[JURIST] Following up on a story reported on JURIST's Paper Chase earlier today, Canadian parliamentarians late Tuesday afternoon turned back an opposition amendment to government-proposed same-sex marriage legislation that would have limited marriage to union between a man and a woman. Thirty government Liberal MPs split from their party in supporting the traditionalist amendment, but members of left-wing opposition groups nonetheless helped defeat it 164 to 132. The original bill is expected to pass - providing that the current scandal-beset minority Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin, stays in office long enough [CTV report] to bring it to third reading - but polls show that Canadians are still very much divided on the issue, with Canadian advocacy groups vehemently arguing for [Equal Marriage website] and against [Evangelical Felowship of Canada website]. CBC News has local coverage.

[JURIST] The top religious official in Saudi Arabia [JURIST news archive] has banned the practice of allowing parents to force women to marry. Sheik Abdul-Aziz al-Sheik said in a statement that coercion to marry was "un-Islamic," and that fathers who forced their daughters to marry would be imprisoned. The divorce rate in Saudi Arabia is 50 percent, and forced marriages are believed to be one of the main causes. The new directive is a major step for women's rights in the traditionally restrictive country. Women are not allowed to drive or vote and must cover themselves when in public. CBC News has more.

[JURIST] The nomination of John Bolton [official profile] as US ambassador to the UN is expected to be approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee [official website] as early as Thursday, despite intense criticism by a former State Department official during a hearing Tuesday. The key senator on the committee, RI Sen. Lincoln Chafee [official website], said he remained inclined to vote for Bolton following the hearing, meaning the nomination will likely pass in the committee. During the hearing, Carl Ford, Jr. [official profile], a former intelligence and research bureau chief at the State Department, said Bolton had a history of harassing lower-level officials who did not agree with his views. Ford said Bolton tried to have one analyst fired after she disagreed with his assessment over whether Cuba was developing biological and chemical weapons. A committee vote on the nomination could come as early as Thursday or by early next week, depending on whether committee members request more time to review documents. AP has more.

[JURIST] Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle [official website] has announced that the state will join nine others in suing the Environmental Protection Agency [official website] over a recently announced rule [JURIST report] to reduce mercury emissions. The lawsuit, led by New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey [official website], alleges that the rule violates the Clean Air Act because it does not regulate mercury as a hazardous air pollutant. Under the new mercury rule, a cap-and-trade program is used to reduce emissions, rather than the technology-based standard normally required for listed hazardous air pollutants. Harvey contends that the technology-based rule would reduce emissions by 90 percent, more than the 70 percent reduction expected under the Clean Air Mercury Rule [EPA backgrounder]. It would also avoid "hot spots" by requiring equal reductions by every mercury emitter. Proponents of the EPA rule argue that the trading route is more efficient and less costly for businesses to implement. The other states participating in the suit are California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York and Vermont. Read a press release from Doyle's office. AP has more.

[JURIST] John Negroponte [official profile] on Tuesday promised that security and intelligence agencies would not use torture in gathering intelligence under his watch as National Director of Intelligence. Negroponte faced tough questioning during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee [official website], which continues throughout this afternoon. In response to a question of whether interrogations of suspects would remain within all applicable legal boundaries, Negroponte said, "Not only is torture illegal and reprehensible, but even if it were not so, I don't think it's an effective way of producing useful information." Several Democrats on the committee questioned Negroponte on his record as US ambassador to Honduras during the early '80s. Opponents have accused him of ignoring human rights abuses in the country because the US needed a point from which to support Contra wars in neighboring Nicaragua. Negroponte is expected to gain the committee's approval for the intelligence post. AP has more.

[JURIST] The federal government has unsealed the indictment [text] of three men charged with plotting an attack on several financial institutions in the US. The three charged were Dhirin Barot, Nadeem Tarmohamed and Qaisar Shaffi, all of the UK. The indictment accuses the three men of conducting surveillance of the New York Stock Exchange and Citicorp Building in New York, the Prudential Building in Newark, NJ, and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. The three are currently being held in England, where they were arrested with several others on terrorism-related charges in August. The Justice Department [official website] is holding a press conference at 3 PM ET to discuss the indictment. AP has more.

6:45 PM ET - The DOJ has issued a press release summarizing its afternoon press conference announcement.

