Around the World

British human rights law goes into effect

LONDON - Although soapbox orators have made Speaker's Corner a symbol of free speech for much of the world, their rights in Hyde Park are not explicitly guaranteed in British law.

Similarly, Britain has no equivalent of the Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and prosecutors have introduced illegally obtained evidence in British trials. All of this will change, however, when the Labor government's Human Rights Act goes into effect today, incorporating a 50-year-old European convention on human rights into domestic law and giving Britain what amounts to a bill of rights.

This is a legal revolution for Britain with far-reaching political implications, say attorneys, civil rights activists and judicial experts. Overnight, centuries-old British case law will be superseded by the new bill outlining the right to life, liberty, free speech and a fair trial, plus prohibitions against torture, slavery and discrimination.

"These are all the sort of rights that America got in its Bill of Rights in the 18th century," said Julian Knowles, an attorney with Matrix, a law firm specializing in human rights law.

"The idea that people can actually look up what their basic rights are is pretty revolutionary here," King's College human rights law Prof. Francesca Klug said.

More displaced as India floods spread

NAKPUL, India - Fresh flooding submerged new areas in India and Bangladesh yesterday, forcing thousands more residents to flee in a region where 20 million people have already been affected and more than 1,040 people have been killed, officials said.

At least 10,000 people displaced by new flooding crammed schools, stationary train cars, rooftops of buildings, movie theaters or gathered along roadsides in the North 24 Parganas district.

- Compiled from Daily wire reports.