[JURIST] Eduard Rebgun, who was appointed by a Moscow court hearing a bankruptcy case for crippled Russian oil company Yukos [corporate website; JURIST news archive] to manage the company, petitioned a federal court in New York City under Chapter 15 [backgrounder] of the US bankruptcy code to halt Yukos' London-based management team from selling Mazeikiu Nafta [Wikipedia backgrounder], the company's largest refinery in the Baltic states, based in Lithuania. Yukos Chief Executive Steven Theede, who is self-exiled in London, continues to press ahead with negotiations to sell Mazeikiu, despite Rebgun's attempts to halt the sale. The New York court issued a temporary injunction barring Yukos management from attempting to dissolve the company's assets. The potential sale of Mazeikiu has sparked a frenzy between the Lithuanian government and four oil companies - LUKOIL, TNK-BP, PKN Orlen and KasMunaiGas. Rumors abound that Yukos will sell Mazeikiu to the Lithuanian government for $1.7 billion, and then the government will sell the refinery to KasMunaiGas.

While the fate of Mazeikiu remains uncertain, Yukos' demise is almost certain after Russian tax officials froze its assets and demanded $33 billion in back taxes. Bankruptcy proceedings [BBC report] began in Moscow in late March. The Russian state oil firm Rosneft will likely be the main beneficiary of Yukos' bankruptcy, potentially swallowing up all of Yukos' Russian assets. A Moscow court found former head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky [MosNews profile; JURIST news archive; defense website] guilty of tax evasion in 2005; Khodorkovsky is still pursuing appeals of his conviction [JURIST report]. Yukos Vice-president Vasily Aleksanyan was charged [JURIST report] with embezzlement and money laundering in early April. Reuters has more. MosNews has local coverage.

[JURIST] A Central African Republic court referred former president Ange Felix Patasse [Wikipedia backgrounder] and Congo's Vice-President Jean Pierre Bemba [Wikipedia backgrounder] to the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website; JURIST news archive] Friday on war crimes charges stemming from accusations that Patasse's security forces, backed by Bemba's then rebel movement fighters and mercenaries from Chad, executed and raped civilians as they defeated a coup attempt in October 2002. The appeals court in the Central African Republic declared itself incompetent to handle the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide charges brought against Patasse and Abdoulaye Miskine, the suspected mercenary leader from Chad.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) [advocacy website], based in Paris, accused Patasse, Bemba and Miskine each of individual criminal responsibility for crimes against humanity in the 2002 attacks [FIDH summary] after it discovered mass graves one month after the attacks. Bemba is a currently a presidential candidate in the Democratic Republic of Congo elections later this year. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Some of US television's most prominent networks and their affiliates filed notices of appeal in federal district courts across the nation late Thursday and early Friday in response to a recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) [official website; JURIST news archive] ruling that declared several of their programs "indecent" based on language content. ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and affiliate groups representing more than 800 individual stations, issued a joint statement Friday seeking to overturn the FCC decisions that the broadcast of isolated instances of profane language caused several programs to be deemed indecent.

The appeals challenge refers to the FCC's finding [summary] that CBS's Early Show used profane language once, two similar incidents on Fox's Billboard Music Awards and multiple episodes of ABC's NYPD Blue with profane language. The FCC did not issue fines in any of these cases because they all occurred prior to a 2004 ruling that essentially prohibited the use of expletives considered profane and indecent. Broadcasters have grown increasingly frustrated with the massive fines and the appeals represent a protest against the what they see as unclear and inconsistently applied rules. The FCC in March proposed [JURIST report] a record $3.6 million fine against CBS and its affiliates for indecency violations [FCC materials] on its primetime show Without A Trace, and also upheld a $550,000 fine against 20 CBS stations [JURIST report] for indecent material during its 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. AP has more.

[JURIST] German Chancellor Angela Merkel [BBC profile] has been asked by the US government to accept a group of Chinese Uighur detainees currently being held [JURIST report] at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], according to a report in Friday's Die Welt [media website, in German] newspaper. The US asked Germany to take the detainees because the country already has a group of refugee Uighurs living in Bavaria, but Germany is reportedly reticent to accept the Uighurs for fear of alienating China. Merkel, who has not responded to the report, called on President Bush to shut down the military prison [JURIST report] at Guantanamo Bay before she visited the US in January.

