• NATIONAL

Awaiting last rites for past 25 yrs

If you thought mummies can only be found inside Egyptian pyramids, then visit the State Medico Legal Cell (SMLC) office at Aishbagh. The

dilapidated premises still houses the embalmed mortal remains of a murder victim who breathed her last almost 25 years ago. Not only her, but another over 500 other mutilated human remains - some dating back to the 70s are stacked in a 15X15 feet room at the SMLC, awaiting their last rites.

But in the absence of any legal provision for their disposal and shocking apathy of the state police, the SMLC cannot do away with these human remains which have piled up to the extent that the cell stopped accepting any more cases way back in 1999.

"We were not left with any more space to store them," says an officer pointing towards the three room office of the SMLC which includes a toilet which had been turned into an office cabin for one of the staff members by hiding the taps and toilet seat behind a wall of steel almirahs.

• INTERNATIONAL NEWS

PCB puts on hold legal proceedings against ICC

Pakistan Cricket Board has put on hold its legal proceedings against the International Cricket Council for shifting 2011 World Cup matches from the country, hoping for a positive outcome from next week's meeting of the event's co-hosts in Dubai.

"The ICC had also indicated that we hold our legal proceedings until this meeting and we are also confident of some positive outcome from it," Tafazzul Rizvi, the legal advisor of the Board said on Wednesday.

He said if things didn't move forward on the issues raised by Pakistan it always had the option of continuing with its legal options against the ICC decision to shift the 2011 World Cup matches because of the security situation in the country.

British government faces legal action over torture claims

A former civil servant is threatening to sue a British minister, saying British security agents colluded in his torture by Bangladeshi officers who held him as a terrorism suspect, an official said.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's office said it had received a letter from lawyers for Briton Jamil Rahman, who alleges he was beaten and tortured over two years by intelligence officers in Bangladesh, and British MI5 security officers ignored the abuse.

"We have received a letter which we will respond to in due course," a Home Office spokesman said.

Legal rulings may hold some lessons

No one knows how many study abroad-related lawsuits are settled before landing in court. But we can probably count on two hands the number of cases where courts have ruled, several legal experts say.

None of these rulings creates "a binding precedent nationwide," says William Hoye, executive vice president and chief operating officer of IES Abroad, a Chicago-based non-profit that offers more than 80 study-abroad programs in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, Australia and New Zealand. Even so, the eight or so cases that pop up in legal research databases do provide "important lessons on how (providers can) proactively protect students," he says.

Musicians demand legal right to stop BNP selling their CDs on its website

A group of leading musicians, including band members from Blur and Pink Floyd, have demanded the right to prevent their music being used or sold for profit by the British National Party. The far-right party raises money by selling a selection of nostalgic folk albums on its website - but many of the musicians featured have discovered that they are powerless to stop their work financing the party.

In a letter to The Times tomorrow, members of the Featured Artists' Coalition and Musicians' Union have called for legally enshrined moral rights over the reproduction and sale of their material.

Ex-con's magazine focuses on advocacy, prison life

To prison inmates, he's a jailhouse lawyer made good. To wardens, he's a thorn in the side.

To prison advocates, Paul Wright is a success story: Once a killer, then a prisoner, now a journalist with a cause. He has carved out a niche with his Prison Legal News, a self-help magazine.

The publication, known as PLN, does more than highlight mail censorship, sexual abuse by prison guards and prison overcrowding in its black-and-white pages. The nonprofit tabloid often takes on the role of prisoner advocate, going to court against states and private prison operators  and winning money, reform and public attention for prisoners.

"It's a voice from the inside, but it's a helluva lot more reasoned and balanced than you might think, even though the point of view is obvious," said Fred Cohen, coeditor of Correctional Law Reporter, a trade publication that serves prison officials. "It's advocacy, in the best sense."

Wright, a former U.S. Army military policeman, started the monthly publication in 1990. Back then, he was inmate No. 930783 at Clallam Bay Correctional Center in Clallam Bay, Wash., where he served 16 years of a 25-year term for killing a cocaine dealer he was trying to rob.

Now, he produces the 56-page tabloid from a split-level home on a cul-de-sac in West Brattleboro, Vt., where he moved after his release from prison in 2003.