Yahoo - December 31st, 2007

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia - Tiny Slovenia becomes the first of 12 newcomers to take over the rotating presidency of the European Union Tuesday, a big psychological boost to a nation that gained independence from the ruins of the former Yugoslavia 16 years ago.

Along with the prestige comes the daunting responsibility of overseeing a common EU policy as Kosovo prepares to declare independence from Serbia just weeks after Slovenia begins its six-month stint at the helm.

This Alpine country of 2 million people, squeezed between Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia, has made swift and impressive bounds since declaring independence in 1991.

In 2004, it joined the EU and NATO. A year ago, it became the 13th nation using the euro. On Dec. 21, it joined the EU's borderless zone.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: In 16 years we can expect Kosovo to take over EU presidency while Serbia still continues to negotiate over terms of joining EU. Every former republic that left Milosevic's fascist Yugoslavia is today better, looking for brighter future. After all republics have left it now it is turn for provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina. As soon as Kosovo is out, Vojvodina becomes next candidate for farewell. After that it is even possible for city of Belgrade to declare independence as well.

BELGRADE, Serbia - Serbia's parliament overwhelmingly adopted a resolution Wednesday that threatens to halt the country's integration into the European Union and cut off diplomatic ties with Western countries if they recognize Kosovo's independence.

The resolution — passed with 220 votes in favor, 14 against and three abstentions — also obliges Serbian officials to reject Kosovo's statehood and denounces NATO for allegedly supporting the separatist Kosovo Albanians.

Ethnic Albanians, who account for about 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people, have said they would proclaim independence early next year.

During a fiery debate in Parliament, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica accused the U.S. of blocking efforts to find a compromise with ethnic Albanians by its open support of Kosovo's independence.

"America is openly striving for the destruction of the international order," Kostunica told the parliament. "America, which once seemed like a symbol of freedom, now advocates the policies of force."

The resolution says Serbia must "reconsider" diplomatic ties with Western countries that recognize Kosovo's statehood. It says that, because of NATO's support for Kosovo's independence, Serbia must remain outside the Western military alliance.

The document also said the possible signing of a pre-membership trade and aid deal with the European Union in January "must be in the function of preserving the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Kostunica clarified that Serbia would not join the EU if the bloc recognized Kosovo's independence.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: It seems that old school communists who brought the end of old Yugoslavia in 1941 are still influencing politics in Serbia today. On the infamous day of March 27th, 1941 they forced rejection of treaty with Axis forces and caused massive invasion of their troops less than two weeks away that ultimately caused total destruction of Yugoslavia and more than one million dead and millions of refugees. Serbian king was replaced with communist dictator Tito and authoritarian state Yugoslavia continued to exist with nothing changed for better. On March 27th, 1941 Yugoslavia was surrounded by Italy, annexed Austria and 3 members of Axis, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Today is more or less the same story with 3 members of NATO, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria surrounding Serbia with Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia and Croatia already going to become members of NATO in the near future. Serbia is literally surrounded with NATO with no escape and now some wise guys want to declare war on NATO because of 2 million Albanians that reject Belgrade rule over them!? Good question here is what would Serbia do with Kosovo and Albanians there even if they would regain control? Except offering some bogus quasi autonomy that is actually far less than Kosovars got in 1974 and rejected it in 1980 entirely, Belgrade never had any real plans for integrating Kosovo within Serbia. Milosevic extinguished autonomy altogether during his reign of terror but never even attempted to integrate Kosovo within Serbia especially people. Let's say Albanians decide to accept autonomy next week and make Belgrade happy. What then? There are well over million eligible voters that would vote for Albanian representatives in Serbian parliament which would result in 20% of all seats going to Albanians. Kostunica DSS party in coalition with two other parties won barely more than 15% of votes during last elections and that was mostly because of bogus votes from Kosovo. DSS could count then on something around 5% of all votes. Albanians would simply run Serbian parliament together with few other democratic parties like LDP and DS and therefore kicked out DSS and SRS from power aspiration forever. This implies that Kostunica and his party never ever want Albanians to remain in Serbia, for them only Milosevic's solution of declaring them non-citizens with no voting rights would be acceptable. Kostunica's strategy is obviously to do what ever he can to antagonize Albanians with hate rhetorics so that they never ever want to live in Serbia while boosting his own ratings with Serbs. This is exactly what Milosevic did in late '80s and '90s. His words that he will never accept loss of control over Kosovo are actually words of: please Albanians go away so that I can make myself a martyr in Serbia and prolong my tyranny few more years.

Kostunica is accusing America of destroying international order but never says of what kind of international order he means. For him international order is Cold War politics of eternal blackmails of communist criminals and terrorists. For him, murdering thousands of women and children in Kosovo in '98/'99 by Serb forces is legitimate "international order". Women and children in Kosovo are labeled as terrorists and then exterminated, their bodies were then transported to Serbia and buried in police compounds. That fact is never mentioned by Kostunica because for him all those innocent victims are non-persons just like Milosevic simply erased them from the Book of Living and then said that they have gone to Albania. It is so nice that he warmly offers autonomy to Kosovars but we really never saw him saying one word of regret for all those dead people. Why in the world would Kosovars accept any autonomy from people that butchered their women and children and never even acknowledged that nor apologized for those gruesome crimes? "Albanians do not want any compromises" says Kostunica but real question here is who is against compromises? Can people just forget their murdered and butchered families? Milosevic is the one who forced Albanians to choose independence and Kostunica is the one who sealed the deal with his ignorance and lack of any respect for their dead.

