[JURIST] Nearly 6250 candidates have registered for Iraq's national assembly election next month, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) has reported. Once in place, Iraq's 275-member assembly will draft a constitution and appoint a new government to oversee the county until a presidential ballot is held at the end of that year. In total, 223 political entities and 33 coalitions have presented 19,000 candidates for the January 30th national assembly, local governorates, and Kurdistan National Assembly elections. The UN News Centre has more. The statistics were released just as a new audio tape, apparently from Osama bin Laden, warned Iraqis to stay away from the January 30 poll. BBC has more on the tape.

3:57 PM ET - UNAMI also reported Monday per AFP that Iraq's largest Sunni political party has announced that is withdrawing from the general election due to what a spokeman described as a rapidly deteriorating security situation and a lack of public awareness about the vote. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych refused to accept apparent defeat at the country's polls Monday, declaring that he would "never recognise such a defeat, because the constitution and human rights were violated" and that his campaign team had reports of 5000 complaints about the conduct of the vote. As reported earlier today in JURIST's Paper Chase, Yanukovych trails opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko in the official returns by some 3,000,000 votes, with virtually all precincts reporting. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] A Sri Lanka government official said Monday that his government had set aside ordinary legal formalities to facilitate rapid burial of the thousands of victims of Sunday's tsunami that killed more than 10,000 in Sri Lanka alone, according to preliminary figures, and over 23,000 in the region. The tidal wave, which has killed people as far away as Africa, was caused by a massive earthquake in waters off western Indonesia, classified as the most powerful in 40 years, and one of the most powerful ever recorded. From South Africa, News24 has more. From Sri Lanka, the Daily Mirror newspaper has continuing local coverage of the disaster. From Indonesia, the Jakarta Post has more. The UN offers information on the general international relief effort here. The American Red Cross has issued a news release on the situation and is accepting immediate donations to its International Response Fund; UNICEF, the UN children's relief fund, has also put out an immediate international appeal.

[JURIST] A Jordanian military court has acquitted 13 Muslim militants of conspiring to commit terrorist attacks against US interests in Jordan, including the US Embassy in Amman and Jordanian military bases where US troops were believed to be stationed. The attacks were never carried out and the suspects were arrested in December 2002. Eleven of the 13 men were nonetheless sentenced to prison terms of 6 months to 15 years for possessing explosives. The accused are not believed to have had ties to al-Qaeda. Al Jazeera has more.

[JURIST] With more than 98% of Sunday's vote counted, Ukrainian election officials have announced that opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has an undefeatable lead of 52% in the country's third presidential election since October 31. Yushchenko thanked his supporters and called on them to take to the streets to defend his victory. Yushchenko's challenger, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, received 44% of the vote, but has not yet conceded and has alluded to an appeal. Election monitors saw far fewer problems in this round of elections, with 77% of the nation going to the polls. The OSCE said in a statement Monday that the process this time was "substantially closer" to meeting international standards than the previous vote. Reuters has more.

11:31 AM ET = The Ukraine Central Election Commission website is reporting that with 99.63% of polls reporting, Yushchenko leads Yanukovych by 52.1% to 44.11%. Review the latest results in English here.

[JURIST] In a gesture of goodwill to the new Palestinian leadership, Israel Monday released 159 Palestinian prisoners. Interim Palestinian leader and presidential frontrunner Mahmoud Abbas (official website here; BBC profile here) has campaigned on the prisoner release issue and has called for more of the 7,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails to be set free, especially those serving longer sentences. Israel refuses to release any prisoner involved in attacks on Israelis. Some of the newly free Palestinians call the release a "public relations gimmick" since their terms were to end shortly. Washington Post has more.