BBC - Wednesday, 29 November 2006

China has executed the leader of a prominent Christian sect after he was convicted of murdering members of a rival group, reports said.

Underground church founder Xu Shuangfu was executed with two other leaders last week, though his family was only told on Tuesday, his lawyer said.

Xu and several followers were sentenced to death in July, accused of killing 20 people between 2002 and 2004.

His lawyer, Li Heping, said Xu had been tortured into confessing.

The lawyer said Li Maoxing and Wang Jun had also been put to death in the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang.

Unconfirmed reports suggest there have been between nine and 12 other executions in connection with the same case.

The convictions relate to the murders of members of the Eastern Lightning cult.

The sect leader's lawyer said the charges against the three were "all sheer nonsense".

"The court does not have any evidence to support them," Mr Li said.

"During interrogation, they were tortured into confession."

Full story here.

Ukraine's parliament has voted in favour of declaring a Soviet-era famine an act of genocide against its people.

Historians say Soviet leader Joseph Stalin created the famine, confiscating the harvest of Ukrainian peasants to force them to join collective farms.

The bill was proposed by President Viktor Yushchenko, who wants the UN to also recognise the famine as genocide.

Up to 10 million people died during the 1932-1933 famine.

Full story here.

CHICAGO - Just weeks before Election Day, Jen and Andrew Fitzgibbon got a card from Gov. Rod Blagojevich congratulating them on the birth of their new baby.

The only problem was that the Fitzgibbons' youngest daughter, Lydia, wasn't so new anymore — she celebrated her first birthday the week the card arrived.

Batches of greeting cards bearing niceties from Blagojevich and his wife arrived in mailboxes right before the spring and fall elections, raising new ethical questions about the Illinois governor.

Blagojevich has been accused in recent months of awarding jobs and contracts to contributors and cronies. He has also been criticized for accepting a $1,500 check for his young daughter from a friend whose wife had just landed a state job.

The state sent a batch of 13,792 cards in February — ahead of the March primary — and three more batches totaling 89,185 cards in the two months before the November election.

"You would have to be a real idealist and have unheard-of faith in human character in general in order to not see this for what it is," said Republican state Sen. Dale Righter.

Full story here.

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- Holding candles and standing silent, thousands massed on a fog-shrouded square Saturday to mourn 10 million Ukrainians killed by a famine orchestrated by Soviet leader Josef Stalin -- an ordeal many insisted must be recognized as genocide.

Some 33,000 people died every day during the 1932-33 famine, wiping out a third of Ukraine's population in a calamity known here as Holodomor -- Death by Hunger. Cases of cannibalism were widespread as desperation deepened. Those who resisted were shot or sent to Siberia.

''I do not ask -- I demand that the Ukrainian parliament recognize Holodomor as genocide,'' President Viktor Yushchenko told the crowd on Mykhaylivska Square in a short address followed by a minute of silence and the tolling of bells.

Stalin provoked the famine to coerce peasants into giving up their private farms and joining agriculture collectives being formed across the Soviet Union.

Villages were ordered to provide the state with set amounts of grain, but the demands typically exceeded crop yields. As village after village failed to meet their quotas, officials seized all food and residents were barred from leaving -- condemning them to starve.

Farmers in Ukraine, which was the breadbasket of the U.S.S.R., fiercely resisted and bore the brunt of the man-made disaster.

Russia's government has warned the leaders of this former Soviet republic against using the term genocide, saying the event should not be ''politicized.'' Some Ukrainian lawmakers agreed, proposing it be termed a ''tragedy'' instead.

The Kremlin argues Stalin's campaign did not specifically target Ukrainians and also affected Russians and Kazakhs. But historians say the overwhelming majority of victims were Ukrainian, and the famine coincided with Stalin's effort to crush growing Ukrainian nationalism.

Yushchenko appealed to Russia to ''stand by our side'' and recognize the mass starvation as genocide. ''With this high example, demonstrate the human empathy that is inherent to the Russian people,'' he said.