In December, US District Court Judge James Robertson ruled [opinion, PDF] that the Uighurs' detention was illegal, but authorized their continued detention because they could be tortured if released to China due to their Muslim faith [HRW report]. Lawyers for the detainees have appealed directly to the Supreme Court [JURIST report] bypassing the federal appeals court, saying only the high court can resolve the case. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Protesters stepped into action across Nepal on Friday in response to the traditional new year message [transcript] of King Gyanendra [official website; BBC profile], in which the ruler promised to hold general elections [JURIST report] and dialogue with the opposition. Pro-democracy protests [JURIST news archive] have been staged for over a week with demonstrators demanding the abdication of Gyanendra, who seized control of the government and dismissed elected officials [JURIST report] in February 2005. Gyanendra promised to restore democratic elections by April 2007 but opposition leaders criticized the king for failing to announce plans to ease the crisis and dismissed his pledge to hold elections in 2007 as an empty reiteration of previous promises.

Authorities arrested approximately 20 protesters on Friday, but the demonstrations did not escalate into violence, unlike Thursday’s peaceful rally in Kathmandu where riot police fired on a group of lawyers [JURIST report]. In recent days, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal, the US State Department and the EU Presidency has each condemned the violence in Nepal [OHCHR release; State Dept. statement; EU Pres. statement] and called on Gyanendra to restore democratic elections. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] A Congolese opposition group, the Holy Alliance, has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to ban Democratic Republic of Congo [JURIST news archive] President Joseph Kabila [Wikipedia profile] from running in this year's general elections, the first democratic elections in Congo since 1960, because of his ties to the military. According to the Alliance, Kabila, who succeeded his father after his assassination in 2001, is prohibited from presidential candidacy by the constitutional referendum passed in December 2005 [JURIST report] that makes army, police and civil service workers ineligible to seek public office unless they procure a letter from the government indicating that they have been dismissed from service.

The Congolese Independent Election Commission announced the list of presidential candidates [Xinhua report] last week, and contends that Kabila was accepted because he was not on a list provided by the military. Kabila was a major-general in the Congolese army before assuming his father's office and the Alliance believes he does not have requisite permission from the army to run for office. The DRC Supreme Court is expected to rule on the Alliance's petition soon. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The International Commission of Jurists [advocacy website] on Friday called the arrest of hundreds of lawyers and pro-democracy demonstrators during the past few days in Nepal unlawful and arbitrary [press release, PDF] and demanded that King Gyanendra [official profile] release all the detainees and lift the blanket ban on public gatherings in the center of Kathmandu, Nepal's capital city. "The ICJ and others have repeatedly called for the lifting of the blanket ban on public gatherings in central Kathmandu and Lalitpur and for an end to the excessive use of force and arbitrary detention by the security forces," said ICJ Secretary General Nicholas Howen in a statement from Geneva.

The ICJ's concerns over mass arrests in Nepal by authorities come a day after police shot at a rally of lawyers and arrested 72 lawyers [JURIST report]. Expressing its serious concerns over growing human rights violations by the Nepalese authorities to quell the recent nationwide pro-democracy demonstrations [JURIST news archive], the ICJ warned, "...Those responsible for human rights violations should be aware that they are accountable under national and international law for their actions."

In the recent nationwide crackdown on opposition protests for the restoration of democracy, King Gyanendra's government has arrested over 2,000 people. Among those arrested are political leaders, lawyers, human rights defenders, professors, teachers, doctors, students and civil society leaders. Opposition parties and civil society have been demanding that the king give up executive power that he seized [JURIST report] last year amidst a bloodless coup. The king has defended his move as necessary because the opposition political parties could not contain the ever intensifying 10-year old Maoist insurgency [BBC backgrounder], which has resulted in over 13,000 deaths.

"It is not only these lawyers who have suffered the consequences of exercising their rights to freedom of assembly and expression. In the past week over 2000 people have been arbitrarily detained and hundreds injured as a result excessive use of force by the security forces," Howen said in the ICJ statement.

Kiran Chapagain is a special correspondent for JURIST writing from Nepal. He is an Assistant Senior Reporter for the Kathmandu Post.

[JURIST] British police on Thursday arrested Des Smith, the first person held in police custody in the "cash for honors" probe [BBC Q/A, video], before releasing him on bail later in the day. The arrest stemmed from allegations that the government was selling "honors" such as peerages and knighthoods to wealthy individuals in exchange for educational funding. Smith, who worked at the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) [official website] at the time, allegedly met an undercover reporter [Times report] from the Sunday Times posed as a representative of a potential investor in January, and promised such an exchange. Smith has since quit the position and described the disclosure as "naive."

