Reuters - October 31st, 2006

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Kosovo got the clearest signs yet on Tuesday that independence is coming, but the United States and the European Union seemed divided on whether to delay a U.N. decision so that Serbia can hold an election first.

``It is the firm view of the U.S. that a delay offers no advantages to any party,'' said Frank Wisner, U.S. envoy to the breakaway Serbia province that has been run by the United Nations for the past seven years.

``The United States further believes that delay can only leave in limbo the definition of this region, which needs to close its door on the past and to define its future,'' he said in Belgrade after meeting Serbian officials.

Western powers are wary that delaying a U.N. decision on a Kosovo proposal by envoy Martti Ahtisaari -- reported to recommend a two-year path to statehood -- could invite trouble from ethnic Albanian extremists.

But some fear pushing it through before a Serbian election could boost the vote for anti-Western nationalist hardliners.

The U.S. is not convinced by the argument but Wisner, leaving room for compromise, said that until an election date was set Washington could not say if a delay would make sense.

The U.N. launched talks on Kosovo's final status in February aiming to complete them by end 2006. But there has been no compromise on the key issue. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority wants independence; Serbia rejects the demand.

Ahtisaari has given U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan his 'preliminary ideas' on the future of Kosovo, which do not use the word independence yet, but offer a clear path to statehood over the next two years.

The plan sets ``criteria which characterize an independent country,'' a senior Western diplomat in Kosovo told Reuters.

Diplomats say the blow to Serb pride from losing 15 percent of its territory could tilt voters toward hardline anti-Western nationalist parties if it is delivered before a Serbian election now considered imminent.

With this risk in mind, European Union foreign affairs chief Javier Solana said earlier on Tuesday that Ahtisaari should delay presenting his final plan, if the Serbs schedule an election to be held before the end of this year.

``We would wait to make the decision on what would be the final status,'' Solana told reporters in Madrid.

CLEARER TIMETABLE COMING UP

The Contact Group on Kosovo -- the US, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia -- is to meet on November 10, and may decide on timing if Serbia has set an election date by then.

Most Serb parties, including the ultranationalist Radicals, the country's strongest, say elections should be held as soon as possible. If they are scheduled for December, the decision on Kosovo would likely be stalled by a couple of months at most.

But Kosovo Albanians, who have been waiting in limbo to get their own state for seven years, oppose any delay at all.

The province of 2 million has been run by the UN since 1999, when a 78-day NATO bombing war drove out Serb forces accused of killing civilians while fighting separatist guerrillas.

The Kosovo-based diplomat said Ahtissari's plan would begin by letting Kosovo join world bodies reserved for sovereign states. States would subsequently be free to recognize it as Europe's newest independent state, or not.

The compromise is reportedly the result of opposition from Russia -- U.N. veto holder and sometime Serb ally -- to the notion of a U.N. resolution directly making Kosovo independent.

Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku said ``it would be a problem'' if Ahtisaari's plan does not use the word 'independence'. But in a conciliatory note he added that Kosovo's government would look carefully at ``the substance of the proposal,'' not the letter.

``It is very important that the substance of his proposal means independence,'' he told a news conference.

The impact of a delay in the decision for the highly volatile province, however, may be harder to gauge. Some Kosovo Albanian hardliners believe they ought to have declared independence unilaterally long ago.

U.N. agencies and NATO peacekeepers both have contingency plans for trouble as the decision process reaches its climax.

Ivana Stevanovic

The Referendum on the New Constitution of Serbia succeeded, reports CeSID on the basis of its exit poll conducted on a representative sample of 600 ballot stations. 51.6% of all registered voters voted for the New Constitution. In absolute numbers, that is 108,000 votes more than the required threshold.

Although the political parties that initiated the referendum and the Government congratulated the citizens on their new Constitution, serious doubts and suspicions about the veracity and validity of the results started circulating in the public.

The major cause of suspicion is the fact that the turnout was extremely low during the two days of the Referendum (rather unusual practice), which has risen dramatically over the past several hours to reach the level of 4% turnout per hour, ultimately reaching the final turnout of 53.5%.

CeSID reports major irregularities in eight of the 600 ballot stations monitored by its observers, such as voting without presentation of proper personal identification documents, or proxi voting (one member would vote for the whole family. CeSID also recorded a number of minor violations of proper voting procedures.

The Liberal Democratic Party, the leader of the Boycott Bloc, claims that the Government stole the referendum and that only 49.7 percent of the registered voters turned out at the polling stations. LDP presented video recordings from two polling stations in Vracar and Stari Grad municipalities in Belgrade, depicting citizens allowed to vote without ID and on behalf of other people. The recordings are available on the YouTube online video service.

Additional Objections by the International Community

In spite of the disputed regularity, the European Commission and the Council of Europe presented positive assessments of the Referendum. Although they avoided, over the past several days, to comment on the defects of the Constitution, they announced, only after the vote, that they will issue their own comments on the text of the Constitution.

B92 reports, invoking sources in the European Union, that the EU report to be released on November 8 will reprimand the authors of the Constitution on the solutions regarding the judiciary, having in mind that Brussels believes that the new Constitution opens the door for too big political influence on the work and election of judges.

Another objection will refer to the provisions on international relations, which state that the norms of international law and international treaties will be applied only if they are in compliance with the Constitution, which gives the Constitution supremacy over the international documents.

EU also believes that the Constitution doesn’t provide for full decentralization of the country, which renders the regions in Serbia ineligible for various EU programmes that are available only on regional level.

NGOs Congratulated Vojvodina Citizens on Successful Boycott

According to CeSID, the highest turnout was registered in Kosovo (89,7%), while the lowest turnout was in Vojvodina (43,6%). NGO Initiative for Boycott congratulated the citizens of Vojvodina on the successful boycott.