It is questionable if America is symbol of freedom but people in America certainly have far more freedom than people in Serbia or non-citizens like Albanians. Kostunica's call for cutting off diplomatic relationship with all countries that recognize provisional independence of Kosovo is laughable. If world ignored America over embargo on Cuba what makes him think that world would honor Serbia embargo on Kosovo? What would they miss really if Serbia cuts diplomatic ties with them? The only one to get hurt are Serbs that would lose billions and be sent to stone age where Neanderthal dictator would brainwash them with hate speeches and blame the world for Serbs misery. He never mentions referendum in Serbia, whether people want to join EU or NATO, he acts as a dictator plus his party won less than 10% of popular vote. The only reason he is PM is because Russian masters forced Tadic to accept him as PM because of Kosovo. It is not a question whether Serbia wants in EU and NATO but can Serbia afford not to go in. Does he plan barter trade with North Korea or Zimbabwe and how would they deliver their goods to Serbia anyway? Entire EU will recognize Kosovo as well as America, China, Latin American countries and the rest of the world. Only Russia and Cyprus (where Milosevic money laundered billions of dollars) will not recognize Kosovo. Big deal!

Serbia also threatens with embargo against Kosovo but if you can see from any map Kosovo is not surrounded with Serbia and therefore this embargo would cause some initial damage but in the long run they would move towards Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro not to mention NATO air lifts. Nonsense that Kostunica is talking every day is so stupid that even 4-year old kid wouldn't say anything like that in kindergarten because everyone would laugh at him.

"must be in the function of preserving the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity." What happened to the people living on those territories? Do you have any authority over them? Then it is not your territory anymore! Kostunica always likes to say that no one ever gave up on his territory but if he ever dared to ask his Russian masters then he would know that Russia sold out Alaska for dollars. Serbia will certainly get more money for Kosovo than Russia got for Alaska so what's the big deal? How many Russians lived in Alaska prior to sale and how many Serbs live in Kosovo today? Let's face it, Kosovo is more like Serb colony than part of Serbia. Why England and France gave up on India and Algeria? If you do not control people there and have authority over them then you can't have it. Serb church is only interested in their properties there than in people. If America or EU pay them good price they would forget Kosovo instantly. They betrayed God long time ago by supporting Milosevic and his criminal tyranny. It's too late to think about morality today.

Kosovo is cradle of Serbs, says Kostunica so that's why Kosovo must be controlled by Serbs. If he would dare to actually check history books he would find out that Serbs came from far away which means that Balkan is not their cradle nor Kosovo. But even if we say that Kosovo is cradle of Serbs then good question is what Serbs are actually doing in Belgrade? Is Belgrade their cradle too? When did they acquire Belgrade and would they return Belgrade to Hungary to retain Kosovo? You clearly see here double standards.

If Kostunica and his criminals (Arkan's party is member of coalition with DSS) continue with this lunacy then war will start in the near future. Does he really want Hillary Clinton to authorize NATO invasion on Serbia? It would be replica of what happened to Saddam and Iraq. Bush's father started, George W. Bush finished it. Bill Clinton started with NATO air strikes and Hillary would then finish it in a year or two from now. You will then have Hillary Rodham International Belgrade Airport while Kostunica would be caught hiding in a septic tank near Surdulica. He would be tried and found guilty for gassing Kosovars and then hanged. What an end for a macho guy just like it happened with macho Saddam. What a humiliation!

LONDON (Reuters) - Former British prime minister Tony Blair has converted from Britain's established church, Anglicanism, to Roman Catholicism, the head of Britain's Catholics said on Saturday.

Blair, whose wife and four children are Catholic, was received into the Catholic Church by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor on Friday in a move that had been widely expected after he stepped down from power in June.

"I am very glad to welcome Tony Blair into the Catholic Church," Murphy-O'Connor said in a statement, adding the conversion took place in private at a chapel at the cardinal's residence in central London.

"For a long time he has been a regular worshipper at Mass with his family and in recent months he has been following a program of formation to prepare for his reception into full communion.

"My prayers are with him, his wife and family at this joyful moment in their journey of faith together."

Blair, now the Middle East peace envoy, had private talks with Pope Benedict at the Vatican in June and his conversion had been predicted.

He has been receiving spiritual preparation for the conversion from Mark O'Toole, Murphy-O'Connor's private secretary. Blair's spokesman declined to comment on the announcement, saying it was a private matter.

Last month Blair, who was reticent about his faith during his 10 years in power, said religion was "hugely important" for him.

"You know you can't have a religious faith and it be an insignificant aspect because it's, it's profound about you and about you as a human being," he said in a BBC documentary.

Full story here.

Ukraine's parliament has narrowly voted in favour of making Yulia Tymoshenko, a leader of the 2004 Orange Revolution, prime minister for the second time.

Ms Tymoshenko was elected by 226 votes in a 450-seat parliament. The opposition boycotted the vote.

She was backed by her Orange Revolution ally, President Viktor Yushchenko, who had sacked her during her earlier tenure as prime minister.

Ukraine has been without a government since a general election in September.

Full story here.

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez suffered a stinging defeat in a vote on constitutional changes that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely, the chief of National Electoral Council said Monday.

Voters defeated the sweeping measures by a vote of 51 percent to 49 percent, Tibisay Lucena said. Turnout was just 56 percent, Lucena said.

Full story here.

Russian police have detained opposition leader and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov.

He and other critics of President Vladimir Putin were arrested as police broke up a rally in Moscow organised by Mr Kasparov's Other Russia coalition.

Police moved in when protesters tried to march to the election commission, which had barred Other Russia candidates from next week's election.

About 3,000 protesters attended Saturday's rally, carrying banners and calling for the country to be rid of President Putin.

In speeches, leaders of the movement bitterly criticised the upcoming parliamentary election, saying there was no choice for voters.

Full story here.

ROME - Police raided a summit of Mafia dons in Sicily on Monday, arresting a longtime fugitive authorities say was revitalizing Cosa Nostra's ties with U.S. mobsters and vying to become the crime syndicate's next "boss of bosses."

The capture of Salvatore Lo Piccolo after more than a decade on the run dealt another blow to the Sicilian Mafia, already weakened by several recent arrests, outmuscled by other underworld groups and facing an unprecedented challenge to the extortion racket that has been one of its main sources of income.