[JURIST] Following up on a story reported yesterday in JURIST's Paper Chase, the New York State Assembly Codes Committee [official website] Tuesday defeated a bill to reinstate New York's death penalty by a vote of 11-7. The legislation, supported by Governor George Pataki [official website], is now effectively defeated for this year. The vote came after five days of public testimony on the flaws and inefficiencies in the death penalty. "New Yorkers have expressed today what the rest of us across the country are continuing to learn - that our nation's death penalty system is broken," said Shari Silberstein, Co-Director of the Quixote Center [official website], a national organization supporting a moratorium on executions while questions of fairness are studied and addressed. AP has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website] asked for more police on Tuesday, citing recent attacks on judges and fears of terrorism. Justice Anthony Kennedy submitted a request to Congress for an additional $639,000 to pay for additional police patrols in the court's plaza and around the building. "A visible security presence is believed to be one of the most effective deterrents to acts of terrorism," Justice Kennedy said in prepared remarks to the House of Representatives Appropriations committee which held a related hearing [notice] Tuesday on the federal judiciary. Justice Kennedy cited the recent killing of an Atlanta judge and the murder of two family members of a federal judge in Chicago, saying the incidents "remind us how important and necessary this type of police protection is." Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Topping Tuesday's international brief, leaders from the Zimbabwean opposition party Movement for Democratic Change [official website] have filed the first of nearly a dozen legal challenges to the validity of the March 31 elections in Zimbabwe [government website]. MDC Legal Affairs Minister David Coltart [party profile] said that the first legal challenge had been filed Tuesday before the election court alleging specific government fraud in the city of Bulawayo. Coltart also said that 10 more specific cases would be filed Friday, one for each of Zimbabwe's 10 electoral provinces. The electoral court has six months to rule on the challenges under Zimbabwean electoral law. MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai [party profile] had previously said that the MDC would not be taking legal action. Coltart and MDC Party spokesman Paul Themba-Nyathi [party profile] said they had convinced Tsvangirai to file the challenges in order to prove to the world that the election was stolen, even though MDC maintains that the Zimbabwean judiciary is more firmly under President Robert Mugabe's control than it was in 2000 and 2002 when MDC previously challenged electoral results and lost. JURIST's Paper Chase has continuing coverage of Zimbabwe. Reuters has more.

In other international legal news ...

• The European Commission [official website] Tuesday issued its report on the feasibility study relating to the admission of the Republic of Serbia & Montenegro [government website] to the European Union [official website]. Recent controversy over the cooperation of the Serbian government with the attempts of the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [official website] to capture and try alleged war criminal Nebojsa Pavkovic cast doubt on the likelihood of a favorable report, but EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn [official profile] said that the EC was pleased with the reforms already implemented by Serbia and encouraged the nation to continue its cooperation with the ICTY. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica [official profile] expressed his pleasure at the report, and said that Serbia was looking forward to gaining full membership in the EU. Read the official Serbian press release. Serbia's B92 has local coverage.
  
  
• Following five voting rounds that produced an exact 17-17 tie, the General Assembly [official website] of the Organization of American States [official website] announced that the vote for the next Secretary-General of the regional body would be postponed until May 2. Voting was evenly divided between the two candidates: Chilean Interior Minister José Miguel Insulza [official profile in Spanish], and Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Ernesto Derbez [official profile in Spanish]. Under the General Assembly's Rules of Procedure, the vote for Secretary-General may be postponed following repeated ties. The special election is being held to fill the post currently held by Acting Secretary General Luigi R. Einaudi [official profile] following the resignation of Secretary General Miguel Angel Rodríguez, who stepped down to face criminal charges of corruption stemming from his 1998 - 2002 term as president of Costa Rica. Read the OAS official press release.
  
  
• The United Kingdom Home Office [government website] has confirmed that new applicants for UK passports will be required to submit their fingerprints for inclusion in the identification document. The UK is currently engaged in a debate about national ID cards, which require authorizing legislation, but as passports are issued by Royal Prerogative, no legislative approval is required. Fingerprint inclusion is the first of several changes the UK is making in the UK Passport Service [official website]. Starting later in 2005, all passports will include a microchip with a digital photograph of the bearer, in addition to the traditional hard copy photo. By the end of 2006, all new passport applicants will be required to conduct a face-to-face interview with a Home Office official. The Home Office confirmed that it plans to include 'biometric' data on all UK passports by the end of the decade. BBC News has local coverage.

