Prominence was given to an onslaught on Palin's environmental and animal rights record by veteran ex-film star Brigitte Bardot.

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Human rights barrister Dinah Rose and ex-parliamentary candidate Jo Shaw have quit the party over the issue.

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Shares then rebounded after reports that America Movil had acquired broadcast rights in Latin America (ex-Brazil) for the 2016 Olympics.

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Garzon is a well-known crusading human rights judge who ordered the arrest of ex-Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998.

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"They denied our legal rights, " says Paul Crespo, an ex-Marine and coordinator of a group called Young Professionals for Bush.

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One of the oddest sights of the hearings was that of Daniel Cohn-Bendit, in 1968 a student rebel, now the leader of France's European Greens, casually dressed in an open-necked shirt and thumping his desk in approval when Mr Patten, besuited ex-chairman of the British Conservative Party, declared himself a crusader for human rights.

ECONOMIST: European Parliament

Ex-Spice Girls manager Simon Fuller is leading a consortium bidding to buy the company that owns the rights to hit TV show American Idol.

BBC: Ex-Spice Girls boss eyes Idol bid

Those fighting to free Puracal include the director of the California Innocence Project, the human-rights attorney who helped win freedom for Burmese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and an ex-FBI agent who was one of the early champions of Amanda Knox's innocence.

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