"It's a tough blow ... because they (the Lo Piccolo family) were in charge of restructuring the Mafia," said Francesco Forgione, head of Italy's anti-Mafia parliamentary commission.

Lo Piccolo, sentenced to life in prison for murder and on the run since 1993, was captured in a morning raid on a house in the countryside outside Sicily's capital, Palermo, police said.

Also arrested were Lo Piccolo's 32-year-old son Sandro — another top Mafia figure sentenced to life in prison and wanted since 1998 — as well as two men accused of being local bosses, both on Italy's list of 30 most-wanted fugitives, officials in Palermo said.

Investigators believe Lo Piccolo, 65, could have eventually emerged from a power struggle to be the Mafia's new "capo di tutti i capi" following the capture of top boss Bernardo Provenzano, the reputed No. 1 of the Cosa Nostra crime syndicate. Provenzano, who was on the run for more than 40 years, was arrested on a farm near Corleone, Sicily, in April 2006.

"After the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano, it was the turn of the Lo Piccolos," Palermo Police Chief Giuseppe Caruso told the Italian news agency ANSA. "We were on the trail of the bosses for a long time, and this is a great result."

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: Rambo IV is ready for January 25 world premiere. It's been 20 years since Rambo III Afghanistan clash with Russians. Latest target is military junta in Burma specializing in beating women, children and monks. Give peace a chance is not an option anymore. Getting hanged like Saddam is nothing compared to getting Rambo's explosive arrow up your ass. They will be sorry for not asking for death penalty for crimes against humanity. God is merciful, Rambo is not. John Rambo: "Live for nothing or die for something. Your call!"

The Dalai Lama has been awarded a Congressional Gold Medal - the top US civilian honour - in a move that has infuriated China.

George W Bush attended the ceremony in Washington, the first time a sitting US president has appeared in public with the exiled Tibetan leader.

n September, German Chancellor Angela Merkel met the Dalai Lama, incurring Beijing's wrath.

The Dalai Lama has also met Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer and Australian Prime Minister John Howard this year, and is due to meet Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper later this month.

China was outraged when Canada granted the Dalai Lama honorary citizenship last year.

Full story here.

At least four million people are to be moved from the area around China's Three Gorges Dam amid warnings of an "environmental catastrophe".

The announcement by state media follows reports that the dam could cause landslides, soil erosion and pollution.

Critics have long warned the dam, the world's largest hydro-electric project, could cause huge environmental damage.

Millions of people are now set to be relocated to the sprawling city of Chongqing at the reservoir's west end.

The $25bn (£12.5bn) project, across the country's biggest river, the Yangtze, is due to be completed by the end of 2008.

Full story here.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Russian diplomat who once chaired a U.N. budget committee was sentenced on Friday to more than four years in prison for helping launder more than $300,000 in bribes and taking a share of the money.

Vladimir Kuznetsov, 50, was found guilty in March of a single count of money laundering in a case that grew out of a criminal investigation into corruption into the now-defunct $64 billion humanitarian oil-for-food program for Iraq.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts sentenced Kuznetsov to 51 months in prison and fined him more than $73,000.

Prosecutors said Kuznetsov helped fellow Russian Alexander Yakovlev, a U.N. staff member who handled procurement, pocket illegal payments from firms seeking U.N. contracts. Yakovlev pleaded guilty in 2005 to soliciting more than $1 million in bribes and cooperated with authorities.

Full story here.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Myanmar opposition leader who was arrested during last month's mass protests against the junta died due to torture during interrogation, an activist group said on Wednesday.

In Washington, the United States threatened new sanctions against Myanmar after media reports of the death of Win Shwe.

"The junta must stop the brutal treatment of its people and peacefully transition to democracy or face new sanctions from the United States," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a statement.

The White House did not say what additional sanctions it was considering on the former Burma, but it called for a full investigation into Win Shwe's death.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said that Win Shwe, a 42-year-old member of the National League for Democracy, and four other people were arrested on September 26 because of their active support for and participation in the biggest pro-democracy protests in nearly 20 years.

"He died as a result of torture during interrogation," the Thai-based group said in a statement on its Web site (www.aappb.org), sourcing its information to authorities in Kyaukpandawn township.

"However, his body was not sent to his family and the interrogators indicated that they had cremated it instead."

Official media in Myanmar said 10 people were killed when the junta sent in soldiers to end days of Buddhist monk-led demonstrations in September, although Western governments say the toll is likely to have been much higher.

The AAPP said in its statement that "many dead bodies and injured persons were cremated or placed in the river."

"Some dead bodies of monks have appeared in the Pazundaung River in Rangoon (Yangon) in the past few days. In addition, many of those who have been arrested have been tortured during interrogation."

U.S. First Lady Laura Bush told USA Today in an interview published on Wednesday that the United States would announce further sanctions on Myanmar's military government "within the next couple of days" if the junta does not take steps toward democracy.

Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov has been selected to be the candidate of an opposition movement in next year's Russian presidential poll.

He won overwhelming backing at a congress of the small Other Russia coalition, fending off five rivals.

After his selection, he vowed to fight for a "democratic and just Russia".

Full story here.

BBC - Monday, 7 May 2007

France is preparing to enter a new political era, one day after choosing right-wing Nicolas Sarkozy to be the country's next president.

Previously a divisive cabinet minister, Mr Sarkozy won a clear election victory over Socialist opponent Segolene Royal.

Mr Sarkozy has pledged to boost the economy by creating jobs, liberalise employment laws, be tough on crime and control immigration.

He officially takes over from Jacques Chirac on 16 May.

The election result was widely welcomed outside France, with the US, EU, China and Japan offering congratulations to Mr Sarkozy.

Full story here.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Police beat protesters and arrested hundreds in anti-government demonstrations in Moscow over the weekend, but the version on TV made for dull viewing: police rounding up marchers, and the detained filing calmly into trucks.

