The U.N.'s highest court said the U.S. remains obliged to review the cases of about 50 other Mexicans on death row because they were denied access to their consulate after they were arrested.

But it rejected Mexico's request that Washington guarantee that each case will be reviewed and reconsidered.

Both Mexico and the United States said they were satisfied with elements of the decision.

"It was a mixed result," said John Bellinger III, the legal adviser to the U.S. State Department.

He said the court refused Mexico's main request to spell out the U.S. obligations toward the arrested Mexican nationals, which likely would have led to heightened demands on the U.S. courts. But he was "disappointed" the tribunal declined to acknowledge efforts by the Bush administration to comply with international law and with the court's order.

The Mexican government applauded the ruling in a statement and urged U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to "take concrete actions" to comply with the ruling and "respect the rights of all Mexican nationals." Obama takes office Tuesday.

The judgment ended a five-year cascade of proceedings in the wake of a 2004 decision by the same court that the U.S. had violated an international treaty by failing to advise 51 Mexicans of their consular rights. The court required that each case be reviewed to determine whether the lack of diplomatic access could have affected the outcome of their cases.

Workers in the 27-nation European Union cannot lose the right to a paid vacation just because they are ill, the European Court of Justice ruled.

Its ruling clarified the meaning of the EU labor legislation at the request of a German and a British court hearing cases of workers denied paid leave due to illness.

The EU's Working Time Directive requires governments to ensure national paid vacation rules do not end up eroding the right to paid leave, the EU court said. It said that right cannot evaporate because of illness and workers must be able to take a paid leave in another period.

The ruling immediately drew criticism. Letting workers accrue paid vacation benefits while on sick leave "will have serious and practical" problems for employers, said Tim Marshall, a partner and head of employment at DLA Piper LLP in London, one of the world's largest law firms, which represents many multinational corporations.

"In these difficult times further constraints could prove too much for some employers," he added.

A state agent had posed as the girl, and the 51-year-old mayor was arrested Tuesday at the mall in suburban Milwaukee. District Attorney Michael Nieskes said during a news conference after a court hearing Thursday that investigators also found records of 1,800 sexually explicit chats on Becker's computer.

The charges include attempted second-degree sexual assault of a child under 16, possession of child pornography, child enticement, use of a computer to facilitate a child sex crime, attempt to expose a child to harmful material and misconduct in office. At least one city official has called on Becker to resign.

Becker, who is married and has two children, waived his preliminary hearing in Racine County Circuit Court on Thursday afternoon. Racine County Circuit Court Commissioner Alice Rudebusch set his arraignment for Feb. 10.

The investigation by the state Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation started after city workers who helped Becker fix a problem with his personal computer found pornography files on it and alerted Racine police, the complaint said. Police had passed the case on to state investigators to avoid a conflict of interest.

After chatting online with the agent posing as a girl, Becker went to the mall to buy lingerie for the girl, according to a criminal complaint. During the chat, he offered to meet her and take her to a hotel to "have lots of fun," the complaint said.

In a ruling released Thursday, the court embraced the Protect America Act of 2007, which required telecommunications providers to assist the government for national security purposes in intercepting international phone calls and e-mails to and from points overseas.

The decision, which involves the gathering of foreign intelligence, was made last August but only released Thursday after it had been edited to omit classified information.

An unidentified telecommunications company had challenged the law.

The U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review said the time needed to get a court warrant would hinder the government's ability to collect time-sensitive information, impeding vital national security interests.

The challenge to the law has presented no evidence of any actual harm or any broad potential for abuse, the court's three judges concluded.

The 31-year-old blogger, who went by the handle "Minerva" after the Greek goddess of wisdom, rocketed to fame in South Korea for his startlingly accurate predictions about the economy, including the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

But prosecutors said he went too far in saying on an online discussion site that the government had banned major financial institutions and trade businesses from purchasing U.S. dollars in an apparent move to shore up the local currency, calling it inaccurate information that disrupted the foreign exchange market.

His arrest last week ignited a debate about freedom of speech in cyberspace in South Korea, one of the world's most wired and tech-savvy nations.

Prosecutors have extended the detention period for the blogger, identified in court documents as Park Dae-sung, for further questioning and plan to indict him next week, Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unidentified prosecution official.

Prosecutors were not immediately available for comment late Friday.

In some 100 postings on bulletin boards on a popular Internet portal last year, "Minerva" denounced the government's handling of the economy and made predictions, largely negative, for the future. His writings were sprinkled with jargon that suggested he was an economic expert, and his identity was a hot topic of discussion in South Korea.

Prosecutors say the suspect is actually an unemployed Seoul resident who studied economics on his own after graduating from a vocational high school and junior college with a major in information and communication.

Judge Hou Man of Seoul Central District Court ruled Thursday that the suspect must remain in custody, saying he was a risk for fleeing or destroying evidence, defense lawyer Park Chan-jong said.

The lawyer said the blogger did not intend to harm the public. If convicted of spreading false information, he faces up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 50 million won ($36,360).

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges cast doubt at a hearing on claims by Noriega's lawyers that the Geneva Conventions treaties regarding prisoners of war require Noriega be returned to Panama because his sentence for drug racketeering ended in September 2007.

U.S. Circuit Judge Ed Carnes repeatedly asked Noriega attorney Jonathan May whether Congress eliminated the legal underpinnings of Noriega's argument when it passed the 2006 Military Commissions Act. The law created judicial procedures for enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but also could be applied to POWs and anyone else, the judges said.

"Do you disagree with the plain meaning of that language, or what?" Carnes said. "You're using the Geneva Conventions as a source of your client's right ... (the law) says you can't."

May said that was an incorrect interpretation of what Congress sought to do. He insisted the law was meant to apply solely to court proceedings, not an executive branch matter such as extradition.