Old Master, new home ?

A South African family and film legend Elizabeth Taylor have locked horns over ownership of a Van Gogh painting (IOL 2004-05-28). The Globe and Mail reports that the film star is suing a Canadian lawyer and his two South African siblings to prevent them from claiming a van Gogh painting that she has on the wall of her Los Angeles mansion - a painting they say was looted from their great-grandmother by the Nazis before the start of the Second World War (2004-05-27). The Orkins and Adler claim that their great-grandmother owned the painting but that it was looted by the Nazis after she fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power (Mercury 2004-05-28).

Australia
Australia is introducing legislation to ban gay marriage, in a move which puts the prime minister, John Howard, squarely alongside President Bush on the issue that may prove crucial to their respective attempts to gain re-election

United Kingdom
A student who was caught plagiarising work he had downloaded from the internet is to sue his university for negligence (WebUser 2004-05-28).

Ireland
Four men were acquitted yesterday of membership of the terrorist group behind the Omagh bomb after a judge ruled that the Real IRA was not illegal. Mr Justice Paul Girvan dismissed the charges because the wording of anti-terrorist law did not specifically state that the "Real" IRA was a banned organisation (Telegraph 2004-06-27).

Canada
After nearly a decade of debate in the profession, two of Canada's most important legal organizations are finally moving to put a ban on sex between lawyers and clients (Globe and Mail 2004-05-24).

America
Like many other Americans who disagreed with Reagan's policies as President, I join his supporters in mourning his passing. But insofar as understanding Reagan's legacy bears directly on challenges that still lay ahead, the haze of nostalgia should not be permitted to obscure a clear-headed assessment of the record (FindLaw 2004-06-09).