Meanwhile, networks lavished attention on a pro-Kremlin event featuring throngs of youths in crisp white T-shirts and waving Russian flags. Rossiya TV opened its nightly news with President Vladimir Putin attending a martial arts competition, and when it later showed something of the violence, it insinuated that the protesters were fomenting revolution, backed by the West.

As Russia heads into a parliamentary election in December and presidential elections next March, government influence over the news media appears to be at its strongest since the Soviet era ended.

During the coming campaigns, ''the distributors of political media are either to be controlled by the state directly, or agents very close to the state,'' said Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

The state controls all three major nationwide TV networks. It owns Rossiya and Channel One, while NTV belongs to the national gas monopoly Gazprom, which wrested control of the network from a Kremlin critic in 2000.

Gazprom, majority state-owned, has media assets ranging from the iconic Izvestia broadsheet, where it acquired control in 2005, to the liberal Ekho Moskvy radio station -- one of the last major broadcast outlets open to Kremlin critics. A Russian billionaire who serves as president of a Gazprom subsidiary bought a stake in a respected business daily, Kommersant, last year.

''There are still outlets who pursue a very independent line,'' Lipman said. ''But they are at the Kremlin's mercy and they know it. With loyal owners the Kremlin can count on tempering the editorial line when necessary.''

Also, such media outlets don't reach a mass audience, but allow the Kremlin to challenge the claim that Russia's media aren't free.

REN TV, a national channel that is usually entertainment-oriented, provided the most objective coverage, including footage of protesters being beaten. Lipman said she wondered whether it would stay independent, in light of a report Friday that a St. Petersburg bank with ties to Putin had raised its stake in the network to 70 percent.

After almost a decade of growth, Russia has the beginnings of a broad consumer economy. But Russians still see plenty to demonstrate about. Surveys show that corruption is undiminished, pensioners complain of spiraling costs, and the average wage is just above $400 a month in a country with 53 billionaires -- third after the U.S. and Germany, according to Forbes Magazine.

Still, analysts say the media clampdown decreases the chance the protests will gain momentum.

''There is little risk of contagion ... since the Kremlin continues to filter the domestic television news,'' Rory MacFarquhar of Goldman Sachs said in an e-mail to investors Monday.

Viewers of NTV's main newscast Saturday night might have thought the demonstrators were a few bad apples trying to spoil exhilarating pro-government marches in the early spring sunshine.

It segued from a youth movement rally of 10,000 people at Moscow State University to glum, dispirited protesters. No beatings were shown, and police were seen gently escorting protesters onto trucks.

Witnesses at the scene, meanwhile, saw young people grabbed with no apparent provocation and manhandled into vehicles.

NTV and Rossiya both seemed to play on Russians' instinctive suspicion of outsiders.

NTV showed Garry Kasparov, the chess champion who has become an opposition leader, shouting from inside a police bus, but the voiceover said ''he made comments in English to foreign journalists.''

Rossiya framed its report on the protests in the context of calls for a revolution in Russia by the self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky, and of a U.S. State Department report on democracy and human rights that criticized Russia.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Riot police beat and detained protesters as thousands defied an official ban and attempted to stage a rally Saturday against President Vladimir Putin's government, which opponents accuse of rolling back freedoms Russians have enjoyed since the end of Soviet communism.

A similar march planned for Sunday in St. Petersburg has also been banned by authorities.

A coalition of opposition groups organized the ''Dissenters March'' to protest the economic and social policies of Putin as well as a series of Kremlin actions that critics say has stripped Russians of many political rights. Organizers said only about 2,000 demonstrators turned out.

Thousands of police officers massed to keep the demonstrators off landmark Pushkin Square in downtown Moscow, beating some and detaining many others, including Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion who has emerged as the most prominent leader of the opposition alliance.

Police said 170 people had been detained but a Kasparov aide, Marina Litvinovich, said as many as 600 were -- although about half were released quickly. Kasparov, whom witnesses said was seized as he tried to lead a small group of demonstrators through lines of police ringing the square, was freed late Saturday after he was fined $38 for participating in the rally.

''It is no longer a country ... where the government tries to pretend it is playing by the letter and spirit of the law,'' Kasparov said outside the court building, appearing unfazed by his detention.

''We now stand somewhere between Belarus and Zimbabwe,'' he said.

It was the fourth time in recent months that anti-Putin demonstrations -- all called Dissenters Marches -- have been broken up with force or smothered by a huge police presence.

The weekend's marches were being closely watched as a barometer of how much of a threat, if any, opposition forces pose to the Kremlin as Russia prepares for parliamentary elections in December and a presidential vote next spring.

Putin, whose second and last term ends in 2008, has created an obedient parliament and his government has reasserted control over major television networks, giving little air time to critics.

TV newscasts on Saturday reported the protests, but gave as much or more time to a pro-Kremlin youth rally held near Moscow State University.

Later, police charged into a crowd of about 200 demonstrators outside the police precinct where Kasparov was being held, beating protesters with nightsticks and fists.

Kasparov and his allies mustered, by their own reckoning, about 2,000 people -- far fewer than the 30,000 people who patronize the McDonald's restaurant at Pushkin Square on an average day.

But some protesters said they were not discouraged by the small turnout or intimidated by the overwhelming force marshaled to block the rally.

Andrei Illarionov, a former Putin economic adviser who has become a Kremlin critic, pointed out that in 1968 only six people appeared in Red Square to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

''This is a crime against the Russian constitution,'' he said. ''This country is not free anymore and the main criminal in Russia right now is the authorities.''

About 100 of the detained protesters belong to the ultranationalist National Bolshevik Party, party spokesman Alexander Averi said. But he said Eduard Limonov, the novelist who heads the party known for street theater and political pranks aimed at Putin, evaded a detention attempt.

Organizers sought permission to gather on Pushkin Square, a traditional site for protests, but city officials rejected the request. Instead, they approved Turgenev Square, about a mile east and away from the city's commercial and cultural hub.

