A veteran dissident was sentenced to three years in prison after casting a spotlight on poorly built schools that collapsed and killed thousands of children during China's massive earthquake last year — an apparent government attempt to squelch such information.

Huang Qi, founder of a human rights Web site, had been charged with illegally possessing state secrets, his wife Zeng Li said Monday by telephone. His detention in June 2008 came after several posts on his blog that criticized the government's response to the massive earthquake that struck Sichuan province a month earlier and killed about 90,000 people.

Huang, 46, had alleged that state-controlled media provided skewed reports on relief efforts and accused the government of obstructing the work of non-governmental organizations responding to the disaster, according to reports at the time by Paris-based monitoring group Reporters Without Borders.

A U.S. Navy serviceman was found not guilty Monday of sexually assaulting a prostitute at a brothel while on shore leave in Australia's biggest city.

A New South Wales District Court jury cleared Petty Officer Timothy Davis, 25, of a charge of sexual intercourse without consent, with the aggravating factor of causing the woman actual bodily harm. The charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Davis was one of 3,000 Marines and Navy personnel on shore leave in Sydney after the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu and guided missile destroyer USS Halsey arrived in the port in October, 2008.

The woman told the court she had protected, consensual sex with Davis at the brothel where she worked, but said he became aggressive when she told him his time was up and forced her to have unprotected sex. The jury was shown police photographs of scratches on the woman.

The American war crimes ambassador said Thursday the U.S. is committed to ending impunity for crimes against humanity, in a speech signaling a softening of hostility toward the International Criminal Court.

Stephen Rapp's brief remarks marked the first time a U.S. diplomat has addressed the 110-nation Assembly of State Parties, which oversees the court's work and budget.

He also held a string of bilateral meetings and told delegates he was there to listen and learn.

Rapp underscored Washington's history of helping prosecute those responsible for atrocities dating back at least to the Nazi war crimes trials in Nuremberg.

The world's first international war crimes tribunal began work in 2002. It is a court of last resort to prosecute people suspected of committing war crimes in its member states, if those countries cannot or will not conduct the trials themselves.

The U.N. Security Council also can ask the court to investigate a case.

The United States refused to ratify the court's founding treaty, the 1998 Rome Statute, partly because of fears the court could become a forum for politically motivated prosecutions of troops in unpopular wars like Iraq.

The United States attended a meeting of the International Criminal Court's management board for the first time Wednesday in a sign it has stopped shunning the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal.

The United States has not ratified the court's founding treaty, the Rome Statute, partly because of fears the court could become a forum for politically motivated prosecutions of U.S. troops.

U.S. war crimes ambassador Stephen Rapp sat as an observer near the back of the hall during the opening session of Assembly of States Parties, which is made up of the 110 countries that recognize the court's jurisdiction, and oversees its activities.

Rapp, a former chief prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, is expected to make a statement to the assembly on Thursday. He did not say what he would discuss.

He told The Associated Press his presence is a sign the Obama administration wants to "re-engage with the court" but said Monday while visiting Kenya that possible ratification by Washington of the Rome Statute is likely still years away.

Assembly President Christian Wenaweser, a diplomat from Lichtenstein, said Rapp's presence was "the most concrete expression we have seen so far that the policies in place under the past administration are changing."

Profit at the 100 highest-grossing U.K. law firms fell 30 percent on average during the past year as deal work declined with the recession, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP survey.

Profits per partner at the top 10 U.K. firms averaged 872,000 pounds ($1.44 million), a 21 percent decrease, according to PwC. Partners at the second tier of law firms, ranked 11 to 25, brought in around 444,000 pounds and saw “the greatest average fall in U.K. income,” the accounting firm said.

“This year has seen the greatest turmoil in the law firm sector since our survey began in 1991,” Alistair Rose, a PwC partner, said in a statement. The effect of the economic crisis “has been even greater than we anticipated across the sector.”

Large law firms in the U.S. and U.K. have been forced to cut costs by firing lawyers, reducing pay and deferring the hiring of first-year attorneys as they weather a decline in legal work.

Allen & Overy LLP, the fourth-highest-grossing U.K. law firm, said revenue fell 7 percent to 511 million pounds for the first six months of the financial year that began May 1. Revenue at Simmons & Simmons LLP, also based in London, fell 16 percent to 120.3 million in the half-year period, spokesman Ibrahim Kamara said.

A spokesman for Linklaters LLP, the highest-grossing U.K. law firm, said half-year revenue results weren’t yet available.

Chinese state media says an initial group of nine Uighurs have been executed for taking part in July's deadly ethnic rioting in the country's far west.

The China News Service reported Monday that the nine were put to death recently but gave no specific date or other details.

The executions followed a review of the verdicts by the Supreme People's Court as required by law, it said.

The nine were convicted of committing murder and other crimes during the riots that left nearly 200 people dead in China's worst ethnic violence in decades.

Hundreds were rounded up in the wake of the unrest in Xinjiang province. The news service said another 20 people were indicted Monday on charges related to the deaths of 18 people and other crimes.

Roman Polanski has re-appealed to the Swiss courts to be released from prison on bail, officials said Tuesday, the latest step in the director's protracted legal battle to avoid extradition to the United States.

The Swiss Criminal Court declined to comment on the contents of the appeal, but the Justice Ministry said it was an offer that the government has already turned down in part because it lacked a cash guarantee.

Folco Galli, the Justice Ministry spokesman, said it was an appeal of a release request that was rejected last week. Such re-appeals are common under Swiss law.

The 76-year-old filmmaker has suffered a string of setbacks since he was arrested Sept. 26 in Zurich as he arrived to receive a lifetime achievement award from a film festival. Authorities in Los Angeles want him extradited for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.

The court confirmed Tuesday that it received the appeal, a day after a lawyer for Polanski said the request had been filed and included adequate guarantees that he would not flee justice if released. Attorney Herve Temime had earlier said the appeal would include a significant cash amount, but did not repeat the claim on Monday.