[JURIST] The RIAA announced Tuesday [RIAA press release] that it intends to sue hundreds of individual college students accused of illegally distributing music and movies across Internet2 [official website], a super-fast computer network connecting universities and used for internet research. RIAA executives said it will file federal copyright lawsuits Wednesday against 405 students at 18 colleges with access to Internet2, which boasts speeds hundreds of times faster than the internet. Researchers at Internet2 once demonstrated they can download a DVD-quality copy of the popular movie "The Matrix" in 30 seconds over their network, a feat they said would take roughly 25 hours over the standard internet. The MPAA [official website] is also expected to file federal copyright lawsuits Wednesday against students with access to Internet2. AP has more.

[JURIST] Conservatives in the Canadian parliament plan to introduce an amendment Tuesday to scrap Bill C-38 [official text], which establishes the Civil Marriage Act [Canadian Department of Justice backgrounder] and allows for same-sex unions. Federal Liberals believe they will have enough votes to block the amendment. Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper [official website] argued that the proposed legislation "fails to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others." Conservatives want to substitute a new bill which reaffirms the traditional view of marriage. Justice Minister Irwin Cotler [official bio] said on Monday that the Liberals have enough support to defeat the motion. A recent CBC poll shows that Canadians are deeply split on the issue, with more than half saying that they opposed the Liberals' attempt to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. CBC has more.

[JURIST] Leading Tuesday's corporations and securities law news, the Wall Street Journal is reporting [subscription req'd] that 20 former NYSE traders who oversaw stock auctions were indicted on charges they traded stocks which benefited their firms at the expense of their customers. Read the NYSE press release. Read the SEC press release and administrative proceeding release [PDF]. The Journal is also reporting that the SEC will file and settle civil charges against the NYSE [corporate website] for not properly policing the traders. The settlement will have the NYSE paying $20 million over several years and require it to strengthen its market-surveillance and regulatory programs. Read the SEC press release and administrative proceeding [PDF]. Read the NYSE press release. AP has more.

In other news...

• As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, publisher and data broker Reed Elsevier Group PLC [corporate website] announced close to 310,000 people had their profiles stolen from its legal and business information service LexisNexis' [corporate website] recently acquired Seisint unit. The initial breach was initially reported to be only 32,000. Information including names, addresses, Social Security and driver license numbers were taken. Federal authorities are investigating the breach. Read the Reed Elsevier press release and a LexisNexis press release. AP has more.
  
  
• Verizon Communications Inc. [corporate website] announced it has filed a registration statement with the SEC relating to its proposed acquisition of MCI Inc [corporate website]. The statement includes a proxy card MCI will send to its shareholders to vote on the merger and also registers 132 million Verizon common shares to be delivered to MCI shareholders. Read the Verizon press release. AP has more.
  
  
• Prosecutors in the Enron [corporate website; JURIST Hot Topic news archive] internet division criminal trial told US District Judge Vanessa Gilmore that they would take approximately two months to try the five defendants. Five former executives and midlevel employees from Enron Broadband Services are charged with conspiracy and fraud and three are also charged with insider trading. Prosecutors say they lied to investors and the public about the value and capabilities of the business. Read the indictment [PDF] against the five. Former co-CEO Ken Rice and former COO Kevin Hannon have already agreed to plea bargains. Read the indictment against Rice and Hannon [PDF]. Read Rice's plea bargain [PDF] and Hannon's plea bargain [PDF]. The Houston Chronicle has more.
  
  
• In other Enron news, US District Judge Melinda Harmon heard arguments on the proposed $168 million settlement in a shareholder lawsuit against some former Enron directors. Lawyers for two former Enron Corp. executives, including Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow [Wikipedia profile], are fighting the proposal saying it would deplete funds to pay their legal fees. Judge Harmon gave no indication when she would make a ruling. Reuters has more.
  
  
• Internet search engine Mamma.com Inc. [corporate website] announced the SEC has changed its informal probe into the company into a formal probe. The investigation relates to alleged stock manipulation at the company last year. Read the Mamma.com press release. AP has more.
  
