Leading Tuesday's corporations and securities law news, SEC Chairman William Donaldson stated in a speech today that the agency is considering changes to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to ease burden on foreign companies. Companies in both Europe and the US have complained of the costs to meet the act's requirements. European companies also contend that some [...]

The first parliamentary elections in Afghanistan under the newly established government of Hamid Karzai may be forced to be delayed due to slow progress on a census of the population. Already delayed once from this fall, the elections are scheduled to be held May 20. However, a deadline to present a finished national census to [...]

The Taiwanese government has urged the US to intensify its opposition to China's proposed anti-secession law , which is aimed at Taiwan. Joseph Wu, Taiwan's top official for China-Taiwan affairs, admitted late on Monday that there may be no way to stop Beijing from enacting the law, which Taiwan and US officials believe will create [...]

The National Telecommunications Commission in the Philippines has ordered cable operators to shut down all chat rooms, in response to complaints that some had become sex channels. The NTC commented that some chat room operators were not regulating the use of profane language or explicit messages in their facilities. The Philippine Daily Inquirer has more.

Jerzy Urban, editor-in-chief of the Polish weekly newspaper Nie , was convicted by a court in Warsaw Tuesday for criticizing Pope John Paul II . Jerzy was found guilty of insulting a head of state, and was fined $6,500. In his 2002 article, titled "Walking Sadomasochism", Urban referred to the Pope's as "the Brezhnev of [...]

Iran's highest official, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , told hard-line lawmakers in parliament Tuesday to stop the impeachment of cabinet members appointed by reformist President Mohammad Khatami . Ali Khamenei's statement, a rare public political comment, was reported by the Iranian news agency. Conservative lawmakers who won election to parliament last year have already impeached one [...]

The US government has joined the entertainment industry in arguing before the US Supreme Court that file-sharing services such as Kazaa and Grokster, accused of enabling widespread copyright infringement, should be shut down. Acting Solicitor Paul D. Clement filed a brief in support of the entertainment industry late Monday. In MGM Studios v. Grokster, 04-480, [...]

A group of seven federal judges will meet in Fort Myers, FL, Thursday to consider how to handle mounting lawsuits over the painkiller Vioxx , which was pulled from the market by manufacturer Merck & Co. after it was linked to increased risk of heart attack and stroke. The company is already the subject of [...]

Voter registration by Iraqi nationals in other countries will likely tally 25 percent of the estimated 1.2 million eligible when it closes Tuesday, according to officials organizing the foreign voting program. The Iraq Out-of-Country Voting Program allows Iraqi nationals living abroad to register and vote in Sunday's elections in 14 designated countries, including the US, [...]

Four British men held at Guantanamo Bay for three years as enemy combatants were returned to the UK Tuesday, after a deal was reached between the US and UK. The four men, Moazzam Begg, Martin Mubanga, Richard Belmar and Feroz Abbasi , were the only remaining Britons being held at the prison and had previously [...]