The turnout, far below the necessary 50% plus one voter, proved once again that the citizens of Vojvodina don’t agree to the humiliating definition of Vojvodina’s autonomy provided by this Constitution. The citizens proved that they are more mature than the political elites and they deserve better elites and better future, not the darkness offered by the politicians in power, according to the organizations involved in the initiative.

"The citizens of Vojvodina showed that they are the true European face of Serbia. Every future government will have to bear that in mind”, says the public statement by the Initiative.

Note: More news from OneWorld Southeast Europe available here.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has committed ``crimes against humanity'' against its own people according to an independent report published on Monday that made a long-shot appeal for the U.N. Security Council to deal with the issue.

Released after North Korea's October 9 nuclear test, the report describes Pyongyang's brutal treatment of its citizens, from the beatings of pregnant women to force miscarriages to the abduction, torture and execution of political prisoners.

Commissioned by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, former Czech president Vaclav Havel and former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, the paper seeks to spotlight rights abuses that have been previously reported but are often overshadowed by concern about North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

``It is clear that (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-il and the North Korean government are actively committing crimes against humanity,'' they said in a letter introducing the report, which was prepared by the nonprofit, independent U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and by the DLA Piper law firm.

``We strongly urge the U.N. Security Council to take up the situation of North Korea. Protecting the people of North Korea requires nothing less,'' they added.

An official at the North Korean mission to the United Nations declined comment on the report and repeated North Korea's position that it does not violate human rights.

Foreign policy analysts praised the report for highlighting an issue that often gets short shrift amid concerns about North Korea's nuclear and missile programs but they said the chances of the Security Council acting on it were slim.

Among other reasons, they noted the council has already passed two resolutions imposing sanctions on North Korea in the last four months, the first following its July 5 ballistic missile tests and the second after this month's nuclear test.

They also said China -- which holds a veto -- historically has resisted bringing up human rights at the Security Council for fear that its own practices might be scrutinized.

'POLITICAL NONSTARTER'

``On the one hand, it's probably a moral imperative. On the other hand, I think it's a political nonstarter,'' said Columbia University Professor Edward Luck, a U.N. specialist.

The report, largely based on previously published material, estimates that North Korea imprisons ``upwards of 200,000 people in its modern-day gulag'' and that double that number have died in the its prison network over 30 years.

It describes prisoners being fed near-starvation diets that they supplement with insects, being beaten until their eyeballs pop out and being entombed in ``sweatbox'' solitary cells so small they are forced to crouch for months.

Noting as many as one million people may have died in North Korea's late 1990s famine and the country faces ``chronic'' food shortages, it argues Pyongyang ``failed in its responsibility to protect its own people from crimes against humanity.''

In a second justification for Council action, it said North Korea poses a ``non-traditional threat'' to international peace because of its rights abuses, the possibility of mass refugee outflows and alleged drug trafficking and counterfeiting.

Analysts said the council may not wish to take up the issue because it is already being discussed in the U.N. General Assembly and the Human Rights Council and investigated by a U.N. special rapporteur who has been denied access to the country.

In an interview, Bondevik acknowledged it may be tilting at windmills to expect the Security Council to act but said: ``If we do nothing, nothing will happen. If we do this, hopefully something will happen. We have to try.''

``We hope this will wake up the world,'' he added.

Editor's commentary: It is hard to justify nuclear ambition when people are being tortured, imprisoned and starved to death. Why does he need nuclear weapons? To protect his tyranny?

HAVANA (AP) -- The ailing Fidel Castro appeared on Cuban state television for the first time in more than a month Saturday, looking thin and tired but walking around and ridiculing recent rumors of his death.

The 80-year-old Cuban leader, who temporarily ceded power to his brother Raul in July following intestinal surgery, had not been seen since mid-September when photographs of him receiving world leaders at a summit in Havana were released. He was shown walking slowly but steadily in an unidentified room and reading a newspaper in a loud voice.

''They've declared me moribund prematurely,'' he said, holding a copy of Saturday's edition of Granma, the Communist Party daily newspaper. ''But it pleases me to send my compatriots and friends this small video.''

He said his recovery would be prolonged and not without risk but added: ''I'm not the least bit afraid of what will occur.''

He said he was ''coming along just as planned'' and he called rumors of his death ridiculous and insulting, claiming they were the work of his enemies.

''Let's see what they say now,'' he said.

The Cuban government has treated Castro's ailment as a state secret, and rumors that he may have died had intensified in recent weeks. He has not made a public appearance since July 26, a few days before he underwent surgery.

The video shown Saturday came a day after Castro's close friend and ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the Cuban leader was walking and taking trips at night into the countryside.

Editor's commentary: Like we are that stupid and don't know that various revolutionary movements in Latin America practiced using body doubles to fool authorities after death of their leader. Showing someone looking 30 years younger, 30 pounds lighter with almost no gray hair in unidentified room is supposed to be the proof that Castro is alive!? We are not morons to believe that Castro would relinquish easily power for full 3 months. He always said that he will lead Cuba until the day he dies. Cuban government at first said that Castro's operation is easy one and that he will be back to the office in matter of days. The only one in office and in charge is his brother 4 months later. Why did Castro visited Che Guevara's home before his "nothing to worry" operation.

What is wrong with the picture? You have to be blind to think this is the same person. BTW, both pictures are not even close to real Castro. There is only more makeup, wig, false beard and everything is grayed out to look more close to Castro on the picture to the right but it is body double nevertheless. Eyebrows are not the same, nose is not the same, number of lines on his forehead is not the same. You want proof then show him to international reporters and let international doctors take his DNA sample. This is FS Net challenge. This is like having Lenin's mummy walking and talking on the Red Square.

