[JURIST] Leading Wednesday's corporations and securities law news, Christopher Cox [Wikipedia profile] was sworn in as the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission [official website]. Cox, who became the 28th chairman of the SEC, took the oath of office from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. The SEC said in a press release that Cox's duties will officially begin on Thursday. Cox's nomination was unanimously confirmed by the Senate in July and he has pledged to vigorously uphold the law, including controversial new SEC rules [JURIST report].

In other corporations and securities law news...

• As reported earlier in JURIST's Paper Chase, Time Warner [corporate website] has agreed to a large settlement with investors. In a press release, Time Warner announced that it had agreed to a $2.4 billion settlement of a securities lawsuit and will set aside an additional $600 million for further litigation costs. The lawsuit was brought by investors who held stock in the company at the time of its disastrous merger with AOL [Wikipedia entry]. BusinessWeek has more.
  
  
• Bloomberg is reporting that the US Justice Department [official website] may push for a large settlement with KPMG [corporate website] instead of carrying on with criminal indictments against the company. The report cites unnamed sources who say the government would prefer to fine the auditing firm upwards of $500 million for its role in creating illegal tax shelters [JURIST report] and lying to the IRS [official website].

[JURIST] Amnesty International [advocacy website] said in a report [text; press release] Wednesday that two men currently held in a Yemeni prison seem to have been kept in clandestine US detention facilities in solitary confinement for almost two years. The group claims that details of interviews with Salah Nasser Salim 'Ali and Muhammad Faraj Ahmed Bashmilah indicated they were victims of a US "policy of secret detentions around the world." Amnesty USA executive director William Schulz referred to these secret locations as just as "sinister" as Guantanamo "yet less well-known." The group called on the US to give the locations of secret detention facilities and the identity of detainees and to swiftly end secret detentions. A spokesman for the US Department of Defense [official website] denied that US forces tranferred detainees to secret locations throughout the world. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Leading Wednesday's states brief, North Carolina lawmakers and law enforcement officers today urged the state's General Assembly to pass legislation [PDF text] unveiled seven months ago to combat gang member violence in the state. The bill would create additional felonies and stiffer penalties for gang members, and seek $20 million for gang prevention initiatives and $150,000 for a statewide database of criminal gang members. On Monday, federal immigration agents said that out of 582 people arrested in a recent nationwide round-up of suspected gang members living illegally in the US, North Carolina had the highest number at 77. Read the House Select Committee on Street Gang Prevention's report to the General Assembly here. AP has more.

In other state legal news ...

• The state of Florida has released Luis Diaz, after serving 26 years for a series of rapes, because new DNA evidence excluded him as as the rapist in two of the rapes and case doubt on his responsibility for any of the crimes. Miami-Dade County's [official website] chief prosecutor requested the five rape convictions be thrown out, writing in the dismissal request, "It is impossible to ignore the difficulties inherent in retrying five very old cases even under the best of circumstances. Police investigators retire, memories fade, and victims move on with their lives." Diaz was convicted in 1980 of seven sexual assaults, but two of those convictions were thrown out in 1993 after two witnesses recanted their identification of him. The Innocence Project [Innocence Project case profile] also requested the convictions be thrown out, and executive director Barry Scheck said, "There are reforms police and prosecutors are using all across the country that reduce error, protect the innocent, and help apprehend the guilty." AP has more.
  
  
• Delaware has agreed to pay over $1.4 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice [DOJ press release] alleging that a written examination once given to state trooper applicants discriminated against blacks. Under the consent decree, Delaware must pay more than $1.4 million to qualified blacks who applied for entry-level trooper positions between 1992 and 1998, but were denied employment as a result of their performance on the written examination. The federal government filed suit in 2001 alleging that the State Police [official website] "Alert" test discriminated against black trooper applicants. Department of Justice [official website] spokesman Eric Holland said that "While the racial discrimination was not intentional by the state, there was still a disparate impact on the basis of race." The consent decree must still be approved by the federal court. AP has more.
  
  
• A New Jersey court of appeals has ruled [PDF text] that a municipality may seize land from a private developer to preserve the land as open space. The decision found Mt. Laurel Township acted properly when it seized 16-acres of land from a developer, saying it wanted to preserve the land. The developer had already received approval for his project to develop the land, and his attorney said the decision will be appealed to the state Supreme Court. AP has more.

[JURIST] With new anti-terrorism measures being introduced across Europe [JURIST report] in the wake of the London bombings, Sweden's Justice Minister Thomas Bodstrom [official profile] has said he plans to introduce a bill that would strengthen the military's role in the event of an attack, and give authorities the preventative power to listen in on conversations. His comments were reported Wednesday by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Germany. A similar bill failed several years ago in Sweden because of civil rights concerns. Finland recently granted its authorities the power to bug telephones as an anti-terror measure. UPI has more.