  
• As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, US District Judge Karon Bowdre said she would throw out three perjury counts against former HealthSouth Corp. CEO Richard Scrushy [Wikipedia profile] but did indicate the corporate fraud trial will move forward on other additional charges. The Northern District of Alabama has additional information about the trial. AP has more.
  
  
• The former chairman and CEO of American International Group Inc. (AIG) [corporate website] Maurice "Hank" Greenberg [Wikipedia profile] has invoked his constitutional rights against self-incrimination when asked questions related to the insurance giant's reinsurance deal with General Re which is at the center of an investigation in AIG. This comes one day after Warren Buffett [Wikipedia profile] confirmed to regulators that Greenberg knew about the deal. AP has more.
  
  
• Global Crossing Ltd. [corporate website] and three former executives have settled with the SEC over an investigation related to the company's swaps of fiber-optic network capacity with other companies which Global Crossing then used to artificially boost revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars. Under the settlement the company pays nothing but former CEO Thomas Casey, ex-chief financial officer Dan Cohrs and former executive vice president of finance Joseph Perrone each pay a $100,000 civil fine and none are required to admit to any wrongdoing. Read the Global Crossing press release. Read the SEC litigation release and complaint [PDF] against the three executives. AP has more.

[JURIST] A federal judge in Alabama indicated Tuesday that she would throw out three perjury counts against former HealthSouth [official site] CEO Richard Scrushy [Wikipedia entry], but that she would allow his trial to proceed on additional charges. District Judge Karon Bowdre indicated that she would grant a defense motion to bar jurors from hearing evidence about Scrushy's sworn statements to an SEC investigator, telling jurors they would have "three fewer charges to deal with." A written order is expected later this week. Scrushy still must face charges of conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice and false corporate reporting. This is the first case of a CEO being accused of violating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act [bill text, PDF], passed in 2002 in response to well-publicized corporate fraud scandals. Even without the perjury charges, Scrushy could still receive a life sentence and be ordered to pay fines up to $278 million if convicted. AP has more. The Northern District of Alabama has additional information about the trial.

[JURIST] Iran's judiciary [official website] Tuesday rejected Canada's demands that the remains of a Iranian-Canadian photographer who died in detention in Tehran be returned to Canada. Officials in Ottawa demanded last week that Iran return the body of Zahra Kazemi [CBC backgrounder], who died in custody in July 2003, so that an autopsy could be performed to investigate allegations of rape [JURIST report]. Iran's judiciary rejected the request stating that Kazemi "was an Iranian citizen and having a Canadian citizenship does not exclude her case from being dealt with by the Iranian courts." The laws of Iran do not recognize dual nationality. However, the case will be reviewed by an appeal court in Tehran, with lawyers to present their claims on May 20. Last Sunday, Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi [official profile], who is representing Kazemi's mother, asked the head of Iran's judiciary to appoint a special judge to investigate the circumstances of Kazemi's death. Kazemi died 10 days after being arrested for photographing a demonstration outside a Tehran prison. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Data services group LexisNexis [corporate website] said Tuesday that personal information of 310,000 US citizens may have been stolen, significantly more than the 30,000 announced in March. An investigation by parent company Reed Elsevier [corporate website] found that company databases had been breached 59 times with stolen passwords, with personal information including social security numbers and addresses possibly stolen. Lexis said it was beginning to notify those not in the original group of 30,000. No reports of identity theft have been reported from that initial group, but the company is offering those whose information was stolen free credit monitoring and fraud insurance. Similar break-ins have been reported [JURIST report] by other data companies in recent months. Read a Reed Elsevier press release and a LexisNexis press release. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] An Afghan court has sentenced two deputy ministers and six others to prison on corruption charges, a court official said Tuesday. The case was the first major corruption case under the new government, since President Hamid Karzai [Wikipedia profile] made fighting corruption one of his top priorities after being elected in October 2004. The two deputy ministers, from the Ministry of Religious Trust and Haj, were sentenced to three years in prison and fined. The six others, all officials in the same ministry, received two- and one-year sentences. A court official said the charges related to the annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca, but would not offer more details. Corruption has remained a major problem in Afghanistan [JURIST news archive] since the Taliban government was ousted by US forces in 2001. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Andrea Dworkin [memorial website; Wikipedia profile], a feminist who campaigned against pornography as a violation of women's civil rights, has died at the age of 58, her family said on Monday. Dworkin published numerous books during her life, including "Woman Hating" [book excerpts], which began her advocacy on the harm to women caused by pornography. Dworkin argued that pornography was a direct cause of rape and violence against women. In 1986, she testified before the New York Attorney General's Commission on Pornography. She suffered from several health problems during the past couple years. AP has more.