''How can it be called anything but genocide,'' said Kateryna Kryvenko, 78, who recalled crying at the feet of Soviet officials as they ransacked her family's village home, carting off what little food her family had managed to hide under a floorboard. She said authorities took everything, and her father and three brothers and sisters died.

During the Soviet era, the mass starvation was a closely guarded state secret, but information trickled out over the years.

Ten nations, including the United States, recognize the famine as genocide, a crime under international law defined as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group.

Ukraine's parliament speaker, Oleksandr Moroz, said Saturday that he supports recognizing the mass starvation as genocide and said the president's bill calling for that designation would come before parliament this week.

Some lawmakers from Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's Russia-leaning Party of Regions suggested adopting a more moderate term, but party member Taras Chornovil predicted the president's version would pass.

Yanukovych joined Yushchenko in Saturday's commemoration, which included a silent procession by people carrying white banners representing every Ukrainian region. Black ribbons hung from the banners.

''The tragedy is of such a scale that it is hard to even imagine,'' said Oksana Yatsyuk, 18.

Police probing the death of Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko have found above-normal levels of radiation at three locations in London.

Mr Litvinenko's death has been linked to the presence of a "major dose" of radioactive polonium-210 in his body.

Scotland Yard confirmed traces were also found at his home, a sushi bar and a hotel, but the risk to others was said by health experts to be very low.

Full story here.

HAVANA (Reuters) - A silence has settled over Cuban political life that ordinary Cubans find at once disconcerting and a big relief.

After decades of delivering long and frequent speeches, Cuban leader Fidel Castro has virtually disappeared while recovering from surgery and been replaced by his much more reticent brother Raul.

Now Castro's diatribes no longer interrupt regular programming on Cuban television and he does not hold center stage in the national limelight.

Castro, 80, has not been seen except for a few photographs and videos since announcing on July 31 that he had an intestinal operation and put Raul temporarily in control of the communist country he has run since a 1959 revolution.

Cubans say they are not sure what to make of it.

``He was the person who defined everything for us. Now nobody is saying anything, which makes me wonder what is going to happen next,'' said security guard Ernesto Valdares, 34.

``There are no speeches, nothing. It's very different,'' said a woman who would only give her first name, Dora.

Many people in Cuba quickly tell a visitor that they are ''Fidelistas,'' or Fidel Castro supporters. But in the same breath they deny any interest in politics. They vow eternal support for Fidel Castro and say Raul does not inspire the same passion because he lacks charisma.

'IT'S A RELIEF'

But even some Fidelistas admit that Castro's silence has its good side.

``To tell you the truth, it's a relief not to have him talking so much. He was on television all the time,'' said Dora.

In contrast, Raul Castro has kept a low profile, only occasionally showing up at public events and keeping his comments, if any, brief.

Analysts speculate that Raul Castro, 75, is staying in the shadows out of deference to his brother and because he is a behind-the-scenes technocrat by nature. He has been Cuba's defense minister since 1959 and is credited with building the military into one of the country's most efficient institutions.

What follows this period of peace and quiet is the question of the hour in Cuba.

A clerk in a Havana clothing store, who gave only Ernesto as his name, said he expects everything to go on as before, whether Fidel Castro dies or recovers.

``The people on top don't want anything to change. They're doing well,'' he said.

But Valdares said he thinks a new government will be compelled to do something to improve Cuba's creaking economy, where the average Cuban makes the equivalent of just $15 a month and needs government food rations to get by.

``I'm very proud to be a Cuban and I'm happy with the way things are, but we need more money. If Raul takes over for Fidel, he'll have to make some changes,'' he said.

Russian security officials are regularly subjecting detainees to beatings, rape and torture, a report by Amnesty International says.

More than 100 cases were documented in a small number of regions, although not including Chechnya where incidences are said to be much higher.

In some cases convicted prisoners were employed by officials to torture suspects, the report says.

Suspects were also regularly denied access to lawyers, it adds.

The human rights organisation accused state investigators of transferring suspects to inaccessible parts of the justice system such as prison colonies, blocking access for independent monitors and preventing publication of expert reports.

