PPP co-founder calls for competent Guysuco Board

Insanity Defense Could Be A Tough Sell For Loughner In the past 30 years, things have gotten a lot harder for defendants who seek to plead insanity.

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 26 (Reuters Legal) - Financier AllenStanford is incompetent to stand trial at this time overaccusations that he led a $7 billion fraud, a federal judge inTexas ruled on Wednesday.
Stanford, who had been accustomed to jetting around theglobe in private aircraft, was indicted in 2009 on 21 countsincluding securities fraud and money laundering.
U.S. prosecutors accuse him of creating false accountingrecords, lying to investors and bribing a regulatory officialin Antigua.
While incarcerated, Stanford sustained a head injury duringa 2009 confrontation with another inmate and underwent surgeryfor repair of facial fractures.
At a Jan. 6 court hearing, three psychiatrists, including anexpert for the government, testified that Stanford was notcompetent to stand trial. Although they could not identify theexact cause of Stanford's diminished mental capacity, they saidit could be due to one or more of the following:over-medication, which has led to addiction; brain damage fromthe head injury; or depression. All three agreed that Stanfordshould be weaned from his medications, according to courtfilings.
The government contends that Stanford is legally competent,but nevertheless asked the court to move him to a suitablefacility for psychiatric evaluation.
U.S. District Judge David Hittner found on Wednesday thatStanford did not have the present mental capacity toeffectively assist his attorneys in preparing a defense.
Hittner denied Stanford's request to be released on bond toreceive treatment at a private medical facility in Houston.Instead, he recommended that Stanford be sent to a medicalfacility within the U.S. Bureau of Prisons for treatment and aneventual competency exam.
The court also admonished the parties to prepare the casefor trial despite Stanford's absence.
An attorney for Stanford was not immediately available tocomment on Wednesday, nor was a representative for the U.S.Attorney's office in Houston.
The case is U.S. v. Stanford, U.S. District Court, SouthernDistrict of Texas (Houston), No. 4:09-cr-00342.
For the prosecution: U.S. Attorney Jose Moreno, AssistantU.S. Attorney Gregg Costa, Principal Deputy Chief PaulPelletier of the Criminal Division's Fraud Section, AssistantChief William Stellmach and Trial Attorney Andrew Warren.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Monday January 31, 2011 – More than 70 of the region’s judges and other representatives from the judiciary system in the Caribbean are to be trained to assist the region in establishing and strengthening Drug Treatment Courts (DTCs).
They will participate in a high-level four-day training conference entitled ‘Establishing and Consolidating Drug Treatment Courts in the Caribbean: a Team Effort’ set for Montego Bay, Jamaica, starting on Wednesday.
The training intervention forms part of a broader initiative – the Caribbean Drug Treatment Court Project – to help curb substance abuse and its social consequences in the Caribbean, by developing and implementing policies that promote alternatives to incarceration for drug dependent offenders.
CARICOM, aided by the European Union through the 9th European Development Fund, is giving strong support to this project which was designed on the premise that “policies which help prevent crime, violence and drugs are just as vital to community well-being as law enforcement actions”, a statement from the CARICOM Secretariat said.
One of the alternative practices being advocated under the project is the introduction of judicially supervised treatment for some types of drug dependent offenders.
“Baseline research has indicated that over the past twenty years, this practice has proved to be effective in not only helping many countries to reduce crime and high incidence of relapse into drug use, but has also served to curtail the economic costs of incarceration,” CARICOM said.
The workshop in Jamaica is one of the first activities under the DTC project. It brings together judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, treatment providers, and probation officers from the host country and DTC teams from Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
This DTC project is a collaborative effort coordinated by the Organization of the American States (OAS), through the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) of the Secretariat for Multidimensional Security, and funded by the Government of Canada.

Manatt helped to draft joint release between Jamaica, US?
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
LAWYERS for the US-based law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips may have had a hand in the drafting of a press release the Government of Jamaica intended to release jointly with the United States Government during the height of the Christopher 'Dudus ... more

(NJ.COM) WILMINGTON, Del. - A guilty verdict has been reached here in the execution-style murder of 29-year-old Sven Hinds of Brooklyn, N.Y., whose body was dumped in Salem County after he was slain in 2009.Leonard M. Taylor, 25, of Anderson Court in Bear, Del., was found guilty of murder in the first degree in the death of Hinds on Monday. He was also found guilty of possessing a prohibited weapon.
The verdict was reached after the trial in Delaware Superior Court here. Read more...  

Suriname recognises Palestinian state

RAMALLA, West Bank -- Suriname, the former Dutch colony, on Tuesday became the latest South American country to recognize a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, according to Palestinian Authority Foreign Affairs Minister Riad Al-Malki.

a Palestinian state should be High on UN list of crises to solve

Apology to Jamaica PM: (Jamaica Observer) An article which appeared in the online version of the Daily Observer ... bit.ly/hgesxa

(Jamaica Observer) An article which appeared in the online version of the Daily Observer on Wednesday, February 9, 2011 under the headline ‘Bruce was untruthful too — Leys’, erroneously described Solicitor General Douglas Leys as branding Prime Minister Bruce Golding as a ‘liar’.
In fact, at no time did Mr Leys describe Prime Minister Golding as a liar.
At the Manatt/’Dudus’ Commission of Enquiry, Mr Leys said that he disagreed with a statement previously made by Prime Minister Golding but he did not use the word liar.
The Observer unreservedly and sincerely apologises to the prime minister for the error.