CHICAGO (AP) -- A millionaire campaign donor for Gov. Rod Blagojevich pleaded guilty Friday to using his seats on two state boards in a bid to collect millions of dollars in kickbacks.

Stuart Levine's plea agreement contained no direct charge of wrongdoing on the part of the governor, who is running for re-election while coping with a federal corruption investigation.

However, Levine said in the 58-page plea agreement that he sought in April 2004 to squeeze an investment firm for $1.5 million in campaign contributions to ''a certain public official'' in exchange for $220 million in state pension business.

That official was Blagojevich, according to an individual familiar with the case who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. The $1.5 million was never paid.

The plea deal ''reveals a pattern of wrongdoing by Stuart Levine that betrayed the trust of Governor (Jim) Edgar who first appointed him and to all of us here in Illinois,'' Blagojevich said in a news release.

Blagojevich, a Democrat, was elected four years ago as a reformer promising to clean up state government, but his administration has been mired in controversy and accused of doling out jobs and contracts to the politically connected. The governor has not been charged with a crime and has denied any wrongdoing. His GOP challenger, Judy Baar Topinka, has tried in TV ads to drive home the scandal.

The deal calls for Levine, 60, to be sentenced to five years and seven months in prison for one count each of mail fraud and money laundering. Without a plea agreement, Levine could have faced life in prison if convicted on all charges.

''Stuart was a very legitimate, hardworking and successful businessman before he got involved with all these boards and illegal business, but you can become intoxicated with the ether of power, the ether of money and the opportunity for more,'' said his lawyer, Jeffery B. Steinback.

U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve agreed to postpone sentencing until Levine has testified, if need be, against other defendants.

Editor's commentary: This news and all other bad news about Blagojevich are simply censored and banned by Kostunica's government in Belgrade. That is the reason why we published it. Kostunica himself has especially "good" relationship with Blagojevich.

STRASBOURG, France (AP) -- Belarusian opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich was awarded the Sakharov Prize on Thursday for his fight for democracy in the former Soviet republic, the European Parliament said.

The European Union's top human rights prize is named after Andrei Sakharov, one of the best known former Soviet dissidents. It is awarded annually to a person or group judged to have made a particular achievement in the field of human rights, defense of international cooperation or promotion of democracy and the rule of law.

''We feel that we are not alone. Europe is with us,'' Milinkevich told The Associated Press in Minsk.

''Today close to half a billion Europeans have reached out their hands in support, partnership and solidarity with Belarusians. And this is a victory of moral principles over principles of tyranny,'' he said.

Milinkevich ran unsuccessfully against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in elections in March and became the symbol of Belarus' persecuted opposition. He was awarded the prize after two rounds of voting by leaders of the European Parliament's political groups, said parliament spokeswoman Marjory van den Broeke.

''Milinkevich is the face of the opposition in what is the last dictatorship in Europe. He is a brave man, who has been willing to put himself at risk in an attempt to bring about change in his country,'' said Hans-Gert Poettering, chairman of the center-right European People's Party, the largest political grouping in the EU assembly. ''We sincerely hope that this award by the European Parliament will substantially help his cause.''

Other nominees for the prestigious award, which comes with a $63,000 check, were people fighting for the release of hostages kidnapped in Colombia, represented by Ingrid Betancourt, a Colombian presidential candidate held by the rebels while campaigning in the jungle during the 2002 race and still missing; and Ghassan Tueni, the father of a Lebanese anti-Syrian critic slain in a car bombing.

The prize will be presented to Milinkevich -- if he is allowed to leave Belarus -- at a December session of the European Parliament.

He said he would give the prize money to persecuted politicians and their families, including his one-time rival candidate for president Alexander Kozulin, who is in prison.

''I hope that the European Parliament's prize will allow me to more and more loudly defend those who are in Belarusian prisons today exclusively because of their desire for changes in the country.''

The Belarus Foreign Ministry refused comment.

Milinkevich, who was arrested and sentenced to 15 days in jail after running unsuccessfully against Lukashenko, led unprecedented demonstrations to protest the outcome of a vote denounced by the opposition and Western nations as a sham.

Lukashenko -- who has ruled the nation since 1994 with an iron fist, earning him the nickname ''Europe's last dictator'' -- won another five-year term in the March vote. He is accused of jailing his critics and quashing Belarus' independent media.

Milinkevich, a physicist and mathematician, has been a compelling and unifying figure for an opposition that incorporates widely diverse forces ranging from pro-Westerners to Communists. He is widely regarded as principled and determined without being power-hungry.

He visited the European Parliament twice earlier this year, asking the assembly for support in his fight against Lukashenko's totalitarian regime. He urged the EU to put hundreds of people responsible for electoral violations in the ex-Soviet republic on a travel blacklist and asked for cheaper EU visas so that Belarusian students could travel abroad on scholarships.

The EU has slapped a visa ban on 35 officials linked to the Belarusian governing regime, including Lukashenko himself.

The Cuban women's movement Ladies in White, Nigerian human rights lawyer Hauwa Ibrahim and the Reporters Without Borders media organization were joint winners of last year's award, which was created in 1988 in honor of Sakharov, a Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.

Other past winners include former South African President Nelson Mandela and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentine prosecutors asked a federal judge on Wednesday to order the arrest of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and seven others for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center that killed scores of people.

The decision to attack the center ''was undertaken in 1993 by the highest authorities of the then-government of Iran,'' prosecutor Alberto Nisman said at a news conference.

He said the actual attack was entrusted to the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah.

The worst terrorist attack ever on Argentine soil, the bombing of the Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires killed 85 people and injured more than 200 when an explosive-laden vehicle detonated near the building.

Iran's government has vehemently denied any involvement in the attack following repeated accusations by Jewish community and other leaders here.

Iranian authorities contacted here by The Associated Press said they would have no comment.