Amnesty called on the Russian government to protect the rights of those in detention.

"We are hearing horrendous reports of prisoners being tortured in police detention in Russia - beatings with fists, plastic bottles full of water, books, truncheons and poles, of suffocation, the use of electroshocks and of organised rape," said UK campaign director Tim Hancock.

"It's a litany of horror and has no place in any decent justice system."

The report gave the example of Yekaterinburg, where it alleged that at least 30 male suspects were systematically tortured in a punishment block of the local prison between 2004 and 2006.

Convicted prisoners were allowed 24-hour access to suspects' cells, it added, saying that some victims mentioned a special room where suspects were raped.

Detainees were forced to sign confessions, an indication that police were coming under pressure to solve crimes, Amnesty said.

Full story here. Full report from Amnesty International:

LONDON (AP) -- A former Russian spy poisoned in Britain and now hospitalized under guard may have been targeted for his criticism of former colleagues and his investigation into the killing of a prominent anti-Kremlin journalist, friends and fellow dissidents said Sunday.

Col. Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent, said earlier this week that he fell ill on Nov. 1 following a meal with a contact who claimed to have details about the slaying of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist gunned down last month in Moscow.

Litvinenko was under armed guard at University College Hospital in London. The hospital said he was in ''serious but stable'' condition.

''He is still very weak,'' friend Alexander Goldfarb told reporters outside the hospital. ''He is in a fighting mood, though.'''

A doctor treating Litvinenko told the British Broadcasting Corp. that tests showed he was the victim of poisoning by thallium -- a toxic metal found in rat poison.

''He's got a prospect of recovering, he has a prospect of dying,'' said Dr. John Henry, a clinical toxicologist who treated Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko in 2004 after he was poisoned during his presidential election campaign. Henry said thallium can cause damage to the nervous system and organ failure, and that just one gram can be lethal.

In an interview with the Sunday Times before his condition worsened, Litvinenko described how he had lunch with an Italian contact who claimed to have had information on Politkovskaya's killing, which has not been solved.

British news outlets identified the contact as Mario Scaramella, an Italian academic who helped investigate KGB activity in Italy during the Cold War. Scaramella could not immediately be reached for comment.

''They probably thought I would be dead from heart failure by the third day,'' Litvinenko is quoted as saying in the Sunday Times. ''I do feel very bad. I've never felt like this before -- like my life is hanging on the ropes.''

Police said a specialist crime unit began an investigation on Friday into how Litvinenko may have been poisoned. No arrests had been made so far, said a Scotland Yard spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with force policy.

Glenn Edwards, operations manager at Itsu restaurant where the lunch took place, told The Associated Press that detectives had arrived at the restaurant on Saturday asking for close circuit television footage.

Litvinenko left Russia for Britain six years ago and has become an outspoken critic of the Kremlin. In a 2003 book, ''The FSB Blows Up Russia,'' he accused his country's secret service agency of staging apartment-house bombings in 1999 that killed more than 300 people in Russia and sparked the second war in Chechnya.

Boris Berezovsky, the Russian dissident and tycoon who was at Litvinenko's bedside on Friday, told The Associated Press he suspects Russia's intelligence services of the poisoning.

''It's not complicated to say who fights against him,'' Berezovsky said in a telephone interview. ''He's (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's enemy, he started to criticize him and had lots of fears.''

Goldfarb, who organized Litvinenko's emigration to Britain, said FSB agents had threatened him in the past.

''He looks like a ghost,'' Goldfarb said. ''He's a very fit man, he never smoked, he never drank, he would run five miles a day, but now he has lost all his hair, he has inflammation in the throat, so he cannot swallow.''

Russian authorities did not immediately comment on the allegations.

Litvinenko joined the KGB in 1988 and rose to the rank of colonel in its successor, the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB. He began specializing in terrorism and organized crime in 1991, and was transferred to the FSB's most secretive department on criminal organizations in 1997.