[JURIST] The UK Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority [official website] says families and victims of the London bombings [JURIST news archive] will be eligible for the basic benefit of £11,000 ($19,543 USD)with a maximum payout total of £500,000 ($888,542 USD). Howard Webber of the CICA said the payouts should be considered "a token of public sympathy," but other groups have complained that the amounts are too low, drawing comparisons to the US September 11th Victims Compensation fund [JURIST report], which paid out from a guaranteed minimum of $250,000 to almost $8 million [US DOJ press release]. Webber said such comparisons were inappropriate. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] Iraq legislators accused Kuwait [JURIST news archive] of stealing Iraqi oil during a televised debate on Tuesday, the 15th anniversary of the Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. The debate [Gulf Daily News report], which did not have any Kuwaiti representatives, also touched on minor border disputes which arose between the two states after the 1991 Gulf War and 1993 boundary drawing by the UN. Jawad al-Maliki, chairman of Iraq's Security and Defense Committee, claimed that Kuwait was drilling into oil pools at angles into Iraqi territory. Kuwait has also drawn protests from Iraq for building a metal barrier to mark the border. Negotiations to settle the disputes are planned. AP has more.

[JURIST] A third US military prosecutor asked for a transfer from the Guantanamo military tribunals in March 2004 after voicing complaints about their fairness, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. ABC previously reported on emails in which two other military prosecutors called the tribunals "rigged" and "a fraud" [JURIST report]. Both those officers also requested transfers and were re-assigned. A US Air Force judge advocate-general said "personality conflicts" created "misunderstandings" leading to the departure of Captain Carrie Wolf, but also promised a thorough investigation into the allegations. The complaints from prosecutors have not yet shaken the Australian government's faith in the Guantanamo legal process [JURIST report] and it is still backing a military tribunal for Australian David Hicks [Wikipedia profile], who is being held at Guantanamo after being captured in Afghanistan. ABC Australia has more.

[JURIST] London police Wednesday charged 23-year-old Ismael Abdurahman with withholding information about the failed July 21 bombing attacks [JURIST report] on London's bus and subway systems. The charge alleges that Abdurahman "had information he knew or believed may be of material assistance in securing the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of another person in the UK for an offense involving the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism." Police claim Abdurahman, one of 37 arrested in connection with second attack, learned the information sometime between July 23 and July 28. He is set to appear before Bow Street Magistrates' Court [Wikipedia backgrounder] in London on Thursday. AP has more.

[JURIST] The sponsors of a proposed amendment to the California constitution that would ban gay marriage [advocacy website] sued California Attorney General Bill Lockyer [official website] on Tuesday, alleging that his summary of the measure [initiative text] prepared by the state for signature-gathering petitions is biased. Lockyer changed the name of the bill [JURIST report] from the proposed "The Voters' Right to Protect Marriage Act" to "Marriage. Elimination of Domestic Partnership Rights" and also stressed that the act would not just define marriage as between a man and a woman but also eliminate rights given to domestic partners. A spokesman for Lockyer said the description is "100 percent accurate" and doubted that a judge would rule against it. AP has more.

[JURIST] A military group in Mauritania [CIA factbook profile] overthrew the president on Wednesday, with a junta taking temporary control of the West African nation. Mauritanian President Maaoya Sid'Ahmed Taya [Wikipedia profile], who has allied with the US in the war on terror and severely cracked down on extremists [AP report], was out of the country when soldiers took control. He remains in Niger after returning from King Fahd's funeral in Saudi Arabia. Taya himself came to power in a coup two decades ago and numerous coup attempts have been made against him previously [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Sudan People's Liberation Movement [party website] (SPLM), the political movement of former rebel leader turned vice president John Garang [Wikipedia profile], called Wednesday for an international investigation into the helicopter crash that caused his death and ignited deadly clashes in Sudan. According to the newspaper Sudan Vision [news website], a leading member of the SPLM has urged the United Nations, Uganda, Kenya, the US and Britain to participate in the probe. Garang was the highest ranking official in the Sudanese government to ever came from the southern province or claim to be Christian and news of his death has fueled riots leading to dozens of deaths [JURIST report]. Earlier this year Garang played a large role as Sudanese officials ratified the January Peace Accords [JURIST report] between the now-autonomous South and the Khartoum government [official website] of the north. Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni said Tuesday he is creating a panel of three experts to look into the crash, which involved one of his own Russian-built Mi-72 helicopters. AP has more.

