., whose skulls were smashed at their apartment."It's music to my ears," said Michael Orlando, Ballard's lawyer. "It's taken a long journey, but it was well worth the wait for this particular result."The state will not ask the court to reconsider, said Carolyn Snurkowski, a lawyer for Florida's attorney general. The trial judge must sign an order for Ballard to be released.The only evidence tying Ballard to the crime was a fingerprint on a bed frame and an arm hair found in Jones' hand, the high court said. But the court noted the possibility that Ballard left the fingerprint and hair during one of his many visits....
http://www.usatoday.com
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Editor - 19:17:00 02-23-06
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 Judge orders Guantanamo captive IDs released Defense Department announces it will comply with ruling |
A federal judge ordered the Pentagon on Thursday to release the identities of hundreds of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to The Associated Press, a move that would force the government to break its secrecy and reveal the most comprehensive list yet of those who have been imprisoned there.Some of the hundreds of detainees in the war on terrorism being held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been held as long as four years. Only a handful have been officially identified.U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff in New York ordered the Defense Department to release uncensored transcripts of prisoner hearings, which contain the names of detainees in custody and those who have been held and later released. Previously released documents have had identities and other details blacked out....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11531093/from/RSS/
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Editor - 19:14:00 02-23-06
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| 5 Palestinians killed by Israeli army in W. Bank 50 wounded, 15 captured in Israel’s biggest military sweep in months |
Israeli troops on Thursday killed five Palestinians, including a top militant who said just a day earlier that he would never be caught, in Israel’s largest military sweep since pulling out from the Gaza Strip last summer.Three of the dead were gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades — a violent offshoot of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party — killed during a shootout in their hide-out in the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank.The deaths brought to eight the number of Palestinians killed by army fire since the Balata sweep began Monday. More than 50 have been wounded by live rounds and rubber-coated steel pellets, Palestinian hospital officials said. The military said 15 fugitives have been arrested. Dozens of jeeps patrolled Balata, an Al Aqsa stronghold and a haven for weapons dealers, and sealed it off from the adjacent city of Nablus. Al Aqsa fugitives have been moving from hideout to hideout since the army raid began....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11529996/from/RSS/
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Editor - 19:11:00 02-23-06
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| Half Sunni, half Shia — a target for everyone A leading Iraqi TV reporter has been murdered - one of many hundreds of victims in Iraq's descent towards civil war |
THERE were so many reasons not to kill Atwar Bahjat. She was half Sunni, half Shia, a woman, an Iraqi, 30 years old, a native of Samarra and a renowned journalist for the Dubai-based al-Arabiya news channel. Yet kill her they did. They shot her to death on a dusty road six miles north of her home town as she reported on the bomb that wrecked Samarra’s sacred Shia shrine on Wednesday. She died with two colleagues — early victims in a frenzy of revenge killings that has dragged Iraq to the brink of civil war. Being half Shia was not enough to save her. For three years the fragile truce between Iraq’s once-dominant Sunni minority and long-oppressed Shia majority had held in the face of suicide bombs in market places, car bombs outside police stations and corpses found in ditches. That truce is now at breaking point. Across Baghdad and other cities Shia death squads have been tracking down and butchering Sunnis. Scores of Sunni mosques have been attacked, ...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2056276,00.html
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Editor - 18:54:00 02-23-06
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| 60 Percent of Americans Worried About Bird Flu, Although Few Think It Will Come to U.S. This Year |
Nearly 60 percent of Americans are concerned about bird flu, but fewer than one-third think it will show up in the United States this year, according to a new poll. The survey also found that blacks tend to be more worried than whites, and that most people would hole up if human outbreaks erupt. The Harvard School of Public Health telephone survey asked a series of "What if" questions of 1,043 adults. It's the first public, in-depth survey to ask Americans what they know about bird flu and how they might respond if the virus evolves to spread among people, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The results show that U.S. bird flu outbreaks could have severe economic effects. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1655618
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Editor - 18:50:00 02-23-06
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| Philippine army 'foils coup plot' |
The Philippine army says it has thwarted an attempt by soldiers to overthrow the president, Gloria Arroyo, and form a military government. Several commanders of elite units have been accused over the plot. Security was tightened this week amid rumours of a coup timed to coincide with the anniversary of a 1986 revolt against President Ferdinand Marcos. The army says the coup plotters had planned to speak out against Mrs Arroyo at an opposition rally on Friday. The police has withdrawn permits for all planned demonstrations and all schools in the country have been shut. Checkpoints have reportedly been erected around the capital, Manila, and soldiers have been sent to strengthen security around the presidential palace. Rumours of unrest are common in the Philippines, which has seen a dozen coup attempts in the last 20 years, says the BBC's Manila correspondent Sarah Toms. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4745716.stm
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Editor - 18:44:00 02-23-06
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