He fled Russia and claimed asylum in Britain in November 2000, two years after publicly accusing his FSB superiors of ordering him to kill Berezovsky, at the time a powerful Kremlin insider. Berezovsky said Sunday that Litvinenko fell out with his superiors after he exposed corruption within FSB ranks.

Before he left Russia, Litvinenko was jailed for nine months awaiting trial on charges of abusing his office; he was acquitted.

Kremlin critics claim poisoning -- which is extremely hard to prove -- is a common Soviet-era practice that seems to have reappeared since Putin, an ex-KGB officer, became president.

''It is not a secret that poisoning has become some kind of a trademark of a secret war in Russia,'' Alexander Golts, political commentator with the Russian news Web site Ezhenedelny Zhurnal, told the Associated Press. ''I will not take the risk of accusing the government ... but certain groups have quite overtly been eliminating people they disliked through poisoning.

''It is absolutely obvious that this story with Litvinenko fits very well into the overall picture of power struggle in Russia,'' he said.

Politkovskaya, who had written critically about abuses by Russian forces fighting separatists in Chechnya, fell seriously ill after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow to southern Russia in 2004 during the school hostage crisis in Beslan. Colleagues say she was poisoned.

Yuri Shchekochikhin, a liberal Russian lawmaker and journalist who crusaded against corruption, died in July 2003 after apparently suffering a severe allergic reaction. Colleagues suspect he was poisoned, probably in connection with his reports on a case involving customs officials and allegations that a furniture store had evaded millions of dollars in import duties.

Yushchenko, the Ukrainian president, had his face badly disfigured by what doctors said was dioxin poisoning.

In one of the most notable Cold War assassinations, the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was killed in 1978 with a poison dart concealed in an umbrella. British investigators long have suspected Bulgarian agents in the slaying.

MIAMI (AP) -- A federal judge has ordered a bank to turn over $91 million in frozen Cuban assets to two families who won damages against the Cuban government for executing their relatives more than 40 years ago.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ruled Friday in New York that JP Morgan Chase Bank must release $67 million to the family of Howard Anderson, who was shot by a Cuban firing squad after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

The daughter of CIA pilot Thomas ''Pete'' Ray -- Janet Ray Weininger of Palmetto Bay, Fla. -- is to receive $23.9 million for her father's execution after being shot down during the failed invasion.

The plaintiffs used a 1996 law that allows victims of designated terrorist states to sue for damages. Both families had won cases in Miami-Dade Circuit Court in 2003 and 2004 against the Cuban government. Castro's government did not fight either family at trial.

Friday's 101-page ruling marked the first time that a 2002 anti-terrorism statute was applied to allow the terrorism victims to recover damages from blocked assets of a designated terrorist state. And it marks only the second time that families who sued the Cuban government for wrongful death claims could collect from the country's frozen U.S. bank accounts.

LONDON (Reuters) - Arabic television station Al Jazeera launches an English-speaking channel on Wednesday to report world news from a Middle East perspective and challenge the dominance of Western media.

The station, which has angered Washington and some Arab governments with its reporting from Iraq, said it wanted to give a fresh voice to under-reported regions round the world.

``We are trying to expand our audience beyond the Arabic-speaking world, and enter the English-speaking world,'' said Wadah Khanfar, director general of the Al Jazeera Group.

``One of our goals is to reverse the flow of information to the south,'' he said, arguing that the Middle East and developing nations have until now not had a voice of their own.

In doing so the new channel mirrors projects in France, Russia and Africa that aim to give a regional perspective in English, the dominant global language, but offer little commercial reward to their owners.

``The model is the BBC's World Service,'' Steven Barnett, a professor of communications at the University of Westminster, said. ``The Foreign Office didn't fund that out of generosity. It funded it because it was spreading the voice of Britain.

``It was not forcing propaganda down people's throats but it was still bringing to bear a perspective that was essentially British and spreading it around the world,'' he told Reuters.

The channel's Arabic sister service shook the Arab and Western world when it launched in 1996.