Organizers refused to cancel plans for the Pushkin Square rally and protesters started to arrive before 11 a.m. Police began seizing them a few at a time.

A 23-year-old woman, who gave her name only as Maria, said she and her husband, Andrei, were coming out of the subway when officers grabbed him.

''We didn't do anything,'' she said, tears rolling down her face as she watched her husband being hustled into a police truck. ''We just wanted to see what would happen.''

Viktor Vinokourov, a 67-year-old pensioner, watched the detentions from a nearby sidewalk, holding a hand-scrawled sign declaring: ''I Don't Agree.'' A young man in a leather coat, apparently a plainclothes security officer, snatched it out of his hands.

Around noon, several hundred protesters headed away from Pushkin Square toward the sanctioned demonstration site, marching past startled motorists while chanting ''Putin get out!'' and ''We need a new Russia!''

As they walked arm-in-arm down a main thoroughfare, a police cordon blocked their path. Some in the crowd ran forward and police charged, their truncheons flailing.

A Japanese journalist suffered a gash on the head and was treated by a policeman in a riot helmet. Eventually the crowd of protesters melted into side streets, and joined about 1,000 demonstrators at the authorized site.

Hundreds of police and soldiers surrounded the square, but let demonstrators in after checking them for weapons.

Mikhail Kasyanov, Putin's first prime minister but now a leading opponent, denounced the arrests and beatings in a speech at Turgenev Square.

''Everyone should ask the question: What is happening with our authorities -- are they still sane, or have they gone mad?'' he said, as the crowd chanted ''Shame on the government.''

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who observed the march, said authorities were only trying to maintain order, not to interfere with the exercising of political rights.

''We live in a democratic country, a free country, and we give the possibility to everybody to express their agreement or disagreement,'' he said, in remarks carried on Russia's Channel 1 television.

Note: Photo story is available here.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Convalescing Cuban leader Fidel Castro has jumped back into the limelight with two newspaper columns attacking the United States that point to a future role as elder statesman for the 80-year-old revolutionary.

In the columns published by the Communist Party newspaper Granma in the past two weeks, Castro denounced his archenemy the United States for using food crops for biofuels, saying the Bush administration's ethanol plans will increase hunger among the world's poor.

The columns published by Granma as "Reflections of the Commander in Chief" indicate Castro will concentrate on international rather than domestic affairs.

Full story here.

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko signed a decree on Monday to dissolve parliament and order an election next month, stepping up months of confrontation with the assembly and prime minister.

Parliament, loyal to his arch-rival Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, said the decree was akin to the start of a coup and barred the government from financing the May 27 poll.

Yanukovich, friendlier to Russia, urged the president to withdraw the decree or face plunging Ukraine into an uncertain future.

The tough stances adopted by both sides raised tensions in the former Soviet republic 2-1/2 years after the so-called ''Orange Revolution'' peaceful mass protests changed the political landscape.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack in a statement: ``The United States calls on all Ukrainian political leaders to take full responsibility for their supporters' actions and to maintain calm.''

Yushchenko, who asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to put off talks scheduled for Tuesday in Moscow, said on live television it had been his duty to dissolve parliament as it had violated the constitution.

``I have signed a decree today to disband parliament. I have taken this decision in line with the constitution,'' Yushchenko, seated at the table where he had met party leaders earlier in the day, told Ukraine's 47 million people.

``My actions were prompted by a crucial need to preserve the state, its sovereignty and territorial integrity.''

The president, who advocates future European Union and NATO membership, said Ukraine's affairs were ``under control.''

He beat Yanukovich in the re-run of the rigged 2004 election that triggered the ``Orange Revolution'' protests. His powers have been cut since by constitutional change and his popularity has sunk as liberals accuse him of indecision.

The May 27 poll would be barely a year after the last vote.

Parliament said the decree ``bears all the signs of a step toward a coup d'etat'' and made clear the chamber would defy it.

PREMIER'S CALL

Yanukovich said the president could suspend the decree or simply not publish it to allow ``the country to carry on and develop in calm, civilized fashion.''

Without elaborating, he told a post-midnight cabinet meeting shown live on television: ``I will not speak aloud of a third option. That would boost tension greatly ... The president would be fully responsible for the heavy burden.''

Defense Minister Anatoly Hrytsenko, one of a tiny minority of cabinet members allied to Yushchenko, said he and the armed forces would obey only orders from the president.

Agreement by all sides to take part in an election could produce a stalemate little different from the outcome of last year's poll after which a coalition of ``Orange'' groups collapsed and Yanukovich took over as prime minister.

Some observers feared if ministers and parliament resisted the poll, crowds both in favor and opposed to it could pour into the streets, raising the possibility of confrontations.

``Experts are discussing which law enforcement bodies are backing which side. That is dangerous logic,'' analyst Oles Doniy told Ukrainian television.

``We need to think how to come out of this situation. Yes, the president overstepped his powers, but deputies in parliament also violated the law and the constitution.''

Yushchenko has clashed with the prime minister since appointing him in August, threatening to dissolve the assembly unless the three-party governing coalition stopped recruiting individual opposition members to its ranks.

He appointed Yanukovich after his allies failed to form a government. The prime minister's initial 239-strong coalition in the 450-seat assembly has been boosted by defections to 260. He is seeking 300 votes to be able to overturn presidential vetoes.

Tens of thousands of protesters rallied at the weekend to back calls by opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister, for the president to dissolve parliament.

On Monday, Tymoshenko urged all sides to keep the security forces out of disputes. ``I congratulate the country for moving along the path to democracy,'' she said in Independence Square, focal point of the 2004 protests.

Yanukovich's Regions Party leads in opinion polls ahead of Tymoshenko's bloc, with the president's Our Ukraine lying third.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's scientific elite, in a rare show of disobedience to the Kremlin, on Wednesday voted against a government-proposed charter that would have transferred control of the historically independent Academy of Sciences to the state.