[JURIST] Benyam Mohammed [also Binyam Ahmad Muhammad], a 27-year-old Ethiopian man held at Guantanamo, claims he was tortured in Pakistan, Morocco, and Afghanistan before arriving in Cuba. While there is no independent verification for Mohammed's claims, it is not the first allegation of US-facilitated abuse in foreign countries [JURIST report] utilized in order to get around US laws against torture. Mohammed says he was not physically abused after arriving in Guantanamo. US officials have told Mohammed's lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith [Wikipedia profile] that Mohammed was an associate of terror suspect Jose Padilla [Wikipedia profile], a claim Smith calls "total nonsense." He also demanded an explanation for scars on Mohammed's body, which Mohammed says were caused by the abuse [Guardian report]. Mohammed's allegations are generally similar to those made in January by now-released Australian detainee Mamdouh Habib, who said he had been transferred by the United States from Pakistan to Egypt, where he was subjected to torture by beating, electric shock, and near-drowning [JURIST report] before being sent on to Guantanamo Bay. The Washington Post has more.

[JURIST] Government officials from Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province [official website] defended their controversial morals law [JURIST report] before the Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] on Wednesday. Earlier this week, the government argued that the law was unconsitutionally vague and would be abused [JURIST report], with some observers comparing it to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Islamists in charge of the province today argued that the bill does not violate the constitution and asked rhetorically if it was wrong to ask people not to do wrong things. A ruling is expected later this week. Reuters has more. From Pakistan, the Frontier Post has local coverage.

[JURIST] A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] in San Francisco has overturned a lower court ruling and struck down a Hawaiian school's policy of only admitting native Hawaiians as students, even though the school receives no federal money. The court found [PDF opinion] that the Kamehameha Schools [education website] policy violated 42 USC 1981 [text], which forbids racial discrimination in making and enforcing contracts. The state contended that the restriction was necessary to remedy economic and educational disadvantages suffered by natives. The plaintiff, an unnamed student refused admission in 2003, plans to start 12th grade at the school in the fall. An appeal to the US Supreme Court is planned. Read a Kamehameha Schools press statement on the ruling. AP has more.

[JURIST] Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler [official profile] is under pressure to deny a US request to extradite Canadian marijuana activist Marc Emery [Emery Seeds website] in a case that is likely to spark debate over the countries' diverging drug policies. Emery is a founder of the BC Marijuana Party [party website] and his arrest in Nova Scotia last week by Canadian authorities acting on a US warrant under the terms of the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act [statute text] comes as the Canadian government is moving towards decriminalizing possession of small amounts of pot. He faces the possibility of up to a life sentence in the US for selling marijuana seeds over the Internet, a crime not prosecuted in Canada since 1968. Emery was freed Tuesday on $41,000 bond to await hearings on the extradition request. The Globe and Mail has more.

[JURIST] A New York City councilman and state assemblyman have announced support for racial profiling in terrorism searches to protect the New York transit system from attacks like the recent London bombings. Assemblyman Dov Hikind [official website], a Democrat from Brooklyn, said "They all look a certain way. It's all very nice to be politically correct here, but we're talking about terrorism." Hikind will introduce legislation to allow racial profiling. Republican City Councilman James Oddo [official profile] said on Tuesday he will introduce a City Council resolution supporting Hikind's bill and praised Hikind for "rushing headlong against the strong undertow of political correctness." New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg [official website] said he opposes profiling for "fairness reasons" and the NYPD has said that such profiling is "illegal, of doubtful effectiveness and against department policy." AP has more.

[JURIST] The US has strongly criticized a new UN draft of proposed UN reforms, complaining that the document is too long, poorly put together, and not responsive to American concerns. While the draft is far from being voted on, the US criticisms could predict areas of future dispute. US Deputy Ambassador Anne Patterson [official profile] criticized the document [press release] released Tuesday for focusing more on disarmament than non-proliferation and not sufficiently advancing a development policy based upon democracy and free markets. She again voiced the Bush administration's opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty [official website, Wikipedia backgrounder], called for a "smaller, more effective Human Rights Council", and emphasized the importance of UN management reform. She also urged the G-4, African Union and Uniting for Consensus groups to

defer the tabling of Security Council expansion resolutions, to stop pushing for votes, and to focus first on more urgently needed reforms. The Security Council debate has indeed siphoned extensive resources and attention away from more critical UN reforms.

