Reuters - July 27th, 2006

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - In a landmark ruling on Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights found Russia guilty of violating the ``right to life'' of a young Chechen who disappeared after a Russian general ordered him shot.

Khadzimurat Yandiyev was last seen in the hands of Russi his fate clear.

The court ruled Russia had violated a ban on arbitrary detention and failed to properly investigate his disappearance.

``This is a landmark judgment with major importance for the hundreds of other Chechen disghters. After seeing the video of her son she appealed to prosecutors, who opened a criminal case only to close it citing lack of evidence.

Russian rights groups estimate there have been 3,000-5,000 disappearances in Chechnya srsday's judgment becomes final after three months, or earlier if the parties say they have no intention of asking for the case to be referred to the superior Grand Chamber.

MINSK, Belarus (AP) -- Leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez exchanged declarations of solidarity Monday with the authoritarian leader of isolated Belarus, who shares his anti-U.S. views.

Chavez, a frequent and harsh critic of the United States, made Belarus the first stop on a major international tour that will also take him to Russia, Iran and Vietnam.

He was greeted at the presidential palace in Minsk with an honor guard, a military band and warm hugs and smiles from President Alexander Lukashenko -- a man known in Europe and Washington as ''Europe's last dictator.''

Lukashenko, like Chavez, accuses the United States of trying to overthrow him.

''Here, I've got a new friend and together we'll form a team,'' Chavez said before one-on-one talks with Lukashenko. ''I thank you, Alexander, for solidarity and we've come here to demonstrate our solidarity.''

Lukashenko, whose regime has been slapped with Western sanctions, returned the praise, calling Chavez ''a man of extensive knowledge.''

''You are versed not only in the economy of Venezuela but in the Belarus economy as well, you know military science, the military-industrial complex, and this impresses me very much,'' he said.

''Our two nations have a lot in common, we can form a strategic alliance,'' Lukashenko said.

Chavez has courted foes and critics of Washington in what he calls an effort to create a global counterbalance to U.S. domination. He has crafted a socialist trade bloc with Cuba and Bolivia, signed a series of deals with Iran, and supported North Korea's right to test-fire missiles.

He was to fly to Russia on Tuesday to sign a series of major weapons purchases for the world's fifth-largest oil exporter -- deals that have further raised Washington's ire.

Chavez also was slated to visit Qatar and Mali. He has abandoned plans to travel to North Korea.

Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington-based think-tank, said Chavez intends to secure oil deals, enlist support for a non-permanent U.N. Security Council seat, and bolster Venezuela's international standing -- all at Washington's expense.

The U.S. government, which frequently clashes with Chavez, is lobbying to block Venezuela's council seat bid, backing Guatemala instead. The General Assembly will decide the issue in a secret ballot in October.

Chavez has cast himself as the voice for smaller, weaker nations

''If Venezuela wins the U.N. vote, it will signal victory in a battle with the United States,'' Birns said.

During the talks with Lukashenko, the two sides signed seven agreements on military-technical cooperation, economic and other ties as well as a declaration pledging a strategic partnership. Bilateral trade was just under $16 million in 2005.

Chavez also was to tour the ''Stalin Line'' -- a network of World War II defense installations outside Minsk that have restored by Lukashenko's government.

Lukashenko, an open admirer of the Soviet Union, has been in power since 1994, quashing dissent, jailing opponents and extending his time in office through votes widely considered illegitimate. The United States and European Union imposed sanctions and a visa ban on him and other top officials following March presidential elections that the opposition denounced as fraudulent.

The highlight of Chavez's trip to Russia is to be a signing ceremony for a series of major Russian weapons contracts. On Friday, Russia's defense minister announced a deal worth more than $1 billion to supply Venezuela with 30 Su-30 fighter jets and 30 helicopters.

The Bush administration in May announced a ban on U.S. arms sales to Venezuela because of what it called a lack of support for counterterrorism efforts.

Chavez nonetheless has been using surging oil revenues to modernize Venezuela's military, signing multibillion defense deals with countries including Russia and Spain. Venezuela earlier reached a deal to buy 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles and is hoping to set up factories to produce the rifles under license.

U.S. officials have denied any plans to invade Venezuela, and accuse Chavez of posing a threat to stability in Latin America.

MINSK (Reuters) - Belarussian police on Sunday detained about 30 people who staged a demonstration outside the Russian embassy to demand the Kremlin stop backing hardline President Alexander Lukashenko.

The demonstration was mounted as Russian President Vladimir Putin, one of only a handful of world leaders to congratulate Lukashenko on his re-election in March, hosted a G8 summit in St. Petersburg.

The demonstrators had defied a ban three days after opposition leader Alexander Kozulin was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison for hooliganism and incitement to mass disorder in connection with protests against Lukashenko's re-election.

They held up portraits of Belarussians convicted of political offences and of prominent figures who have disappeared during Lukashenko's 12 years in power.

Tough laws against illegal assembly in Belarus keep most opposition gatherings small. Demonstrators taking part in protests like Sunday's are usually released without any further action against them.

Among those detained was veteran opposition leader Anatoly Lebedko, one of several top activists given short jail terms for public order offences in the run-up to Lukashenko's victory.

``For me, this was an act of solidarity with those who have suffered under this regime,'' Lebedko told Reuters by telephone from inside a police bus.

``That list has been made longer by the conviction of Kozulin. I am expressing solidarity with him too.''

The outcome of the March poll, in which Lukashenko won 83 percent of the vote, sparked rallies up to 10,000-strong in Minsk for four days. Police then dispersed the demonstrators and more than 600 people were jailed for up to 15 days.

The United States and the EU have long accused Lukashenko of hounding opponents, closing down media and rigging elections.