The academy has spearheaded fundamental research for nearly three centuries and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy even in Soviet times, when it refused to expel dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov.

The Education Ministry had proposed creating a supervisory board consisting mostly of government representatives that would oversee the academy's work, budget and property, including vast real estate assets. Instead, senior members of the academy voted unanimously for regulations that would allow it to keep its autonomy.

The vote was a rare statement of dissent against President Vladimir Putin's government, which has established tight control over Russia's political, economic and social life.

First steps toward imposing greater government control began last year when parliament passed a law stipulating that the academy's top executive must be approved by the president and its charter approved by the government.

The Education Ministry proposed an academy charter that would create an advisory body made up of nine people, only three of whom would be scientists; the rest would be government ministers, lawmakers and Kremlin officials.

Under the ministry's proposal, the advisory body would control research, decide which scientific projects to pursue and distribute state funding.

''Whether people having no relation to science can make decisions about scientific work is a big question,'' said academy spokeswoman Irina Presnyakova.

''The scientific community has enjoyed specific freedoms and autonomy everywhere and at all times,'' Zhores Alferov, a Nobel physics laureate and senior academy member, said on NTV television.

Founded by Peter the Great in 1724, the Academy of Sciences has cherished its autonomy. In the Soviet era, it refused to accept some senior Communist Party members whom it saw unqualified.

The state-funded academy commands a budget of $1.2 billion, has 400 research institutes and some 200,000 scientists across the country.

Critics say the government's move is also aimed at gaining control over the academy's lucrative real estate assets, including palaces and other sites in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

''The Kremlin and the government have long been eyeing this tasty morsel and of course the academicians don't want to see their financial and moral situation weakened,'' said Yevgeny Volk, head of the Heritage Foundation's Moscow office.

Volk predicted a tough battle between the academy's leaders and the government, saying that the authorities could offer additional perks to the academicians in exchange for control over the organization.

Dmitry Livanov, a deputy education minister, said that the ministry wouldn't approve the academy's version of its charter, but added that it was ready for a ''constructive dialogue,'' the ITAR-Tass news agency said.

If the Education Ministry and the academy fail to reach a compromise, the government has the power to enforce its version of the charter. However, the Kremlin would likely try to avoid an open clash with the widely respected body that could erode the government's prestige ahead of the parliamentary election this fall and the presidential vote in March 2008.

Academy president Yuri Osipov predicted difficulties getting its version of the new charter approved by the government, even though he insisted it fully complied with Russian law, but he vowed to resist government moves for control.

''We don't take seriously anything that is made up by outside people having no relation to us,'' he said on NTV.

Opposition protesters in Belarus have clashed with police in the capital Minsk where thousands of people rallied against President Alexander Lukashenko.

No injuries were reported in the clashes which came as activists marked the anniversary of the creation in 1918 of a short-lived Belarussian republic.

Scuffles began as protesters tried to push through police cordons and several arrests were made, witnesses say.

Demonstrators chanted "long live Belarus" and waved the red and white flags of the 1918 republic, banned by the government which uses the Soviet-era national flag.

Full story here.

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia (Reuters) - Russian police blocked a march planned by up to 2,000 critics of President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, the second crackdown this month on a public display of opposition to the Kremlin.

Witnesses said up to 100 protesters were arrested and more than a thousand others prevented from reaching a square in the center of Nizhny Novgorod, one of Russia's five biggest cities, as they gathered for a rally outlawed by authorities.

A police helicopter hovered over Gorky Square and adjacent roads were blocked by lines of riot police, several witnesses told Reuters.

City buses were used to ferry away those arrested and scuffles broke out as police wrestled with chanting protesters and removed flags.

``It wasn't a demonstration of power. It was a demonstration of fear,'' said Oksana Chelysheva, deputy chairman of the Society of Russian-Chechen Friendship.

The so-called march of the discontented was organised by opposition coalition ``Other Russia'' and follows a March 3 rally in St Petersburg that blocked the city's main thoroughfare.

Nizhny Novgorod, 400 km (250 miles) east of Moscow, was chosen by opposition leaders keen to spread their message to large urban centres beyond Moscow and St Petersburg. More marches are planned in Russia's two main cities in mid-April.

The anti-Kremlin opposition is in a minority in Russia, where Putin enjoys the support of most Russian voters. Protest leaders are resisting what they call the Kremlin's tightening grip on power and demand a fair presidential election next year.

The constitution requires Putin to step down in 2008. Most observers expect him to back a Kremlin insider to succeed him.

ARRESTS

Alexander Gorbatov, police spokesman in Nizhny Novgorod, confirmed there had been arrests. He did not say how many people had been detained or the reason for their arrest.

Interfax news agency quoted him as saying about 30 people had been arrested.

Three witnesses said between 50 and 100 protesters had been detained. A small number had reached the square -- where organisers had hoped to see between 1,500 and 2,000 -- but were dragged away by riot police.

``Thousands were prevented from assembling in or reaching the square. People were stopped in nearby streets. Even taxis were detained,'' Chelysheva said.

Many leading opposition figures present at the St Petersburg rally, including former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, did not travel to Nizhny Novgorod.

Kasparov's assistant, Marina Litvinovich, told Ekho Moskvy radio station she had been detained. A Reuters photographer was among several journalists who were also held briefly.

Mikhail, a protester from St Petersburg who gave only his first name, said police at the railway station were checking the documents of everybody who arrived in Nizhny Novgorod by train.

``All those from out of town were detained for the period of the march,'' he said.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan, March 24 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan registered their first competitive win in European football, claiming a shock 2-1 victory over Serbia in their Euro 2008 Group A qualifier on Saturday.

It was also the first time they had scored at home in a European qualifier since joining UEFA in 2002, Kairat Ashirbekov and Nurbol Zhumaskaliyev giving them a 2-0 lead before Nikola Zigic pulled one back for the Serbs.

The result left Serbia second in the eight-team group with 10 points from five matches.