Prosecutors urged the judge to seek international and national arrest orders for Rafsanjani, who was Iran's president between 1989 and 1997.

They also asked the judge to detain several other former Iranian officials, including a former intelligence chief, Ali Fallahijan, and former Foreign Minister Ali Ar Velayati.

They also urged the arrest of two former commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, two former Iranian diplomats and a former Hezbollah security chief for external affairs.

Nisman and fellow prosecutor Marcelo Martinez Burgos said they suspected that Hezbollah undertook activities outside Lebanon only ''under orders directly emanating from the regime in Tehran.''

Federal Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral had no public comments following the news conference. The judge, under Argentine law, is allowed an indefinite amount of time to accept or reject the recommendations.

The two prosecutors head a special investigative unit probing the attack, which flattened the former Jewish center, since rebuilt into a heavily guarded fortress-like compound.

The investigation unit was created after Argentina's federal courts in 2004 which halted a botched investigation into the case by then-judge Juan Jose Galeano. Galeano was removed from the case and later stripped of his judgeship.

Nisman announced in November 2005 that investigators believed a suspected 21-year-old Lebanese Hezbollah militant had been identified as the suicide bomber.

The attack on the seven-story Jewish center, a symbol of Argentina's more than 200,000-strong Jewish population, was the second of two attacks targeting Jews in Argentina during the 1990s.

A March 1992 blast destroyed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people in a case that has also been blamed on Hezbollah.

Some speculated the bombing was inspired by Argentina's support for the U.S.-led coalition that expelled Iraq from Kuwait during the Gulf War in the early 1990s. Others said Argentina's Jewish community, one of the largest in Latin America, represented an obvious target for Israel's opponents.

Although Jewish community leaders and others have suspected the involvement of Middle East terrorists, a lack of progress in tracking down the masterminds has made families of the victims increasingly bitter.

In 2004, about a dozen former police officers and an accused trafficker in stolen vehicles were acquitted of charges that they had formed a ''local connection'' in the bombing.

Jewish center leaders said Wednesday they had no immediate statement.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - The late Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who died in detention at the Hague tribunal earlier this year, has been called to vote at a referendum next weekend, Serbian media said on Monday.

The invite, published in Press daily, has instructions on the location and opening times of Milosevic's polling station. He died on March 11, shortly before the expected end of a lengthy trial for war crimes during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

The referendum on Oct 28-29 asks Serbs to endorse a constitution stressing that Kosovo, where Milosevic tried to put down a separatist rebellion with a brutal military campaign, is an inalienable part of Serbia.

The province, ruled by the United Nations since NATO bombs drove out Serb forces in 1999, is expected to get independence in the coming months.

Editor's commentary: This is the best evidence and clear indicator that upcoming referendum in Serbia will be 100% fraudulent. During Milosevic's rule when elections were systematically rigged practice of sending ballot cards to dead people, to those who left country permanently or to Albanians who boycotted every single elections continues even today. The last thing people of Serbia need now is another Milosevic constitution. Milosevic revoked autonomy to Kosovo and Vojvodina in still existing constitution in 1990. Under new constitution Vojvodina will be left again without any autonomy they obtained in 1974 while Kosovo autonomy is conditional and not yet defined. No Kosovars will vote next weekend and there will be massive boycott in Vojvodina, Sandzak and South Serbia. Cedomir Jovanovic's LDP, Nenad Canak of LSV and many other parties also boycott referendum. There will be no representatives from parties boycotting referendum in election commission and it is most probable that there will be few or no international observers at all. It is like shutting all alarms and sending guards and police home in order to help bank robbery.

This whole thing is "deja vu" of Milosevic's referendum on Kosovo in 1998 when 95% of voters chose to deny foreign meddling in Serbia's internal affairs. One year later Kosovo was not an internal affair of Serbia because NATO took control over Kosovo. Kostunica's effort to say NO to reality is pathetic effort not worthy of mention.

It also came to our attention that at the same time military junta in Burma is also preparing new constitution. Since they are pawns and lackeys of Moscow this indicates that Moscow tactics are those of systematic and endless delays of democratic process worldwide. While these tactics may have worked during Stalin's days and Cold War they will not be successful today. Putin may yet have to learn that he is not new Stalin but just his illegitimate bastard son or Mini Me Stalin.

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) -- Police fired rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons to disperse thousands of anti-government protesters who later hijacked two unarmed tanks in violence that marred the 50th anniversary of Hungary's uprising against Soviet rule.

At least 40 people, including some police, were injured, rescue officials said. State news agency MTI reported that police beat some of the protesters -- including women and elderly people -- with rubber batons, and some had head injuries.

In one of the main showdowns on Monday near Deak Square, the city's main subway hub, hundreds of police behind three water cannons slowly advanced on a few hundred rioters. The protesters threw bottles and rocks at the police who fired tear gas and rubber bullets back at them as a police helicopter circled low above the crowd.

Then one of the protesters seized a tank that was part of an exhibit in the square to commemorate the revolution. He drove it among the protesters until he was pulled out by police who rushed the vehicle. A second tank in the exhibit was pushed by the rioters toward the police.

The tanks were powerful symbols of the 1956 revolt. The night the uprising began, Red Army tanks rolled through the streets of Budapest and 12 days later, a blitz led by 4,500 Soviet tanks overran the country.

Most of the protesters were peacefully demanding to be allowed back to Kossuth Square outside parliament where the main commemorations of the 1956 revolution were under way.

Within the crowd, protesters could be seen carrying placards with 7-foot tall letters spelling out the word ''freedom'' in Hungarian.

Anti-government protests have been going on since Sept. 17, when Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany was heard admitting on a leaked recording that the government had lied about the economy before winning re-election in April.

