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	Ex-Klansman sentenced to life for racist killings in 1964 by New York Times USA   August 2007   Calling the crime “unspeakable because only monsters could inflict this,” a federal judge on Friday sentenced a former member of the Ku Klux Klan to three life terms in prison for his role in the 1964 kidnapping and murder of two black teenagers in Mississippi.   The victims, Henry H. Dee and Charles E. Moore, both 19, were hitchhiking in Meadville, Miss., when a group of Klansmen, including James Seale, picked them up and took them to a wooded area, where they were beaten and their weighted bodies thrown into the Mississippi River. Both young men drowned.   Their bodies were not recovered until later that year in a high-profile search for three civil rights activists whose deaths generated widespread revulsion against the racial violence in Mississippi.   “The pulse of this community still throbs with sorrow,” Judge Henry T. Wingate of Federal District Court said as he imposed the sentence, which will effectively keep Mr. Seale, who is 72, behind bars for the rest of his life.   Judge Wingate asked Mr. Seale, who was shackled and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, if he wished to comment, but Mr. Seale declined. His lawyer, Kathy Nestor, said her client planned to appeal his conviction on kidnapping and conspiracy charges.   The main prosecution witness, a former Klansman who was granted immunity, testified at Mr. Seale’s trial that the defendant had told him he killed Mr. Dee and Mr. Moore. Mr. Seale was not charged with murder.   At Friday’s sentencing, Mr. Moore’s brother, Thomas, of Seattle, who has pushed for justice in the case since 1998, was given the opportunity to address Mr. Seale.   “When you took away Charles Moore, you took away my best friend,” Thomas Moore said. “I cried when I thought about how hard they suffered at your hands.”   Mr. Dee’s sister, Thelma Collins, said her brother’s killing “hurt us so bad I had to get a psychologist.”   At a news conference after the sentencing, Assistant Attorney General Wan J. Kim said that some 100 cold cases from the civil rights era were awaiting investigation and possible prosecution, including 30 in Mississippi.
	High Court upholds India''s Patents Act by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)   New Delhi/Geneva. 06.08.2007   Indian court ruling in Novartis case protects India as the ''Pharmacy of the Developing World''.   The landmark decision by the High Court in Chennai, India, to uphold India''s Patents Act in the face of the challenge by Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis is a major victory for patients'' access to affordable medicines in developing countries, the international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) stated today.   "This is a huge relief for millions of patients and doctors in developing countries who depend on affordable medicines from India," said Dr. Tido von Schoen-Angerer, Director of the MSF Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines.   "The Court''s decision now makes Indian patents on the medicines that we desperately need less likely. We call upon multinational drug companies and wealthy countries to leave the Indian Patents Act alone and stop pushing for ever stricter patent regimes in developing countries.   Novartis took the Indian government to court over its 2005 Patents Act because it wanted a more extensive granting of patent protection for its products than offered by the law. Novartis claimed that India''s Patents Act did not meet rules set down by the World Trade Organization and was in violation of the Indian constitution. Apparently all of Novartis''s claims have been rejected by the High Court today.   India only began giving patents on medicines to comply with WTO rules, but it designed its law with safeguards so that patents can only be granted for real innovations. This means that companies seeking a patent for modifications to a molecule already invented, in order to extend ever further their monopolies on existing drugs, would be unsuccessful in India. It is this aspect of the law that Novartis was seeking to have removed.   A ruling in favour of the company would have drastically restricted the production of affordable medicines in India that are crucial for the treatment of diseases throughout the developing world.   Developing country governments and international agencies like UNICEF and the Clinton Foundation rely heavily on importing affordable drugs from India, and 84 percent of the antiretrovirals that MSF prescribes to its patients worldwide come from Indian generic companies. India must be allowed to remain the ''pharmacy of the developing world.''   Over 420,000 people worldwide signed a petition requesting Novartis to drop the case because of the devastating impact Novartis''s actions could have on access to essential medicines. Among them were the Indian Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Global Fund Director Michel Kazatchkine, members from the European Parliament and the US Congress, former Swiss President Ruth Dreifuss, former UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis, German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Norwegian Development Minister Erik Solheim, as well as authors John Le Carré and Naomi Klein.
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