Scottish and Welsh nationalist MPs initiated the probe by alleging that Tony Blair's Labour Party [party website] traded cash for honors in violation of the 1925 Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act [BBC backgrounder]. The investigation was later extended [AFP report] to include the opposition Conservative Party [party website]. The Labour Party has since revealed receipt of approximately £14 million in secret loans before the past election, while the Conservatives have revealed £16 million in loans and a debt of £37 million to local Conservative associations and individuals. The Liberal Democrats [party website] owe £850,000 to three lenders. In response to the scandal, the UK government has suggested that new laws be enacted [JURIST report] requiring loans to political parties to be publicly disclosed. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] The Ohio Supreme Court [official website] has rejected the argument that Governor Bob Taft (R) [official website] has full executive privilege to keep records private in a 5-2 decision [PDF opinion text]. Rather, the court held on Thursday that Taft has a "qualified gubernatorial-communications privilege," allowing public access to documents when "the requester demonstrates that the requester has a particularized need to review the communications and that that need outweighs the public's interest in according confidentiality to communications made to or from the governor."

The ruling results from a suit brought by Ohio Senator Marc Dann (D) [official website] in which he used the state's Public Records Act [text] to compel the production of weekly reports from cabinet directors and executive assistants to the governor. Particularly, Dann sought information pertaining to Taft's improper investment of state money [JURIST report] in rare coins. The court gave Taft 15 days to explain how the qualified privilege covers the requested documents. As part of an ongoing scandal investigation the Office of Disciplinary Counsel [official website] concluded earlier this week that Taft violated the state's professional ethics code [JURIST report] by receiving over 50 gifts worth $6,000 during his past four years in office. Taft pleaded no contest [JURIST report] last year to charges that he failed to provide complete financial disclosure statements to the Ohio Ethics Commission. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) [official website] is re-examining the last unsolved public lynching [Wikipedia backgrounder] in the US, according to an FBI agent. FBI agent Stephen Emmett did not say whether the FBI will officially reopen the case, but said that recent technology and techniques may help unlock an earlier investigation surrounding the 60-year-old crime [backgrounder]. Civil rights activists are urging witnesses to come forward with details about the case in which a white mob in Walton County, Georgia forced Roger and Dorothy Malcolm and George and Mae Murray Dorsey from their car, dragged them down a trail and shot them in the summer of 1946.

President Harry S. Truman [official profile], who was in office at the time ordered an FBI investigation into the matter in 1946. The FBI released a 500-page summary on the case and named 55 suspects, but no one was charged due to a lack of witnesses. It is unclear how many of those 55 suspects are still alive. Officials at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation [official website] said they have never closed the case and have pursued all leads. AP has more.

[JURIST] Leading Friday's environmental law news, Magistrate Judge Robert Collings of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts [official website] has ruled [PDF opinion] that the US Environmental Protection Agency [official website] must release internal documents relating to the Clean Air Mercury Rule [EPA backgrounder]. The rule, which has proposed a cap-and-trade emissions program for coal-fired power plants, has been controversial since it was first announced. Critics maintain the trading program violates the Clean Air Act [text], and 11 states have initiated lawsuits to stop the program. The ruling orders the EPA to disclose documents the agency had claimed were protected by the deliberative process and attorney-client privileges. The Boston Globe has more.

In other environmental law news...

• Synergics Inc., a Maryland-based wind-energy company, has filed a petition with the Maryland Public Service Commission [official website], which regulates public utilities in the state, asking it to reopen the public record in its consideration of the company's plan to build a 40 megawatt windfarm in Western Maryland. The company has proposed placing 17 turbines along 3 miles of the Backbone Mountain ridge, the highest range in the state. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources [official website] has recommended that the company be barred from building access roads or turbines in large parts of the work site, claiming it would likely destroy habitat for the state-endangered mourning warbler, Allegheny wood rat, timber rattlesnake, and 14 other animal and plant species. Synergics argues the Maryland DNR recommendations are overly broad. AP has more.
  
