Those who back legalisation of abortion in Kenya will soon be described as monsters. In the United States, pro-life organisations distribute photographs of bodies of babies ripped from their mothers' wombs to win supporters.

Abortion rights are also serious political issues in America, where voters either back or oppose a pro-life or pro-abortion candidate. Pro-abortion candidates are sometimes openly called murderers who try to rationalise their crime by talking about women's human rights.

Hun Sen said Cambodia closed the border after incidents in Thailand in which a Cambodian had been shot dead and another seven wounded by Thai security forces and landmines.

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``The Cambodian people are permitted to buy goods inside Thailand but the Thais do not bring their goods to sell in Cambodia,'' he said. ``It is not equal and not just to have that kind of relationship in trade. It makes it seem as if Khmers are beggars.''

The Cambodian government would treat Thais as the Thai government treated Cambodians.

The House in a motion on the Senate bill entitled "Prohibition of Unconstitutional Takeover of Government (and Other Ancillary Matters Bill), Senate Bill 108 moved by Hon. Ita Enang averred that the bill seeks to strengthen section [1(2)] of the 1999 Constitution over forceful overthrow of government.

Enang noted that "section one of the Senate bill seeks to make it an offence for anybody to forcefully overthrow a constitutional government," adding that "this is in line with what the constitution said."

Poraz said he wanted to institute civil marriage for anyone who wants it but, due to his party's agreement with the National Religious Party, it will only be available to those who cannot marry according to Jewish law.

He said he believes the Interior Ministry's power to shut down newspapers is anachronistic, and he will therefore review Yishai's decision to shut down the Islamic Movement's paper on the grounds that it incites violence.

He said he also opposes Yishai's decision to strip Israeli Arabs accused of involvement in terror attacks of their citizenship, and would look into how other Western countries deal with this issue. In any case, he said, the rule would be the same for Arabs and Jews, "since we have also produced a few spies."

A cursory scan of seventeenth through nineteenth century rabbinical haskamot (approbations), customarily printed in the prefatory section of rabbinic works, will reveal that these approbations served two distinct purposes. Firstly, the writer of the approbation would put a "seal of approval" on the work by testifying to the erudition and competence of the author. Secondly, the rabbinic authority would declare a ban against publication, for a fixed period of time, of the same work by another publisher. Rabbi Moshe Sofer (Chatam Sofer) theorizes that the prevalence of this practice can be traced to a sixteenth century incident which involved two publications of the Rambam's Mishneh Torah by two competing publishers.

While our Sages saw the benefit of sharing intellectual ideas without limit and of not requiring payment for their use, the situation in which many people derive financial benefit from the intellectual work and innovation of others is one in which we follow the laws of the land.

Furthermore, we often find recorded by our Sages and our traditions that we have a responsibility to recognise the creators of concepts. Accordingly, if one is repeating a Torah thought, one has a responsibility to identify the name of the person in whose name it was originally said. This corresponds to the "moral right" of an author or creator to be named as such, which is found in copyright law.

The legal tools for such legitimization are clearly present. Traditional Jewish law recognizes the right of the government to grant monopolies. Moral as well as legal authority can be inferred from the likeness to tolls. Our Sages saw paying tolls as an archetypical example of the citizen's duty to obey the law, and emphasized the importance of avoiding even the appearance of evading this duty. From an ethical point of view, the same approach should apply as well to the citizen's duty to recompense the owner of a copyright.