Both were highly critical of Kozulin's conviction last week and the U.S. ambassador to Minsk said the issue of human rights in Belarus would be discussed at the St Petersburg meeting.

MINSK, Belarus (AP) -- An opposition leader was convicted Thursday of organizing an unauthorized rally against the disputed election of Belarus' authoritarian president and sentenced to 5 1/2 years in jail, his lawyer said.

Alexander Kozulin, one of two opposition politicians to run in the March 19 election, was not present in the courtroom to hear his sentence because he was ordered removed earlier, said lawyer Igor Rynkevich.

Kozulin, in his final comments in court, denounced his trial as ''unfair'' and called the judge ''an executioner.''

The 50-year-old former bureaucrat has been jailed since leading the protest march six days after the disputed vote, which officials said President Alexander Lukashenko won by an overwhelming margin. The opposition condemned the balloting as rigged.

Riot police broke up that march, beating demonstrators with truncheons.

Western nations called the vote undemocratic and have since imposed travel and financial sanctions on Belarusian officials, including Lukashenko, and called for Kozulin's release.

Lukashenko, branded ''Europe's last dictator,'' has ruled the isolated former Soviet nation of 10 million since 1994, quashing dissent, jailing opponents, and extending his time in office through votes widely considered illegitimate.

Kozulin's lawyer said the outcome of the trial violated judicial ethics and complained that his client had been kept the whole day in ''inhuman conditions,'' in a small glass cage inside the court.

Alexander Milinkevich, who also ran for the presidency and is widely regarded as the leader of the beleaguered opposition, opposed Kozulin's calls for more aggressive protests after the election.

Some Western officials have also called for Lukashenko's regime -- and Russia's support for him -- to be on the agenda of the summit of the Group of Eight leaders, scheduled to begin this weekend in St. Petersburg.

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia (AP) -- Mongolians celebrated the 800th anniversary of Genghis Khan's march to world conquest on Tuesday with festivities that mixed commercialism with appeals to nationalism.

In the capital's Central Stadium, men dressed like warriors in Genghis Khan's 13th-century horde paraded on stout, brown horses. In one section of the grandstands, people held up cards to form pictures of the conqueror and the national flag. An actor played Genghis Khan in white robe and head gear, riding a white horse to ''Hurrays!'' from the crowd.

''We Mongolians must be united and have one goal: to develop our country. Remember Genghis Khan and his great deeds,'' said President Nambaryn Enkhbayar, who usually wears a suit but was dressed in a traditional gold and cream silk robe for the occasion.

Mongolians and their leaders are reveling in Genghis Khan, finding a source of identity at an unsettling time.

Sandwiched between a voracious China and an assertive Russia, Mongolia faces challenges abroad, while at home the democracy and free markets that followed communism's collapse in 1990 have created wealth for some but left a third of the 2.8 million people in poverty.

The greatness of Genghis Khan is something that most Mongolians agree on.

''I feel so proud to have been born in the land of the Great Khan who conquered most of the world,'' said Tserendulam, a recently retired cook who was among 800 singers at the ceremony. Like many Mongolians, he uses one name.

The anniversary marks Genghis Khan's unification of fractious Mongol tribes in 1206 -- an event that gave Mongolians a nascent national identity and set them on a course to forge an empire that stretched from the Pacific to Central Europe.

Though the celebrations will last a year, Tuesday's ceremony was timed for maximum public impact: the start of an annual festival of horse racing, archery, wrestling and camaraderie known as Naadam.

It's a time when the harsh weather of the steppe mellows for a brief summer, Mongolians enjoy themselves and politicians try to burnish their appeal.

Images of Genghis Khan, often as a wizened elder, have been plastered on billboards, etched in white stones on a mountainside and used to promote tourism. A rock opera of the conqueror's life -- modeled on ''Jesus Christ Superstar'' -- is being staged by a popular band.

The government tore down mausoleums of a 20th-century nationalist hero and a communist dictator on Ulan Bator's central square this year to build a $5 million monument of Genghis Khan in bronze.

At Tuesday's ceremony, the president and audience sang a newly altered version of the national anthem. The revisions, made by the government in recent weeks, deleted references to the communist past and replaced them with allusions to Mongolian independence.

In the rush to capitalize on his name, Genghis Khan's legacy as a brutal conqueror is being played down. Instead, he's being cast as an agent of world change, a visionary statesman who promoted low taxes on trade, diplomatic immunity and religious tolerance.

''We are forefathers of globalization,'' says one government slogan.

This marshaling of Genghis Khan's legacy to promote national pride -- and the money being spent -- has prompted cries of waste and political manipulation from some in the elite.

Mongolian politics has grown divisive, with partisan bickering between Enkhbayar's Mongolian People's First Party, a successor to the old Communist Party, and a coalition of newer democratic parties.

The president's ''entourage is trying to create an image that by rallying around our leader we are recreating the glory of Mongolia in the 13th century,'' said Munkh-Ochir Dorjjugder, an international affairs expert at a Defense Ministry think tank.

Enkhbayar, in his speech, appealed several times for unity. He and members of his political circle defended their use of Genghis Khan's image as necessary given the challenges.

''As a small country sandwiched between large nations, globalization is felt day to day and it's a pressing matter,'' Tsend Munkh-Orgil, a member of Mongolia's parliament and Enkhbayar's party, told reporters Monday. He said Genghis Khan can help forge ''the national unity and national consensus'' missing since democracy and capitalism emerged 15 years ago.

''Our ancestor 800 years ago not only brought war and destruction, but he also brought liberation and freedom,'' said Munkh-Orgil, who has a degree from Harvard Law School. ''As to the methods, it was the 13th century. What could we say?''