[JURIST] The legal fate of captured Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) rebel leader Laurent Nkunda [BBC profile] remained unclear Saturday, days after his surprise arrest in Rwanda. Nkunda was apprehended Thursday near the border with the DRC after a joint DRC-Rwandan military operation to capture him and root out Rwandan Hutu rebels operating in the DRC. He is the leader of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) [official website], a rebel group operating in the eastern DRC province of Nord-Kivu. The DRC government has called on Rwanda to extradite Nkunda to DRC [BBC report], where he would face charges for atrocities committed by forces under his command. Another possibility for Nkunda is extradition to the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] in The Hague. While there is no arrest warrant or case outstanding against Nkunda, the ICC has issued an arrest warrant [JURIST report] and prepared a case against his deputy in the CNDP, Bosco Ntaganda [ICC materials], for war crimes committed in the DRC, including the recruitment and use of child soldiers [JURIST news archive]. Nkunda has repeatedly denied allegations of war crimes [JURIST report] against him and the CNDP.

In November, Alan Doss, the head of the UN Peacekeeping Mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo (MUNOC) [official website] condemned the killing of civilians in Nord-Kivu by militia groups as war crimes [JURIST report]. Prior to Doss' statement, MUNOC announced [press release] that it had received "credible reports" that civilians had been targeted by militia groups including Nkunda's CNDP. Earlier in November, ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile] reasserted [ICC press release; JURIST report] that the ICC has jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed in Nord-Kivu, and that his office intends to punish those responsible.

[JURIST] The government of Malaysia has asked [Bernama report] the United States to permit its security officials to meet with two Malaysian citizens being held in Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], according to state media Saturday. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi [official website] said that he would like to see the two men returned to Malaysia so that they could serve the remainder of their sentences there. The two prisoners, Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, or "Lillie", and Mohd Farik Bin Amin, or "Zubair", [DNI biographies, PDF] are being held because of alleged ties to the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) [CFR backgrounder; JURIST news archive] terrorist group. Both men were picked up in Thailand in 2003 and are considered "high-value detainees" [JURIST news archives]. Abdullah has praised US President Barack Obama for his recent decision [JURIST report] to close down the Guantanamo prison facility within a year.

The actions by Malaysia dovetail with efforts by the US to encourage home countries or even third countries to accept detainees. Many European countries, including Britain, Germany, Ireland, and Portugal [JURIST reports] have already said they would consider accepting released detainees although other countries have been notably reticent [JURIST report]. About 245 detainees remain at the facility, with roughly 60 eligible for transfer or release.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [court website] on Friday rejected a complaint [JURIST report] filed by high-end grocer Whole Foods Market [corporate website] against the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) [official website] last month seeking an injunction barring the agency from holding administrative proceedings [FTC administrative docket] regarding the company's 2007 merger with another high-end grocer, Wild Oats Market [corporate website]. Whole Foods originally filed the rejected complaint in December with the US District Court for the District of Columbia [court website], but withdrew the complaint and refiled it [Whole Foods press release] with the Circuit Court of Appeals last week. In the complaint, Whole Foods alleged that the FTC had a pre-formed judgment about the case, based on public statements from the FTC questioning whether the merger violated anti-trust laws. Whole Foods also alleged that the company's due process rights were violated by the timing of the administrative proceedings.

Whole Foods and the FTC have been engaged in ongoing litigation [FTC litigation docket] over the Whole Foods-Wild Oats merger since it occurred in 2007. In August 2007, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals refused to block the merger [JURIST report], despite an appeal by the FTC. The court reviewed the case in July 2008 and ordered the district court to reconsider [JURIST report] the potential impacts of the merger on the market. The district court has not yet ruled on the matter.

[JURIST] US President Barack Obama [official profile] issued a memorandum [text; White House statement] Friday repealing a ban on federal funding for international family planning programs that provide or give out information and counseling about abortion [JURIST news archive]. The Reagan-era directive called the "Mexico City policy" prohibited US funding, typically in the form of grants from US Agency for International Development (USAID) [official website], for lobbying groups advocating legalized abortion. The memorandum said:

These excessively broad conditions on grants and assistance awards are unwarranted. Moreover, they have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning programs in foreign nations... I direct the Secretary of State and the Administrator of USAID to take the following actions with respect to conditions in voluntary population planning assistance and USAID grants that were imposed pursuant to either the 2001 or 2003 memoranda and that are not required by the Foreign Assistance Act or any other law: (1) immediately waive such conditions in any current grants, and (2) notify current grantees, as soon as possible, that these conditions have been waived. I further direct that the Department of State and USAID immediately cease imposing these conditions in any future grants.