On Monday, the protesters had gathered in different spots near the center of the city. Some had set up road blocks with garbage cans and threw rocks at the police dressed in riot gear, who used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them near St. Stephen's Basilica.

At dawn, police had expelled several hundred protesters from Kossuth Square where many had been camping for weeks, demanding the prime minister be dismissed. The government used the square for some of Monday's official memorial events.

The protesters had vowed to stay at Kossuth Square until Gyurcsany was dismissed, but police pushed them out of the square after they refused to submit to security checks. Authorities did not dismantle the dozens of tents and were expected to allow the demonstrators to return after Monday's events.

Late into Monday night, police were still trying to disperse crowds of protesters at various spots near the city center, firing hundreds of tear gas canisters and detaining several people.

Delegations from at least 56 countries were in Budapest for Monday's commemorations, including NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Spain's King Juan Carlos. The ceremonies began with a raising of the national flag, followed by Hungarian and foreign dignitaries laying flowers at the foot of a 1956 monument on Kossuth Square.

Later, the officials attended a special session in the legislature's Upper House Chamber, where Gyurcsany and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso spoke.

''The courage of the often anonymous heroes of 1956 led to the foundation of new democracies and the reunification of Europe,'' Barroso said.

The 1956 student protests began on the afternoon of Oct. 23, and by nightfall had turned into an armed uprising. Around 2,800 Hungarians and 700 Soviet troops were killed in the Red Army offensive to crush the revolt, which was launched on Nov. 4, 1956.

After the military defeat, strikes and protests continued for several weeks until a Soviet crackdown definitively ended the uprising in January 1957.

Some 200,000 Hungarians fled the country and at least 225 Hungarians accused of participating in the revolution were executed -- including Imre Nagy, the communist-turned-democrat who was briefly retuned to power in 1956. The communists were in power in Hungary until 1989. Many had questioned the right of Gyurcsany's Socialists -- heirs of the communist party -- to lead the official commemorations.

But Gyurcsany defended his government's claim to the principles of the revolution.

''Our debates on 1956 are not about the past but the present, about who we are, what kind of world we would like,'' he said, adding ''1956 is just a reminder, a mirror in which we see our present selves, sometimes in an exposed way.''

Gyurcsany, 45, attended the unveiling of the central 1956 memorial near Heroes' Square, where a 60-foot-high statue of Stalin was toppled by the revolutionaries a half century ago. But he was loudly jeered by thousands of people standing behind police barricades.

At the same time, Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Union, the main center-right opposition group, was holding their own 1956 commemoration just a few blocks away. According to State news agency MTI, more than 100,000 people were at the rally.

Fidesz leader Viktor Orban, a former prime minister, said his party would propose holding a binding referendum on the package of reforms introduced by the government to lower what is the largest state budget deficit in the European Union.

''People should be given the opportunity to vote on what is being done against their will,'' Orban told a large crowd.

Late Monday, President Laszlo Solyom -- citing security concerns -- canceled his scheduled appearance at the unveiling of the memorial near Heroes' Square.

On Sunday, Solyom had pleaded for national unity, trying to keep the bitter political divisions from spilling over into the celebrations.

''Oct. 23 could be a real national holiday if we wanted it to be, and if we took the steps leading back to the unity and uniqueness of 1956,'' Solyom said at a gala event at the Hungarian State Opera that launched the official ceremonies.

In Geneva, the U.N. refugee chief Antonio Guterres said the anniversary of Hungary's uprising should serve as a reminder of the world's need to generously aid victims of political persecution.

Editor's commentary: Although Gyurcsany claims that he has the support of Hungarian people because he won confidence vote in parliament this is not true. Recent local elections were debacle for him and his Socialist Party where Hungarians overwhelmingly rejected him and denied his claim of popular support. If he truly wants to prove that people are still with him he can always call for referendum or even better for extraordinary elections. At this moment his popular support is similar to the support Stalin's lackeys had in Hungary in 1956.

German carmaker Audi has said it will halt investments worth as much as 1bn euros (£671m; $1.3bn) in Hungary after the government imposed tax increases.

Audi makes its TT sports cars at a plant near Gyor in western Hungary and is the country's biggest exporter.

The decision to halt investment could slow economic growth in Hungary at a time when the government is trying to repair the country's tattered finances.

Hungary recently introduced a 4% "solidarity" tax on companies.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: It came to our attention that recently revealed lies by Socialist PM in Hungary were interpreted as blunder by leftist media propaganda and that includes BBC as well. They were repeatedly comparing criminal admission of Hungarian PM with blunders like Dan Quayle's potato head. We must clearly distinguish here what is blunder (mistake) and what is criminal conduct of lying constantly and intentionally to the people. If not then we are in danger of having bank robbers getting freed because they made a blunder and tried to rob a bank. Government officials that intentionally lie to the people are committing criminal conduct. It is not a blunder when Clinton-Gore team lied for months about economy skyrocketing in 2,000 and certainly not a blunder admission of Hungarian PM who openly told lies to the people of Hungary for years. Similar lies were told, also for years, by former German PM Schroeder and American presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004 (if it was Jim Carrey comedian it would have been funny). Voters around the world face growing problem of socialists trying to deceive them with empty promises and open lies. Collapse of world communism and growing influence of big business have completely cornered socialists whose only political program is social welfare and nothing else. They have no answers and solutions on how to manage and grow economy nor any real plans for the future like where world should go next. They are stranded in city slums and third world countries trying to convince poor to vote for them but at the same time they try to go in bed with big business where true money is. Fire and ice don't go together well and there is no way that this will ever work. The only solution for this problem is one big bag of lies told by socialists over and over again similar to the lies from now collapsed USSR. "Where do you want to go today?" is the question no socialist can answer today or anytime soon. The real choice here is whether you want to build space station on the Moon or stay in slums and beg for bakshish.