Kazakhstan are sixth with five points ahead of the day's other two matches, Poland against Azerbaijan and Portugal against Belgium.

Ashirbekov fired Kazakhstan ahead in the 47th minute when his fierce shot from 12 metres took a wicked deflection off Serbia centre back Milan Stepanov and left keeper Vladimir Stojkovic stranded.

The unmarked Zhumaskaliyev sent the home crowd into raptures when he headed the second at the far post from a Ruslan Baltiev corner.

Zigic set up a dramatic finish after beating the excellent David Loria in goal with a close-range header and missed two good chances to equalise before he was sent off in injury time for elbowing an opponent.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) -- Decomposing corpses were dumped into a trash-filled ditch. Blindfolded and hands bound, three Albanian-Americans were led to its edge and shot in the head, their bodies joining the others.

The details, emerging for the first time at the trial of two former Serbian commandos, shed light on how the regime of late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic tried to conceal atrocities against ethnic Albanians in the 1998-99 Kosovo war.

Thousands were killed in the Serbian crackdown against Kosovo separatists in 1998-99. When NATO launched air strikes to stop the carnage, hundreds of bodies of Kosovars were dug up and moved more than 200 miles to three locations in central Serbia, reburied in mass graves to cover up the killings.

The commandos have been charged as accomplices in the murder of brothers Illy, Mehmet and Agron Bytyqi -- three U.S. citizens who had left New York to fight in Kosovo and were captured by the Serbs.

The bodies of the Bytyqi brothers were discovered in 2001. Their identities were later confirmed by an FBI forensics team.

''One day, a truck carrying some 30 corpses appeared in our camp,'' Radomir Djeric, a former commander of a special police training facility in Petrovo Selo, some 60 miles east of Belgrade, said at the trial Wednesday.

His testimony for the prosecution was closed to the public but minutes were made available to The Associated Press.

Djeric said he thought a large ditch had been dug to be used as a garbage disposal for the police training camp.

But when the truckload of corpses arrived from Kosovo, Djeric said he felt ''manipulated and foolish'' because the garbage-filled pit was primarily intended as a mass grave.

''The decomposing bodies were unloaded from the truck by men wearing gas masks to keep out the stench,'' Djeric said. ''The bodies slid from the rear of the truck into the pit.''

The indictment against the former commandos, Sreten Popovic and Milos Stojanovic, says the Bytyqi brothers were brought to the edge of the pit and shot in the head, causing them to slump into a mass grave atop 70 corpses dumped there earlier.

''They were positioned next to each other, with a cloth over their face and hands bound with wire,'' Bosko Radojkovic, a forensic expert who had exhumed the mass grave, said during the trial Thursday.

The three Albanian-Americans had left their home and pizza business in New York in 1999 to join the so-called Atlantic Brigade, which fought Serb forces in Kosovo, before they were arrested close to the Serbia-Kosovo boundary in July 1999, days after the Kosovo hostilities ended.

Serbian authorities, who ousted Milosevic from power in 2000, have identified 924 victims in the mass graves uncovered in Serbia. They said 53 were children younger than 16, and 72 were women.

In earlier court testimony, retired Serb policeman Bozidar Protic described how he transported the corpses.

''I was ordered by my superiors to take an empty truck (from Belgrade) to Kosovo. No one mentioned any bodies at first,'' Protic said, adding that he was initially just told he was to ''perform a confidential task, important for the state.''

But he said he soon realized that the transport involved bodies of people killed at several locations in Kosovo.

Protic detailed how he made ''four rounds'' with the truck, transporting a total of about 120 bodies from four locations in Kosovo to the three mass graves in Serbia.

The mass graves in central Serbia were discovered after Milosevic lost power. The former president was extradited to the U.N. war crimes court in the Netherlands in 2001, where he died last year, before his war crimes trial ended.

Serbia is trying to keep Kosovo as a province in the face of a U.N. plan unveiled last month that proposes supervised statehood for the predominantly ethnic Albanian territory.

Several of Milosevic's close aides are being tried by the U.N. war crimes court in The Hague for the Kosovo atrocities, while lower-level perpetrators -- including the two ex-commandos -- are being tried locally.

BAGHDAD - The former deputy in Saddam Hussein's government was hanged before dawn Tuesday for the killings of 148 Shiites, the prime minister's office said.

Taha Yassin Ramadan, who was Saddam's vice president when the regime was ousted by the U.S.-led invasion that began four years ago Tuesday in Iraq, was the fourth man to be executed in the killings following a 1982 assassination attempt against the former leader in the town of Dujail.

Bassam al-Hassani, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said precautions were taken to prevent a repeat of what happened to Saddam's half brother and co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim, who was inadvertently decapitated on the gallows during his January execution.

Ramadan, who was nearly 70, was weighed before the hanging and the length of the rope was chosen accordingly, al-Hassani said.

The execution took place at 3:05 a.m. an Iraqi army and police base, which had been the headquarters of Saddam's military intelligence, in a predominantly Shiite district in northern Baghdad. Ramadan had been in U.S. custody but was handed over to the Iraqis before the hanging, according to al-Hassani, who witnessed the hanging.

The prosecutor read out the verdict of the appeals court upholding the death sentence along with al-Maliki's decision to carry it out, al-Hassani said, adding that a defense lawyer received Ramadan's written will. The contents were not revealed.

Al-Hassani said the execution went smoothly, although Ramadan appeared frightened and recited the two shahadahs — a declaration of faith repeated by Muslims — "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet."

Ramadan was convicted in November of murder, forced deportation and torture and sentenced to life in prison. A month later, an appeals court said the sentence was too lenient, and returned his case to the High Tribunal, which sentenced him to death.

Ramadan, who became vice president in March 1991 and was a Revolutionary Command Council member — Iraq's highest political body under Saddam — had maintained his innocence, saying his duties were limited to economic affairs, not security issues.

Full story here.