After making its name in the Afghan war with exclusive footage of Osama bin Laden, the Qatar-based satellite channel drew fierce criticism for showing footage of dead U.S. soldiers in Iraq and prisoners of war.

``The existing broadcasters do not provide what Al Jazeera is about to provide,'' said Sue Phillips, London Bureau chief.

``We want to push the boundaries, we want to cover parts of the world that are not covered by the other organizations, the unreported world, (and) ... we want to probe and ask those questions that perhaps others don't ask,'' she told Reuters.

The channel was to launch earlier this year but was delayed several times. Al Jazeera officials blamed technical problems, denying U.S. media reports that right wing groups were pressing cable networks not to carry the channel in the United States.

FRESH PERSPECTIVE

Moscow set up the state-funded ``Russia Today'' channel in 2005 to show news from a Russian perspective and a French 24-hour news channel is due to launch at the end of this year to offset the ``unified, Anglo-Saxon'' outlook.

A pan-African 24-hour news network, ``A24,'' run by Africans for Africans to challenge the Western-dominated coverage of the continent is also in the planning stage with a view to launch by the end of 2007.

``Why shouldn't other countries, in an era of globalization, do their best to make sure that their culture, language and way of life are more familiar,'' Barnett said.

The English-language Al Jazeera will broadcast via satellite from four centers in Kuala Lumpur, Doha, London and Washington. It is funded by the Emir of Qatar, as is the Arabic channel

Peter Preston, former editor of Britain's Guardian newspaper, said it had become increasingly evident new voices with different opinions were needed on English-language networks as one all-encompassing 24-hour news channel was not enough.

``CNN can attempt to do that by running hugely different programs ... to the rest of the world than it does in America. The BBC can attempt to do it by a massive amount of fairness and balance in the traditional BBC way,'' he told Reuters.

``But actually what you see in the Middle East in the last 10 years is a feeling that the Middle East needs not just one but two of its own 24-hour channels that will tell something of the story of the region from a Middle East perspective.''

Barnett said success should not be measured by ratings or advertising they attract but whether they become influential.

``If another situation develops where America wants to get involved in a foreign country like Iraq and tries to use the same propaganda methods, the existence of something like a French channel could be a factor,'' he said.

``If it is done properly ... it could be a real contribution to global diplomacy.''

Editor's commentary: This is not coincidence! After world premiere of Borat movie, 24-hour news network is launched. And you can bet that news will be written and presented the Borat way. He is Muslim from Kazakhstan so his views are shared by most other Muslims around the world. Anti-Jewry and Holocaust denial 24-hours a day in English, the way Borat speaks. We can hardly wait to watch it and laugh ourselves silly just as we did during Borat movie. It remains to be seen if president Putin is going to ban Jazeera as well as he banned Borat movie.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German accused of denying the Holocaust and using the Internet to spread his views went on trial on Tuesday after being deported from the United States.

The 42-year-old chemist, Germar Rudolf, is accused of denying and belittling the wartime extermination of Jews by Germany's Nazi regime. Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany which can carry a prison sentence of up to 5 years.

Rudolf, who was found guilty on similar charges in the mid-1990s, claims the court in Mannheim, western Germany, has no jurisdiction to judge the accuracy of historical events.

``No court has the right to decide authoritatively on complex historical matters,'' Rudolf told the court, which is also hearing a similar case against Ernst Zuendel, a prominent alleged Holocaust denier extradited from Canada.

State prosecutor Andreas Grossmann told the court Rudolf had claimed on Web sites that Hitler's Nazi party had never given an order for the persecution of Jews and that the victims of concentration camps had died of starvation and typhoid.

Rudolf also published a book in 2005 supporting these views, the prosecutor said, adding his office was seeking to confiscate around 110,000 euros ($141,000) in income Rudolf received from 2001-2004 through the sale of illegal materials.

Rudolf fled Germany after being found guilty in the mid-1990s of inciting racial hatred. After spending time in Spain and Britain, he landed in the United States which deported him a year ago to serve his original jail sentence of 14 months.

Sentencing in the second trial is expected by the end of January, 2007.