A series of explosions has blown apart a military ammunition dump in Serbia, injuring several people and causing extensive damage.

The blasts took place in a depot on a hill above the town of Paracin, about 150km (95 miles) south of Belgrade.

Windows were blown out of many houses in the town, while some were more seriously damaged, state TV reported.

Police said the cause of the blasts was unclear, but an investigative judge said sabotage was not ruled out.

Petar Petrovic, who lives in Paracin, told the BBC News website he heard three big explosions and 50 smaller blasts.

"The explosions just kept on going for a long time. They were huge. I can still see the big flames in the sky above the base," he said.

Another resident, Dragica Jovanovic, said: "There was major panic in the town... It was worse than during the Nato bombing [of 1999]."

Full story here.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A 34-year-old political prisoner in military-ruled Myanmar has died in custody, where he had been tortured and suffered from malaria, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

The London-based rights group said Ko Thet Win Aung had been imprisoned since 1998 for organizing peaceful, small-scale student protests calling for improvements to the education system and the release of political prisoners.

He died in Mandalay Prison, where he was serving a 59-year sentence.

Amnesty urged the military that has run what used to be Burma for four decades to ``initiate a prompt, independent investigation into the causes of Ko Thet Win Aung's death and to make the findings public.''

Amnesty said the number of deaths of political and normal detainees were on the increase and that already poor prison conditions had deteriorated further in 2006.

The International Red Cross suspended its prison visit programs at the start of the year after the military junta said representatives had to be accompanied officials from local aid organizations.

According to the United Nations, Myanmar has more than 1,100 political prisoners. Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 10 of the last 17 years, is the best known.

According to Amnesty, Ko Thet Win Aung's brother, Ko Pyone Cho, was among five former student protest leaders arrested last month and accused of involvement in ``terrorist acts.''

A European court has ordered Russia to pay 277,000 euros (£150,000) in compensation to relatives of a Chechen family shot dead by Russian troops. Human rights groups say they were innocent civilians executed by a paramilitary police unit.

The court found Russia guilty of violating the European Convention on Human Rights. It said five members of the Estamirov family had been the victims of unlawful killing by the Russian state.

They had been found shot dead outside their home in the Chechen capital, Grozny, in February 2000, at the height of the second Chechen war. Amongst the dead were a baby and a heavily pregnant woman.

The court in Strasbourg, France, said there had been inexplicable delays in the investigation by the Russian authorities, and that after six years it had failed to produce any results. No-one had been charged.

According to a report by Human Rights Watch 60 civilians were allegedly killed in the same part of Grozny on the same day by the same Russian police unit.

Full story here.

A Russian bank manager has been gunned down at his home in Moscow in an apparent contract killing.

Alexander Plokhin was shot in the head as he came out of the lift in his apartment building late on Tuesday.

He was the manager of the southern Moscow branch of the state-owned Vneshtorgbank.

His murder follows the high-profile killing of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and the assassination of a Russian central banker.

Moscow's prosecutor's office said the attack on Mr Plokhin had the tell-tale signs of a contract killing.

He worked recently as director-general of the external office of Vneshtorgbank 24, Russian TV reports.

It follows the death last month of the first deputy chairman of Russia's central bank, Andrei Kozlov, who was leading a fight against money laundering.

He was shot by two unidentified gunmen in Moscow.

Full story here.

India has cautioned its students in Russia to remain vigilant about their personal safety.

An advisory, posted on the website of the Indian embassy in Moscow, tells them to take extra care when going out.

The move follows last month's murder of an Indian student in the city of St Petersburg, in what police say may have been a racially-motivated attack.

At least a dozen students from Africa, Asia and Latin America have been attacked in Russia in the past year

Last month 27-year-old medical student Nitesh Kumar Singh from Bihar state was stabbed to death outside the hostel where he lived.

The sixth-year student from St Petersburg's Mechnikov Medical Academy was stabbed several times by unknown attackers.

In April, a Senegalese man was shot dead on his way home from a night club - apparently because of the colour of his skin.

In March, a nine-year-old girl of mixed Russian and Malian parentage was seriously injured in a stabbing attack in the city.

Full story here.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Internet postings are calling on Russian nationalists to kill government critics -- death lists that underscore the dangers journalists and rights activists face in Russia.

Svetlana Gannushkina, a refugee rights activist, tops a list of 89 people published by a radical nationalist group, the Russian Will, which has urged ''patriots'' to take up arms and execute her and other friends of ''alien'' peoples.

''Since there is nothing I can do in this situation, I try not think about it,'' the soft-spoken, 64-year-old Gannushkina said.

Slain investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya was on such a list, for her reporting on Chechnya and criticism of the Kremlin. Her slaying Saturday has cast a chill over human rights activists and journalists who criticize government policies and increasingly fear for their safety in a repressive climate.

Since President Vladimir Putin came to power nearly seven years ago, he has moved to silence critics, squeezing the opposition and tightening the screws on media critical of the Kremlin. He came under strong Western condemnation for a new law that severely limits the activities of non-governmental organizations.

Prosecutors have linked Politkovskaya's slaying to her award-winning reports, fearlessly uncovering human rights abuses by government troops in war-ravaged Chechnya. She had been listed as one of 63 ''non-friends of Russia'' by the nationalist group National Sovereign Party of Russia.

Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, whose forces were accused of torture, abductions and murder by Politkovskaya, denied any role in her murder Wednesday.

Some colleagues have suggested Politkovskaya could have died at the hands of Russian nationalists at a time when xenophobia is growing and hate crimes take place almost daily. Rights activists complain the government is doing little to combat the alarming trend.

''I am horrified at what happened with Anya,'' said Gannushkina, using Politkovskaya's nickname. ''Of course, I understand that considering what happened, we are all under the same threat.''

