WASHINGTON: A federal judge on Thursday ruled that some inmates held at a US military base in Afghanistan have the legal right to challenge their detention in US courts, just as detainees do at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Although the Supreme Court has ruled that detainees at the US naval base in Cuba have the right to challenge their detention, the government had argued that inmates held at the US air base in Bagram, Afghanistan did not have such a constitutional right.Judge John Bates, however, ruled the Bagram detainees faced essentially the same situation as the Guantanamo detainees, being held indefinitely without due process."Bagram detainees who are not Afghan citizens, who were not captured in Afghanistan, and who have been held for an unreasonable amount of time" may invoke the right to habeas corpus, Bates wrote, referring to the legal right dating back centuries. If it stands, the ruling could have far-reaching implications for how the US government handles terror suspects and for its operations at Bagram, where about 600 detainees are held. Barbara Olshansky, a Stanford University professor who represents about 20 detainees at Bagram, told media she felt certain that the ruling would extend to all the detainees at the US base in Afghanistan.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in
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