[JURIST] Media giant Time Warner Inc. [corporate website] announced Wednesday it is setting aside $3 billion in reserves to settle a lawsuit filed by shareholders who claimed they lost money when the company's shares declined following a merger with AOL [corporate website]. The company also said it had authorized a program to buy back $5 billion of its own shares over the next two years, a step shareholders had been pushing for as a way to increase its deflated share price. The announcement came as the company posted a net loss of $321 million in the second quarter to June, as compared to a net profit of $777 million during the same period last year. AP has more.

[JURIST] Zambian authorities said on Wednesday that a suspect in the July 7 London bombings will be deported to Britain. Haroon Rashid Aswat [Wikipedia profile], a British man being held by Zambian police [JURIST report], is under investigation for 20 phone calls he allegedly made to some of the bombers from his cell phone. He is also alleged to have connections to previous terrorist plans, and told investigators that he was once a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. Although Aswat's return to Britain is proceeding, the return of Hamdi Isaac, arrested in Italy in connection with the July 21 attempted bombings [JURIST report] in London, may take weeks. AP has more.

[JURIST] German Federal Minister of the Interior Otto Schily [official website, English version] has said in an interview with a German newspaper [text, in German] that the people of Germany must consider introducing new laws allowing potentially dangerous people to be detained, even in the absence of substantial evidence, as a "last resort." Acknowledging that currently the majority does not support such a plan, Schily argued that preventative custody should at least looked at in theory as a way of protecting the general public. Schily also advocated integration and assimilation of foreigners into German society saying, "Mustafa will still be called Mustafa and go to a mosque," but the adoption of German values would help counteract terrorist propaganda. Deutsche Welle has more.

[JURIST] President Bush made his second significant recess appointment this term Tuesday, installing Peter Flory as an assistant secretary of defense in a move marked by a one-sentence release [White House press release] and much less controversy than the appointment of John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN [JURIST report]. Flory's vote was stalled in the Senate by Carl Levin (D-MI), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, over a dispute about document releases. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Iraqi constitutional committee [official website] made no progress Tuesday in resolving some basic issues holding up the charter, raising further doubt that the constitution will be finished by the promosed August 15 deadline. On Sunday the committee asked for a 30-day extenstion of its own drafting deadline [JURIST report] of August 1, but then reversed course under apparent US pressure {JURIST report]. Concerns over the role of Islam, federalism [JURIST report], sharing of government revenues, and even what the official name of the country should be [AP report] still remain unresolved. ABC Australia has more.

[JURIST] The London Metropolitan Police [official website] said Tuesday that since the July 7 bombings [JURIST report], religious hate crimes have increased almost six times from a year ago during the same period. Reported incidents increased from 40 last year to 269 this year, largely consisting of abuse, minor assaults, and property damage. The first three days after the bombings saw 68 incidents, compared with none for the same dates in 2004. UK Muslim groups are urging members to be careful [JURIST report] and a once-failed religious hatred law will soon be taken up by the House of Lords [JURIST report]. The Financial Times has more.

[JURIST] A new report by Amnesty International [advocacy website] says Iraqi insurgents have "fail[ed] to abide by even the most basic standards of humanitarian law." In Cold Blood: Abuses by Armed Groups [full text] calls for insurgents to stop targeting civilians and comply with international legal standards, including prohibitions against war crimes. The report also alleges "gross violations" of human rights by the US military in Iraq, including careless bombings in residential areas, excessive use of force on demonstrators, and abuse of detainees. A US military spokesman said the US military takes steps to reduce civilian casualties and that any allegations of improper use of force is taken seriously. AP has more.

[JURIST] The USDA Forest Service [official website] said Tuesday it hopes to salvage a Bush administration initiative to ease logging restrictions in the Northwest by correcting problems cited by federal judge Marsha Pechman. On Monday, Pechman struck down an administration proposal to use data provided by state officials in Washington, Oregon and California in determining whether to allow logging, prescribed burns, and the building of campgrounds on over 5 million acres of forests. Pechman noted that the government did not take into account the effect on rare plants and animals. Environmental groups praised the decision to preserve restrictions that the timber industry had hoped would be lifted to allow for easier logging. AP has more.

[JURIST] US Supreme Court nominee John Roberts [Wikipedia profile] promised Tuesday to adhere to established rulings if given the opportunity to serve on the highest court. In his 84-page response [PDF part1; part2] to a Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] questionnaire, Roberts wrote that the role of judges is limited and does not include solving "society's problems," though Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America [advocacy website], accused Roberts of deceiving the public, claiming he was engaged in a "political campaign to create the appearance of open-mindedness." Also on Tuesday, the National Archives released documents from Roberts' time as a government lawyer advising the Reagan administration in the 1980s. AP has more.