Editor's commentary: We wonder why those who deny Srebrenica massacre are treated like heroes while those who deny Holocaust are prosecuted for good. No wonder then why Karadzic and Mladic are still free.

The director general of a Russian oil consultancy company has been killed in an apparent contract killing in Moscow, officials say.

Zelimkhan Magomedov, 50, was shot twice in the head, prosecutors told Itar-Tass news agency.

Ms Magomedov was the head of the National Oil Institute Fund, which seeks to develop small and medium-sized oil and gas producers.

The killing was described as a "contract hit" by officials.

The recent murders are reminiscent of a wave of assassinations which swept through the city in the 1990s, targeting businessmen and bankers.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: President Putin doesn't like Halloween much but he for sure is big fan of (bloody) Valentine's Day although both holidays are American.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - The United Nations announced on Friday it would postpone a decision on the future status of Serbia's breakaway Kosovo province, hours after Serbia said it would hold an early general election in January.

The decision was taken in Vienna by the Contact Group of six major powers guiding Balkan diplomacy, shortly after Serbian president Boris Tadic announced the January 21 ballot in Belgrade.

``In light of the announcement by President Tadic ... and after consulting with the Contact Group today, I have decided to present my proposal for the settlement of Kosovo's status to the parties without delay after parliamentary elections in Serbia,'' said U.N. special envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari.

The Contact Group -- the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia -- had originally promised Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority a decision by year end. A European Union source said Brussels ``did not see this as a long delay.''

Diplomats say the major powers are sympathetic to Albanians' demand for independence but wants to avoid boosting support for the ultranationalist Radical Party, Serbia's strongest.

Kosovo has been a U.N. protectorate since NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 to force late Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic to pull out his troops, accused of killing ethnic Albanian civilians while trying to crush a guerrilla insurgency.

Its 90-percent Albanian population is tired of waiting and blame the limbo for the lack of economic development that has mired the province in poverty and massive unemployment.

Hashim Thaci, a former guerrilla commander turned politician, said Serbia's elections ``might have an impact on the timing, but not on the substance'' of the decision, which would be ``independence and sovereignty.''

``Kosovo was never betrayed by the West,'' Thaci said. ``We liberated Kosovo together with the international community and we will declare independence when we all agree.''

Sanda Raskovic Ivic, head of Serbia's office for Kosovo, said the delay showed Serbia's standing in the world had grown.

``It also opens up the possibility to continue direct talks which could go on into next year,'' she said, referring to fruitless negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina that Ahtisaari has mediated since February.

HEAVY INHERITANCE

Serbia's election will pit the Radicals against the pro-West Democratic Party led by Tadic, now second in opinion polls.

Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia -- in power in an unlikely alliance with monarchists and technocrats -- is third. Many voters say they are disappointed at what they see as a failure to deliver on its promises.

The next government will first have to weather the likely loss of Kosovo and will also need to revive talks with the European Union and smooth out relations with its neighbors.

Talks on a Stabilization and Association Agreement, a first step to eventual EU membership, were frozen in May as punishment for Serbia's failure to deliver war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic to the U.N. court in The Hague.

The new government will also inherit a suit brought by Bosnia in the World Court accusing Serbia of genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnia War, and a heavy load of court cases related to the war crimes, mafia hits and general lawlessness of the 1990s.

The task list also extends to the economy. Despite robust growth of above five percent in the last four years, a third of Serbia's workforce remains unemployed.