[JURIST] AP is reporting that three men have been indicted on charges of plotting to attack financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington, DC. The three men are in custody in England, law enforcement officials said. An announcement is expected later today, when the indictments will be unsealed. AP has more.

2:10 PM ET - The Justice Department is holding a press briefing with Deputy Attorney General James Comey at 3 PM ET today.

[JURIST] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld [official profile; JURIST news archive] on Tuesday warned Iraqi interim leaders to avoid political purgings that could lead to corruption in the government in the wake of its recent formation. He also urged the government to push forward in drafting a constitution for Iraq [JURIST news archive], with an August deadline fast approaching. Rumsfeld, who made the comments as he traveled to Iraq [Defense Department news report] for an unannounced visit, said he was concerned that Shiite and Kurdish leaders might dismiss Sunnis from government ministries in favor of their own party members. Newly named Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari [BBC News profile] said challenges existed for the government, but he maintained that politicians would be able to cooperate. Leaders have gotten off to a slow start following the January elections, spending most of February and March attempting to form a government. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A Cambodian group gathering evidence of atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge government [Wikipedia article] has appealed to governments worldwide for more evidence that can be used in the trials of former leaders. Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia [official website], said requests for information had been sent to 42 embassies of countries that either maintained embassies in Cambodia during the regime or monitored events from neighboring countries. Chhang said the embassies had been requested to search their archives and declassify materials that can be used by the Extraordinary Chambers, the UN-backed tribunal that is expected to try six former Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide and crimes against humanity. Legal proceedings have been threatened by lack of funding [JURIST report], lack of information and the age of the former leaders, who are now mostly in their 70s. Some of the former leaders continue to live freely in Cambodia. Yale University's Cambodia Genocide Program [official website] has more information on the Khmer Rouge government. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Nepal [JURIST news archive] has agreed to allow UN human rights workers to enter the country [UN news report] to monitor reported abuses by both government and Maoist rebel forces, the UN announced on Monday. Under the agreement signed by the Nepalese government and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website], the OHCHR will set up regional posts in the country to respond to reports of human rights violations. Human rights groups had mixed reactions to the announcement, with some welcoming it and others calling for a stronger condemnation of the Nepalese government by the UN. In response to the announcement, Switzerland said it would drop its demand for Nepal's censure during the current UN human rights session. Nepal has been in turmoil since a Maoist rebellion in 1996, and an estimated 11,000 have been killed since. The human rights situation appeared to deteriorate in February when King Gyanendra declared a state of emergency [JURIST report] and imprisoned numerous politicians. Read the OHCHR press release. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] John Negroponte [official profile], President Bush's selection for the new national intelligence director post, is expected to win Senate confirmation, but human rights questions dogging Negroponte from his time as ambassador to Honduras may slow the process. Confirmation hearings in the Senate Intelligence Committee [official website] begin Tuesday. Human rights groups have maintained [JURIST report] that Negroponte supported human rights violations during his time in Honduras by backing Contra rebels and military units that kidnapped and killed civilians. Negroponte has denied the allegations, but the same issue held up his confirmation as UN ambassador for half a year. Much of the hearing is expected to focus on how Negroponte will carry out reforms made [JURIST report] by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 [text] to reign in the nation's 15 intelligence agencies. AP has more.

[JURIST] Puerto Rican legislators supporting US statehood said Monday they would try to push through a bill clarifying the territory's relations with the US over a veto by Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila. The bill, vetoed by Vila on Sunday, calls for a referendum by Puerto Ricans on whether to request that the US government honor any future decisions on whether to seek statehood. The legislation is backed by the pro-union New Progressive Party [official website in Spanish], which has majorities in both the House and Senate, but lacks the two-thirds needed to override a veto. Acevedo Vila's Popular Democratic Party supports maintaining Puerto Rico's commonwealth status. Although PDP legislators supported the bill in initial voting, most are expected to back the governor's veto in any override attempt. Previous referendums on statehood in 1993 and 1998 have been narrowly defeated. AP has more.