Gannushkina said she first learned in August of the Web site calling for her to be killed as an ''advocate of alien migrants.'' Other alleged enemies included journalist and commentator Yevgeniya Albats and veteran rights activist Sergei Kovalyov.

The site, www.russianwill.org, could not be accessed Wednesday. Gannushkina said it was shut down this week.

However, information on the targeted activists and journalists, including their phone numbers and addresses, has spread to numerous other nationalist sites and blogs and Gannushkina has received phone threats.

Gannushkina said she asked prosecutors to investigate the group's activities in August, but prosecutors have failed to launch a probe. A spokesman for the Moscow Prosecutor's Office declined comment.

Last year, Oksana Chelysheva, an activist and journalist with the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, which advocates for Chechen rights, discovered leaflets stuffed in mailboxes in her apartment building proclaiming her ''a whore for the Chechens,'' giving her full name and address and accusing her of supporting terrorists.

Chelysheva has kept up her work despite the threats. Her boss, Stanislav Dmitriyevsky, was convicted in February of inciting ethnic hatred and handed a two-year suspended sentence -- a verdict he condemned as part of a state assault on non-governmental organizations. This week, prosecutors asked a court to shut down the group.

Aaron Rhodes, executive director of the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, condemned the intimidation campaign against Gannushkina and her colleagues. He urged authorities to use the recently passed law on extremism to crack down on radical groups instead of targeting groups promoting ethnic tolerance.

''The climate is starting to resemble a fascist society where there is freedom to make money by friends of the rulers but critics and independent thinking are persecuted,'' Rhodes said.

Oleg Panfilov, director of the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, said Russian journalists, along with rights activists, face many threats.

''When a journalist is threatened, he is threatened either with courts or with death -- either we will kill you or we will throw you in prison,'' Panfilov said.

He declined to estimate how many journalists have been threatened, saying most threats are delivered by phone or in person, making them hard to document. But he said more than 40 journalists have been attacked in connection with their work this year alone.

Russia has become one of the deadliest countries for journalists. Forty-three journalists were killed between 1993 and 2005, many in Chechnya, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Gannushkina said she would continue her advocacy work despite the intimidation, rejecting her colleagues' advice to hire a bodyguard, because she did not want to put anyone in danger.

''If I intend to live here, I intend to live and not hide in a burrow,'' she said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russians and Chechens alike mourned journalist and critic of President Vladimir Putin Anna Politkovskaya on Sunday, saying her murder was a political killing to stifle the free press.

The United States said it was ``shocked and profoundly saddened'' by the murder of the 48-year-old mother of two, who won numerous prizes for her dogged pursuit of rights abuses by Putin's government.

But there was still no word from the Kremlin, whose campaign against separatist rebels in the violent southern province of Chechnya had often been the target of Politkovskaya's investigative reporting.

On Sunday, Putin chaired Russia's powerful Security Council to ``discuss various issues of internal and external policy,'' the president's Web site www.kremlin.ru said, but made no mention of Politkovskaya's murder.

She was shot dead on Saturday at her apartment block in central Moscow in a killing prosecutors linked to her work.

Washington and the European Union urged Russia to conduct an immediate and thorough investigation ``to bring to justice all those responsible for this heinous murder.'' Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika has taken charge of the probe.

In the days before her death, Politkovskaya had been working on a story about torture in Chechnya, which had been due to run on Monday, along with photographs, her newspaper Novaya Gazeta said. It said her death had disrupted the publication.

Independent radio Ekho Moskvy quoted Chechnya's pro-Moscow Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov as saying: ``Her stories weren't always objective. But that was her personal point of view.''

Politkovskaya had previously accused his semi-private guard of being linked to kidnappings and torture, a charge he denied.

In Chechnya's capital Grozny, many remembered Politkovskaya, saying the region had lost a truthful friend.

``It is through her that the world learned about all the lawlessness done here,'' said Mustafa Kurkiyev, an independent journalist.

``She died because she displeased someone,'' Aindi Sagaipov, a local administration worker in Aurgun outside Grozny, said. ''For someone, she must have been a pain in the neck.''

MOURNING

In Moscow, hundreds of Muscovites thronged Pushkin Square, lit candles and laid flowers at portraits of Politkovskaya.

``This is a political killing, there is no doubt about it, and the authorities are mixed up in this,'' Valery Borshchev, a member of Russia's liberal Yabloko party, told reporters.

``The Kremlin has killed freedom of speech,'' said a poster fixed to a lamppost in the square. ``You are responsible for everything,'' read a poster featuring Putin's portrait.

In Russia's second city St Petersburg, hundreds braved torrential rain to pay tribute.

``She was killed by a regime which made political terror part of everyday life. State power is trying to intimidate society,'' Yuli Rybakov, head of the local branch of Memorial human rights watchdog, told the rally.

The U.S. State Department said the intimidation and murder of journalists -- 12 in Russia in the past six years, including American citizen Paul Klebnikov on July 9, 2004 -- was ``an affront to free and independent media and to democratic values.''

Putin had often been the target of Politkovskaya's criticism. She accused him of stifling freedom and failing to shake off his past as a KGB agent.

There are few independent voices in the Russian media, most of it controlled by the state or business interests. Newspapers such as Novaya Gazeta, popular with Russian liberals and human rights activists, are rare, especially outside big cities.

Businessman Alexander Lebedev, who owns a large minority stake in the paper, offered to pay a reward of 25 million roubles ($933,500) for information about those who ordered and carried out Politkovskaya's assassination.

MOSCOW - A journalist who chronicled Russian military abuses against civilians in Chechnya, garnering awards and accolades from around the world, was found shot to death Saturday in her apartment building. Prosecutors suspect her killing could be connected to her investigative reporting.

