[JURIST] Republican Dino Rossi has asked Democrat Christine Gregoire to join him in asking the Washington state legislature to pass a bill allowing a re-vote in the close Washington governor's race, awarded to Gregoire by 128 votes after two state Supreme Court rulings on manual recounts and disputed ballots. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has more.

[JURIST] A survey of US lawyers and legal scholars released Wednesday by Thomson-West legal publishers listed the presidential election, Iraq and gay marriage as the top legal news stories of 2004. The election was picked for its impact on federal judicial appointments, Iraq for the multiplicity of international and national legal issues raised by the situation there, and gay marriage for the spate of judicial decisions and constitutional amendments that subject generated during the year. Additions to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, requiring attorneys and corporate officers to report wrongdoings, topped the survey's list of most important legislative changes. Blakely v. Washington [PDF] was named the most important federal case due to its anticipated effects on federal and state sentencing guidelines. Thomson-West has more.

[JURIST] Israeli prosecutors Wednesday charged four antiquities collectors with forgery and receiving fraudulent goods, alleging they had passed off ordinary items as biblical relics to unsuspecting consumers and modified items with some historic value by adding inscriptions. The objects include the notorious James ossuary, purported to have held the remains of Jesus' brother and controversially exhibited in North America in 2002. The antiquities fraud ring has been operating for 20 years, selling goods in Israel and acround the world. From Israel, Ha'aretz has more.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit Tuesday upheld a lower court holding that internet telephone service providers should not be subject to state regulation. VoIP (voice-over-internet) providers, such as Vonage had argued against Minnesota's classification of their services as "telecommunications", saying that they merely provide the software to recieve calls via an internet connection, and are thus properly categorized as an "information service". The Federal Communications Commission recently agreed with Vonage and the lower court, issuing a rule that internet phone providers should not be governed by state public utilities commissions. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] The Montana Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Democratic candidate Jeanne Windham was the winner of a contested seat in the Montana House of Representatives. After a recount revealed both Windham and her Constitution Party opponent Rick Jore received 1,559 votes, Governor Judy Martz was charged with the duty of breaking the tie. She appointed Jore, which resulted in Republican control of the state House of Representatives. However, after Windham appealed the governor's decision, the state's highest court found three of the votes for Jore were unclear, and threw them out. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] Authorities in Thailand have dispatched hundreds of additional police to coastal provinces hardest hit by Sunday's tsunami in an effort to stem an apparent tide of looting. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has issued stern warnings to would-be looters, and several arrests have already been made. Well-off Western tourists killed and otherwise affected by the disaster - now said to have killed over 75,000 people, including some 2000 in Thailand - left behind many personal belongings, and hotels and resorts where they stayed are largely unoccupied at this point. AFP has more. In other law-related news from the Asian tidal wave disaster, Malaysian authorities announced Wednesday that they have agreed to a request by the Indonesian government to extend by one month an amnesty period for foreign workers illegally working in Malaysia, postponing a mass deportation that was originally scheduled after January 1. The Indonesian authorities had feared that deportations would only deepen the humanitarian crisis brought on by the deaths of over 45,000 Indonesians in the tidal wave that originated off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. There are about a million illegals working in Malaysia at the present time, most of them Indonesian. Some 220,000 have left since the amnesty period began at the end of October. AFP has more.

Many national and international relief agencies are collecting donations for relief of the tsunami victims. USAID, the US government's foreign aid arm, has posted this list. ReliefWeb, a project of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, is tracking tsunami-related news here. Wikipedia provides a continually-updated synopsis of events.

1:50 PM ET - The governments of countries affected by the tsunami are providing official information - casualty figures, contact numbers, aid needs etc. - on the following websites:

• Embassy of Indonesia, Washington DC
  
• Emergency Info, Government of Sri Lanka
  
• Embassy of Sri Lanka, Washington DC
  
• Sri Lanka Government Information Department
  
• National Disaster Management, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India
  
• Embassy of India, Washington DC
  
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of Thailand
  
• President's Office, Government of Maldives
  
• Government of Myanmar
  
• Government of Sweden
  
• Government of Germany

[JURIST] Six members of a Navy SEALs unit and two Navy wives sued the Associated Press Tuesday, stating that the news agency endangered the servicemen's lives and invaded their privacy by publishing private photos showing the men interacting with Iraqi prisoners. The lawsuit states the agency erred by not obscuring the identity of the six Navy SEALs in photos that accompanied a story distributed worldwide earlier this month. The story was written by San Diego reporter Seth Hettena, who is named as a defendant; the lawsuit claims that Hettena took the photos from a private, password protected website of a Navy wife. After publishing the story, the Navy found that most of the photos were taken for legitimate purposes and depicted approved procedures. AP’s assistant general counsel stated that the claims do not have a solid basis in law. The lawsuit asks for unspecified damages, including punitive damages, and a preliminary injunction barring the AP from further use of the photos and requiring the agency to protect the SEALs' identities. AP has more.

[JURIST] Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, now a maverick war crimes lawyer and an outspoken critic of American foreign policy on Iraq who held office in the 1960s under President Lyndon Johnson, has joined the legal team defending Saddam Hussein. He said his principal concern was protecting the rights of the former Iraqi leader. He has spoken out against the format of the trial, claiming that the special tribunal established to try members of the former regime is a creation of the US military occupation and has no authority in law as a criminal court. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Ukraine's press service is reporting that the court has dismissed without consideration the first of four electoral complaints presented to the court by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, according to Maidan News in Kyiv.

[JURIST] Deutsche Bank asked a US bankruptcy court in Houston Tuesday to dismiss the filing of Russian oil giant Yukos for lack of jurisdiction, contending the company has no American presence beyond two small bank accounts and the residence of its financial chief. Yukos claimed the bankruptcy was properly filed in Texas because CFO Bruce Misamore was conducting company business from his home in Houston, having returned there earlier in December after learning that he may be targeted by Russian authorities if he returned to Moscow. Also, Yukos put $7 million in two Houston bank accounts to cover legal fees and Misamore's costs. Jurisdiction was found to be proper twice in this case when an injunction was granted and later upheld on appeal. Deutsche Bank was one of a consortium of banks, including ABN Amro and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, that had intended to fund a $10 billion to $13 billion bid by state-owned natural gas company Gazprom to buy Yuganskneftegaz, which produces 60 percent of Yukos' oil and 11 percent of Russia's oil. Deutsche Bank would have earned a significant fee from that transaction, but Gazprom withdrew from the bidding after the bankruptcy court order and the Yukos asset was bought was the mysterious Baikal Finance Group, which was later bought by Rosneft, a Russian state-owned gas firm slated for acquisition by Gazprom under a government plan. The next hearing in the bankruptcy is slated for Jan. 6. BBC News has more.