[JURIST] Three former Global Crossing [corporate website] executives have reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission [official website] where they will each pay a $100,000 civil fine without having to admit wrongdoing in "capacity swap" deals made before the telecommunications company went into bankruptcy. The SEC's civil complaint [PDF text] alleged that Global Crossing's former CEO Thomas Casey, former CFO Dan Cohrs, and former EVP Joseph Perrone aided and abetted the company's failure to adequately disclose material information on its swaps of fiber-optic network capacity with other companies. Under the settlement [SEC press release; Global Crossing press release], the three former executives will pay fines without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC complaint. AP has more.

[JURIST] A new opinion poll released Monday by the Financial Times shows that almost 70 percent of Britain's finance directors are opposed to the country adopting the new European constitution [official website; treaty text]. Thirty percent of business managers responding to the FT poll said they "strongly oppose" Britain adopting the EU constitution, and another 38 percent said they are "generally opposed" to its adoption "but could be persuaded in favour of it if I thought it would be good for Britain." Only four percent indicated that they "strongly support Britain adopting the new European constitution." Finally, 26 percent said they generally supported Britain adopting the treaty, but said they "could be persuaded against it if they thought it would be bad for Britain." A British referendum on the EU constitution [JURIST report] is expected to be held next year, although an exact date has not yet been set. The Financial Times has more. Elsewhere in Europe, France is scheduled to hold a referendum on the EU constitution in May, but the government there is warning of an EU constitution crisis [JURIST report] in the face of rising voter opposition [JURIST report] to the document.

[JURIST] American oil services company Halliburton [corporate website; JURIST news archive] may have overcharged the Defense Department at least $212 million for its work providing fuel to Iraqi citizens, according to portions of Defense Contract Audit Agency [official website] audits released Monday by Rep. Henry Waxman [official website], ranking member of the House Committee on Government Reform. In a letter [PDF text] sent to Rep. Christopher Shays, chairman of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security, Waxman says that the audits "add to the mounting evidence of waste, fraud and abuse involving" the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) and show that the Bush administration has withheld an extensive amount of information from the International Advisory and Monitoring Board [official website], the audit oversight body for the DFI. Waxman has also requested that Shays' committee hold hearings on the administration's mismanagement of the DFI. The latest audit figures come a month after an earlier DCAA audit had found $108 million in Halliburton overcharges [JURIST report], and barely four weeks after the US Justice Department charged a ex-employee of a Halliburton subsidiary with overcharges defrauding the US government of some $3.5 million [JURIST report]. The Committee on Government Reform Minority Office has background on Iraq reconstruction and a press release on the audit findings. Reuters has more details on the latest audit findings.

[JURIST] Here's a run-down of law-related events, expected developments and live webcasts on JURIST's docket for Tuesday, April 12.

The US Senate [official website] convenes at 9:45 AM ET today, when it will consider H.R. 1268 [bill summary], the Iraq/Afghanistan Supplemental Appropriations bill. Watch a live webcast of the session. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee [official website] continues consideration of the nomination of John R. Bolton [official profile] as US ambassador to the UN at 9:30 AM ET today. Watch a live webcast of the hearing. The Senate Intelligence Committee [official website] is holding a hearing to consider the nomination [AP report] of John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence at 10 AM ET today.

The US House [official website] convenes at 12:30 PM ET today. Watch a live webcast of the session. The House Judiciary Committee [official website] Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee is holding a hearing at 1 PM ET on H.R. 1528 [bill summary], the Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act. Watch a live webcast of the hearing. The House Government Reform Committee [official website] National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations Subcommittee is holding a hearing at 2 PM ET today on the UN Oil-for-Food Program [JURIST news archive]. Watch a live webcast of the hearing.

The European Parliament [official website] begins its plenary session at 9 AM local time [3 AM ET] today. View the agenda for the session. Watch a live webcast of the session.

The UN Security Council [official website] is holding an open meeting at 10 AM ET today on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Watch a live webcast of the meeting.

At the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the trial of Slobodan Milosevic [ICTY case backgrounder] continues today at 9:30 AM local time [3:30 AM ET]. Also today, the trial of Fatmir Limaj and others [ICTY case backgrounder] continues today at 2:45 PM local time [8:45 AM ET]. Watch a webcast of proceedings.