  
• The US Environmental Protection Agency [official website] is seeking public comments on a proposed rule [PDF text] that would establish the criteria and procedures used to determine if an "exceptional event" has occurred which could alter the monitoring data being used to comply with National Ambient Air Quality Standards [EPA backgrounder] in accordance with the Clean Air Act [text]. Exceptional events are unusual or naturally occurring events that may affect air quality but are beyond a state's reasonable control. Comments can be submitted here, by searching for the document ID (EPA-HQ-OAR-2005-0159), until May 10, 2006.

[JURIST] A Japanese court on Friday rejected a suit filed by 3,200 citizens who argued that Japan's deployment of troops to Iraq violates the country's pacifist constitution [text], which bans the use of force to settle international disputes. The plaintiffs also argued that the Iraq war is a war of invasion which violates international law. They sought $270,000 in emotional damages. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi [official profile] has defended the deployment of troops to Iraq, saying they are helping with a strictly humanitarian mission that is needed to help stabilize the country. There are currently 5,400 similar suits pending throughout Japan.

Last year, Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party proposed amending the constitution [JURIST report] to allow Japan to assemble armed forces that are assertive on an international level. Japan [JURIST news archive] currently maintains a 240,000-strong Self-Defense Force [Global Security backgrounder] and since early 2004 has had 550 troops deployed in Iraq. Japan's media has speculated that the government may begin to withdraw troops later this year, but government officials say that troops will not be withdrawn until Iraq becomes politically stable. AP has more.

[JURIST] US District Judge Reggie Walton has threatened to ban public statements about the case of former vice presidential adviser I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense profile, JURIST news archive] after one of the prosecution's court filings was released to the media before it was officially filed. On Thursday, Walton issued an order in which he stated that he "would not tolerate this case being tried in the media" and gave attorneys until next Friday to provide written statements explaining why he should not issue an order restricting statements about the case.

In a related development, Libby's attorneys have requested classified White House documents [PDF brief] regarding former Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and senior White House advisor Karl Rove [official profile], all of whom the government is likely to call as witnesses. Libby was indicted [PDF indictment, JURIST report] in October on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury in connection with the CIA leak case [JURIST news archive]. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] A federal district judge on Thursday urged the US government to make a decision regarding the visa application of prominent European Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan [ACLU profile]. Ramadan was originally denied a visa in August 2004, when he was offered a teaching position at the University of Notre Dame. A Swiss native, Ramadan teaches at Oxford University in England and has published 20 books on Islam. He has advocated a "third path" of Islam [court declaration, PDF] to harmonize the conflicting identities of Muslims in Western countries. Although he has publicly condemned terrorism, Ramadan has criticized the US occupation of Iraq. The American Civil Liberties Union [advocacy website] is representing Ramadan [JURIST report] and three academic organizations that have invited him to speak in the United States in a lawsuit [PDF complaint] against the US Department of Homeland Security, seeking to overturn a provision of the USA Patriot Act [PDF text, JURIST news archive] barring entry to any foreigner who endorses terrorism as unconstitutional.

Although government lawyers have denied that the provision motivated the US government's decision [NYT report], they have not offered the government's reasons for refusing Ramadan a visa or stated when it is likely to make a decision, citing national security concerns. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The victory of former Prime Minister Romano Prodi [campaign website, in Italian] over incumbent Silvio Berlusconi [official profile, JURIST news archive] in the disputed April 9-10 parliamentary elections [JURIST report] seemed confirmed Friday after reports that the number of disputed ballots in the election for the lower house of the Italian parliament - originally estimated at 43,000 by the Interior Ministry [official website] - may be as few as 2,000. Judges began examining the problematic ballots Thursday, and Prodi said Friday that their investigation was not leading to any changes in results [AP report]. Official figures will be released next week, but Prodi's center-left coalition is projected to have won the lower house by around 24,000 votes of 38 million cast in the narrowest election in Italian history. Berlusconi, who has served as prime minister since 2001, has suggested that the center-left and right form a coalition due to the closeness of the election; Prodi's Olive Tree alliance has rejected the offer.

Berlusconi's regime has been marked by scandal, with an indictment for corruption [JURIST report] last month and charges of false accounting [JURIST report] and bribery [JURIST report] last year in connection with the media business that his family owns. Berlusconi has always maintained his innocence, claiming that the charges are politically motivated. Reuters has more.

2:54 PM ET - According to the Interior Ministry, the number of disputed ballots that are being reviewed by judges is only 5,266. The Financial Times has more.