Editor's commentary: Some people tipped Ahtisaari to win Nobel Peace Prize but after this decision he can only win Borat Prize for the biggest idiot in the world. Saying that he is going to delay Kosovo decision in order to help Democratic parties in Serbia because loss of Kosovo would help SRS fascists is just like delaying Oscar award for Borat movie because there are upcoming elections in Kazakhstan. Have you ever heard word SPOILER moron! We are not going to tell you that Anakin Skywalker is going to turn to the dark side because that might turn off audience and result in poor ticket sales!? Fascists from SRS are evil and bunch of criminals but not that stupid to think that West will return control of Kosovo to Serbia. There is another good question here: What would happen if UN decides to return control of Kosovo to Serbia? Why wouldn't that decision help SRS and Kostunica who BTW conducted all talks about Kosovo together with Serb Satanic Church? Decision to deny Serbia control over Kosovo can only help Democratic parties and ruin those who conducted negotiations. Another question is what would SRS do if they win by any chance? How would they return Kosovo under Serbian control? Since all diplomacy failed the only way would be by force but we all know that Serb forces were defeated already once by NATO and that NATO has contingency plan if Serbia goes for that option. Serbia would not fight Albanians only but whole NATO alliance. 6th April 1941 deja vu anyone? Finally, SRS branch in RS won elections few years ago and then their PM Poplasen threatened with tanks to take Sarajevo. After UN, NATO and the rest of the world laughed themselves to death by his comments, SRS lost the power in RS and almost completely disappeared from political scene in RS. Reformist Dodik is in charge right now. All in all this is just one gigantic BS that should have been put in Borat movie that is BTW banned by president Putin in Russia. Ahtisaari proves that Finns are serious comedians strong enough to take on Hollywood as well. Ahtisaari certainly deserves to be put among top ten comedians of all time. The only benefactor of his idiotic decision is assassin Kostunica who will prolong his rule for few more months. Ahtisaari decision to delay is already boosting ratings of Kostunica and SRS because they are using that old argument of non-interfering into internal affairs and Ahtisaari decision is just that. This and any other delay will only force Kosovars to take control in their own hands and declare independence anyway. Life must go on, it can't wait for corrupt idiot bureaucrats like Ahtisaari.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced Sunday to hang for crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single Shiite town, as the ousted leader, trembling and defiant, shouted "God is great!"

Saddam and his seven co-defendants were on trial for a wave of revenge killings carried out in the city of Dujail following a 1982 assassination attempt on the former dictator. Al-Maliki's Islamic Dawa party, then an underground opposition, has claimed responsibility for organizing the attempt on Saddam's life.

In the streets of Dujail, a Tigris River city of 84,000, people celebrated and burned pictures of their former tormentor as the verdict was read.

The death sentences automatically go to a nine-judge appeals panel, which has unlimited time to review the case. If the verdicts and sentences are upheld, the executions must be carried out within 30 days.

Before the session began, one of Saddam's lawyers, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, was ejected from the courtroom after handing the judge a memorandum in which he called the trial a travesty.

Chief Judge Raouf Abdul-Rahman pointed to Clark and said in English, "Get out."

In addition to the former Iraqi dictator and Barzan Ibrahim, his former intelligence chief and half brother, the Iraqi High Tribunal convicted and sentenced Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the head of Iraq's former Revolutionary Court, to death by hanging. Iraq's former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Three defendants were sentenced to 15 years in prison for torture and premeditated murder. Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid and his son Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid were party officials Dujail, along with Ali Dayih Ali. They were believed responsible for the Dujail arrests.

Mohammed Azawi Ali, a former Dujail Baath Party official, was acquitted for lack of evidence and immediately freed.

He faces additional charges in a separate case over an alleged massacre of Kurdish civilians — a trial that will continue while appeals are pending.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad issued a statement saying the verdicts "demonstrate the commitment of the Iraqi people to hold them (Saddam and his co-defendants) accountable."

"Although the Iraqis may face difficult days in the coming weeks, closing the book on Saddam and his regime is an opportunity to unite and build a better future," Khalilzad said.

U.S. officials associated with the tribunal said Saddam's repeated courtroom outbursts during the nine-month trial may have played a key part in his conviction.

They cited his admission in a March 1 hearing that he had ordered the trial of 148 Shiites who were eventually executed, insisting that doing so was legal because they were suspected in the assassination attempt against him. "Where is the crime? Where is the crime?" he asked, standing before the panel of five judges.

