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Brazil will offer inmates in

its crowded federal penitentiary system a novel way to shorten

their sentences: four days less for every book they read.

Inmates in four federal prisons holding some of Brazil’s

most notorious criminals will be able to read up to 12 works of

literature, philosophy, science or classics to trim a maximum 48

days off their sentence each year, the government announced.

Prisoners will have up to four weeks to read each book and

write an essay which must “make correct use of paragraphs, be

free of corrections, use margins and legible joined-up writing,”

said the notice published on Monday in the official gazette.

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The day before the EU’s International Trade committee (INTA) recommended that the European Parliament should reject ACTA, the EU commissioner with responsibility for the treaty, Karel De Gucht, had given a speech to its members, trying to win them over. Although it was short, it turns out to be highly revealing about the European Commission’s future ACTA strategy. Here’s what he said:

If you decide for a negative vote before the European Court rules, let me tell you that the Commission will nonetheless continue to pursue the current procedure before the Court, as we are entitled to do. A negative vote will not stop the proceedings before the Court of Justice.

That is, whatever happens next week, the European Commission will wait for the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to rule on whether ACTA is compatible with EU law. If it is found to be incompatible, De Gucht admits that rather than accept this ruling, the European Commission will try to find some trick to circumvent it:

If the Court questions the conformity of the agreement with the Treaties we will assess at that stage how this can be addressed.

This implicitly confirms that the referral was simply a way to buy time, rather than an honest question about ACTA’s legality.

If someone came to me and said “You have been downloading music! I am going to cut off your internet!” and I respond “But I haven’t! I have proof!” and they respond “Pay me £20 and I will let you appeal my accusations.”

Sounds like racketeering

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A Tampa rape victim can sue the Hillsborough County Sheriff for allowing a jail guard to refuse to give her a prescribed emergency contraception pill because it was against the guard’s religious beliefs, a federal judge ruled.

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Orbitz Worldwide Inc. has found that people who use Apple Inc.’s Mac computers spend as much as 30% more a night on hotels, so the online travel agency is starting to show them different, and sometimes costlier, travel options than Windows visitors see.

The Orbitz effort, which is in its early stages, demonstrates how tracking people’s online activities can use even seemingly innocuous information—in this case, the fact that customers are visiting Orbitz.com from a Mac—to start predicting their tastes and spending habits.

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A German court has ruled that circumcising young Jewish boys amounts to bodily harm even if parents consent to the procedure.

Cologne state court said the child’s right to physical integrity trumps freedom of religion and parents’ rights, German news agency dapd reported Tuesday.

The case involved a doctor accused of carrying out a circumcision on a 4-year-old that led to medical complications. The doctor was acquitted, however, and prosecutors said they won’t appeal.

The president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Dieter Graumann, called the ruling “unprecedented and insensitive.”

He urged parliament to clarify the legal situation “to protect religious freedom against attacks.”

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Over the weekend Mark Zuckerberg’s recently floated company began quietly displaying @Facebook email addresses on all of its users’ Timelines.

The move immediately sparked anger from Facebookers, who complained that their third party email account names – such as Gmail or Hotmail – had been unceremoniously replaced without their say-so on the site.

As a result people may reply to your facebook email instead of YOUR email. A perfect man-in-the-middle attack on your mail