Anna Politkovskaya, 48, was found dead in an elevator in the building in central Moscow, police, prosecutors and a colleague said.

Prosecutors have opened a murder investigation, said Svetlana Petrenko, spokeswoman for the Moscow prosecutor's office. Investigators suspect the killing could be linked to her work, Vyacheslav Rosinsky, Moscow's first deputy prosecutor, said on state-run Rossiya television.

Rosinsky said a pistol and bullets were found at the site of the crime. The RIA-Novosti news agency, citing police officials, reported that Politkovskaya was shot twice, the second time in the head.

The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that work was under way on a composite sketch of the attacker based on footage recorded by a security camera at the building. The assailant, believed to have acted alone, wore black.

Politkovskaya, who wrote for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, chronicled the killings, tortures and beatings of civilians by Russian servicemen in Chechnya in reports that put her on a collision course with the authorities but won her numerous international awards.

"People sometimes pay with their lives for saying out loud what they think. People can even get killed just for giving me information," Reporters Without Borders quoted her as saying at a press freedom conference in Vienna in December.

She also wrote a book critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his military campaign in Chechnya, documenting widespread abuse of civilians by government troops. And she was a persistent critic of Chechnya's Moscow-backed Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, accusing his security forces of kidnapping and torturing civilians.

In "Putin's Russia," Politkovskaya wrote of more than a million soldiers and officers who have passed through the Chechnya experience.

"Poisoned by a war on their own territory, they have become a serious factor affecting civilian life. They can no longer simply be left out of the social equation," she wrote.

Politkovskaya began reporting on Chechnya in 1999 during Russia's second military campaign there, concentrating less on military engagements than on the human side of the war. She wrote about the Chechen inhabitants of refugee camps and wounded Russian soldiers — until she was banned from visiting the hospitals, said Oleg Panfilov, director of the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.

"Whenever the question arose whether there is honest journalism in Russia, almost every time the first name that came to mind was Politkovskaya," he said.

Politkovskaya had frequently received threats, Panfilov said. A few months ago, unknown assailants had tried unsuccessfully to break into a car her daughter, Vera, was driving, he said.

In 2001, she fled to Vienna, Austria, for several months after receiving e-mail threats alleging that a Russian police officer she had accused of committing atrocities against civilians was intent on revenge. The officer, Sergei Lapin, was detained in 2002 but the case against him was closed the following year.

"There are journalists who have this fate hanging over them. I always thought something would happen to Anya, first of all because of Chechnya," Panfilov said, referring to Politkovskaya by her nickname.

In 2004, she fell seriously ill with symptoms of food poisoning after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow to southern Russia during the school hostage crisis in Beslan. Her colleagues suspected the incident was an attempt on her life.

She was one of the few people to enter the Moscow theater where Chechen militants seized hundreds of hostages in October 2002 to try negotiating with the rebels. She later devoted much of her investigative reporting to that crisis, in which 129 victims died, the overwhelming majority succumbing to the gas used by special forces to knock out the hostage-takers.

"Anna was a hero to so many of us, and we'll miss her personally, but we'll also miss the information that she and only she was brave enough and dedicated enough to dig out and make public," said Joel Simon, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

The 46-nation Council of Europe, a leading human rights watchdog whose executive body is currently led by Russia, called for her death to be investigated quickly and convincingly.

"We have all lost a strong voice of the kind which is indispensable in any genuine democracy," said the council's secretary general, Terry Davis.

Politkovskaya's murder is the highest-profile killing of a journalist in Russia since the July 2004 slaying of Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine.

Russia has become one of the deadliest countries for journalists. Twenty-three journalists were killed in Russia between 1996 and 2005, many in Chechnya, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. At least 12 have been murdered in contract-style killings since Putin came to power, Simon said.

"None of those have been adequately investigated," he said. "We do know that record creates an environment where those who might seek to carry out this murder would feel that there would be few likely consequences."

In addition to her daughter, Politkovskaya is survived by a son, Ilya, Panfilov said.

During her career, Politkovskaya received more than 10 awards and prizes, including an award for human rights reporting from the London-based Amnesty International; a freedom of speech award from the Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders; and a journalism and democracy award from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) -- A reformist party pulled out of Serbia's ruling coalition on Sunday because of the government's failure to capture war crimes suspect Gen. Ratko Mladic, which led to the suspension of talks on joining the European Union.

Mladjan Dinkic, the leader of G17 Plus party who also is Serbia's finance minister, said he and several other party members who ran key ministries had submitted their resignations to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.

The move was not expected to lead to a collapse of the government, which is already considering holding early general elections after parliament on Saturday agreed to change the country's constitution.

The 25-nation EU suspended pre-membership talks earlier this year over Belgrade's failure to capture Mladic, the wartime Bosnian Serb commander sought by the Netherlands-based U.N. war crimes court for atrocities during the Bosnian war.

G17 Plus followed through on its threat to leave the Cabinet unless the talks with the Brussels, Belgium-based EU resumed by Sunday.

While keeping its pledge to leave the government that failed to meet the EU demand on Mladic, G17 Plus would still ''actively participate in adopting the new constitution and then we'll prepare for elections,'' Dinkic said.

A national referendum has been set for Oct. 28-29 on the new constitution, in which the key point is reasserting Serbia's claim over the breakaway province of Kosovo.

If approved in the referendum, the new constitution would also pave the way for early elections, possibly in December.

Editor's commentary: G17 will not participate in parliament discussions regarding national budget for 2007 or any other discussions whatsoever. Kostunica's coalition has therefore collapsed. Early elections are result of pullout of G17 not because of referendum. This is just another dirty trick of Kostunica to keep himself few more months in power. Early elections should be scheduled for the same day as referendum. Anything else is nonsensical since they can't adopt any other law in parliament due to lack of majority.