The US Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday that it will not appeal a federal appeals court decision that invalidated an SEC rule regulating hedge funds, opting instead to focus on drafting new rules and staff guidance for the hedge fund industry. In June, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [...]

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report Monday that Israel's July 30 air strike on the Lebanese village of Qana may be part of "a pattern of violations of international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law committed during the course of the current hostilities" in the ongoing Middle East conflict [...]

Aziz Dweik , the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council , was taken to the hospital Monday for chest pains and breathing problems, which his spokesman claims are due to beatings by prison guards after his arrest Sunday in the West Bank by Israeli forces. The Israeli army has denied the allegations, saying he was [...]

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin Monday announced an overhaul of the criminal justice system in the city which was severely affected by Hurricane Katrina last year. Prosecutors from a neighboring parish in Louisiana have volunteered to help the New Orleans district attorney's office and the city has created a new system to call witnesses, many [...]

Anthony D'Amato : "I suggest below a very simple UN resolution for the Middle East conflict. On the table right now is the draft resolution proposed by France and the United States. It has run into serious objections from all quarters. The drafters apparently believe that by tinkering with it, they can come up with [...]

Kathi Cooper et al. v. IBM Personal Pension Plan et al., United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, August 7, 2006 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The UN Sub-Commission on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights on Monday denounced the "massive denial of human rights" in the ongoing conflict in Lebanon and called on the UN Security Council to work toward a permanent solution in the volatile area. In the statement, the Sub-Commission expressed: deep grief and outrage at the [...]

US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia denied a request Monday from Texas Republican Party chair Tina Benkiser seeking to stay a federal appeals court ruling that former US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay must remain on the Texas ballot for the November election against Democratic candidate Nick Lampson. According to the decision handed down last [...]

IBM did not discriminate against older workers by adopting a cash-balance pension plan, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled Monday. A unanimous three-judge panel reversed a 2003 district court decision , finding that the IBM plan did not violate subsections of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) that prohibit age [...]

The sole surviving hostage-taker in the 2004 Beslan school siege will be given a new name to prevent retaliation by other inmates at the island penal colony where he will be imprisoned, a law enforcement source told the Interfax news agency Monday. Nurpashi Kulayev , who was found guilty of terrorism in May, will serve [...]