Later in the same session, he argued that his co-defendants must be released and that because he was in charge, he alone must be tried. His outburst came a day after the prosecution presented a presidential decree with a signature they said was Saddam's approval for death sentences for the 148 Shiites, their most direct evidence against him.

About 50 of those sentenced by the "Revolutionary Court" died during interrogation before they could go to the gallows. Some of those hanged were children.

"Every time they (defendants) rose and spoke, they provided a lot of incriminating evidence," said one of the U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Under Saddam, Iraq's bureaucracy showed a consistent tendency to document orders, policies and minutes of meetings. That, according to the U.S. officials, helped the prosecution produce more than 30 documents that clearly established the chain of command under Saddam.

One document gave the names of everyone from Dujail banished to a desert detention camp in southern Iraq. Another, prepared by an aide to Saddam, gave the president a detailed account of the punitive measures against the people of Dujail following the failed assassination attempt.

Saddam's trial had from the outset appeared to reflect the turmoil and violence in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

One of Saddam's lawyers was assassinated the day after the trial's opening session last year. Two more were later assassinated and a fourth fled the country.

In January, chief judge Rizgar Amin, a Kurd, resigned after complaints by Shiite politicians that he had failed to keep control of court proceedings. He, in turn, complained of political interference in the trial. Abdul-Rahman, another Kurd, replaced Amin.

Hearings were frequently disrupted by outbursts from Saddam and Ibrahim, with the two raging against what they said was the illegitimacy of the court, their ill treatment in the U.S.-run facility where they are being held and the lack of protection for their lawyers.

The defense lawyers contributed to the chaos in the courtroom by staging several boycotts.

Full story here.

LONDON (AFP) - Britain is becoming a "surveillance society," where CCTV cameras, credit card analysis and travel movements are used to track people's lives minute by minute, a report suggested.

The 140-page document, produced by academic group the Surveillance Studies Network, warns that people's lives will be monitored even more in the next decade by the government, the public sector, employers and big business.

Britain is ranked bottom of the democratic Western world and alongside Russia for its record on protecting individual privacy in a table published Thursday by Privacy International, a human rights watchdog.

There are up to 4.2 million CCTV (closed-circuit television) cameras -- about one for every 14 people or nearly 10 percent of those around the world -- with ever-more sophisticated technology.

Every person is caught on camera about 300 times each day.

Despite opposition from civil liberties groups, the government is pushing ahead with plans to introduce biometric identity cards, arguing it will improve internal security and curb illegal immigration.

This week, Prime Minister Tony Blair said he wants to increase the police's DNA database to cover even people released without charge.

As international data protection and privacy commissioners met in London, Britain's information commissioner Richard Thomas said the report was a "clear signal" the country was becoming a surveillance society.

"It's not just cameras in the street and things like that. It's technology monitoring our movements and activities," he told BBC radio.

Using mobile phones, credit cards, the Internet and even driving now left an "electronic footprint," he said, while organisations increasingly shared information.

Thomas -- whose remit is to promote public access to official information and protect personal data -- insisted the authors of the report, which he commissioned, were not scaremongering by painting a "sinister, Orwellian picture."

Instead, it was the start of a necessary debate about what should be the limits of technology, he added.

"We've got to say: 'Where do we want the lines to be drawn? How much do we want to have surveillance changing the nature of society ... ?" he said, accepting some uses may help in issues like counter-terrorism or serious crime.

"We've got to stand back and see where technology is taking us and make sure we are happy."

The report suggests that by 2016 shoppers will be scanned as they enter stores through tags in their clothes, with information matched to details on loyalty cards to recognize shopping habits.

Cars linked to satellite navigation systems will allow police to monitor speeds and journeys more closely, while workers will be subject to biometric and psychometric tests to weed out unsuitable candidates or health risks, it adds.

Care was needed to prevent creating a climate of suspicion and mistrust, it added.

Britain's Department for Constitutional Affairs accepted there was a balance to be struck between sharing information responsibly and respecting citizens' rights.

The Association of Chief Police Officers of England and Wales agreed, saying safeguards existed already against abusing surveillance and its use had to be proportionate.