HAVANA (AP) -- Fidel Castro will be in ''perfect shape'' to run for re-election to parliament next spring, the first step toward securing yet another term as Cuba's president, National Assembly head Ricardo Alarcon said Thursday.

''I would nominate him,'' said Alarcon, the highest-ranking member of parliament. ''I'm sure he will be in perfect shape to continue handling his responsibilities.''

Mobbed by foreign reporters following a parliamentary session to discuss Cuba's upcoming elections, Alarcon said Castro ''is doing fine and continuing to focus on recovery and rehabilitation.''

A lengthy process of nominating candidates for municipal elections will begin this summer, leading to several rounds of voting. Then, by March 2008, Cuba should be ready to hold parliamentary elections that are expected to include Castro, Alarcon said.

The 80-year-old Castro was the world's longest-ruling head of state, occupying the island's presidency for 47 years before temporarily stepping aside in favor of his younger brother, Raul, following emergency intestinal surgery in July.

Alarcon said he has been in contact with Castro many times in recent weeks, but stopped short of saying he has seen him in person. He said that even though Castro ceded power to his 75-year-old brother, he never ''abandoned his role.''

''Fidel has been and is very involved, very connected, very active in all manner of important decisions that this country makes,'' Alarcon said. ''What's happening is, he can't do it the same way he did before because he has to dedicate a good part of his time to recuperating physically.''

Switching later to deliberate but fluent English, Alarcon told journalists: ''To what extent he will go back to doing things the way he did, the way he is accustomed to, it's up to him.''

He wouldn't say whether Raul Castro will remain acting president if his brother becomes well enough to return to work full-time.

Things in Cuba have remained calm and functioned normally under Raul Castro. Though Fidel has not appeared in public, he has sounded lucid and up on current events in a pair of recent telephone conversations with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

After earlier post-surgery photos had shown him looking sick and weak, images on state television in late January revealed a stronger and healthier seeming Castro.

Although Castro temporarily ceded his functions to his brother, he still holds the title of president of the Council of State, Cuba's supreme governing body.

Casket theft in Cuba:

(Larry Daley/Esteban Casañas Lostal, October 31, 1999) The decomposed body of another young man who tried to escape Castro's regime hidden in the landing gear of an Italian passenger plane was found after nine days. His body was placed in a casket and sent back to Havana. However, Castro's regime determined that the casket was too good for the "traitor." The authorities confiscated the casket and demanded that his grieving family buy an ordinary one made in Cuba. However, this was not an isolated incident. When a Cuban is visiting relatives abroad and he or she dies, and the body is returned for burial, Castro's officials exercise all kinds of pressures on the grieving relatives on the island in order to exchange the foreign-made casket for one made in Cuba. Confiscated caskets are reserved for Castro's hierarchy and the U.S. dollars-paying foreigners. Apartheid in Castro's Cuba exists even after death.

http://www.nocastro.com/archives/elian41.htm

HAVANA (AP) -- Communist leaders called Tuesday for the revolutionary ideals of ailing leader Fidel Castro to live on as they marked the 50th anniversary of a failed attempt to assassinate dictator Fulgencio Batista.

''This revolution will continue for all time,'' parliament speaker Ricardo Alarcon told hundreds of students and top government leaders, including acting president Raul Castro, who watched the event from a front row seat but did not address the crowd.

Alarcon praised the courage of Jose Antonio Echeverria, the University Student Federation president who was killed by police after the attack a half-century ago, and said that Cubans like him would ensure the socialist revolution would endure.

On Jan. 1, 1959 -- barely 18 months after Echeverria's failed assassination attempt at the presidential palace -- Fidel Castro led an army of revolutionaries who toppled Batista's government.

The 80-year-old Castro announced on July 31 he had undergone intestinal surgery and was temporarily ceding power to his brother Raul, the defense minister.

Raul Castro, 75, appeared less reserved than at many of his recent public events, smiling broadly and waving to the crowd before and after the hour-long event.

Staged outside the towering columns of the palace -- since converted to the Museum of the Revolution -- the celebration featured a skit where dancers slain during a mock struggle leaped to their feet anew and joined hands in a circle.

Echeverria was 19 on March 13, 1957, when he led a group of college students in the attack. A three-story, black-and-white photo of a beaming and pudgy Echeverria smiled down on those assembled.

The students seized the local Radio Reloj station and announced Batista's death, unaware that he had survived. Echeverria was shot and killed by police minutes later.

Editor's commentary: As you see Castro's followers are proud of attempted assassination of country's dictator of that time Batista. On the other hand Fidel Castro and his followers wanted prosecution of all those who wanted to assassinate dictator Castro. It was OK to kill Batista but not OK to kill Castro. Due to this open unrepentant terrorist statement no government in the world should prosecute those who wanted to kill Castro in the past. But then there is no need for Fidel Castro's assassinations any more because Fidel is dead and kept in a palace freezer waiting for proper moment to be officially declared dead and then finally buried. It is so fortunate that Cuba does not have similar laws like France where dead people must be buried or cremated.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russians voted Sunday in regional ballots marred by complaints that Kremlin opponents are increasingly being sidelined before national parliamentary elections in December and a vote to replace President Vladimir Putin next year.

The elections for legislative assemblies in 14 of Russia's 86 regions were held under new rules that critics say continue a retreat from democracy and restrict the ability of voters to voice discontent.

They provided a test for Just Russia, a new party that promotes itself as the opposition but supports Putin and is seen as a tool to channel public anger at the authorities away from ardent opponents while broadening the Kremlin's support base.

Exit polls showed the dominant Kremlin-controlled party, United Russia, retaining its strength in most regions, but suggested that Just Russia would gain a foothold and take nearly half the votes in one province.

Just Russia led United Russia in the Stavropol region, with 40 percent to 29 percent, according to exit polls conducted by the respected VTsIOM, the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion. The organization said it questioned about every fifth voter at polling stations until 6 p.m., two hours before the polls closed.

Official preliminary results were not expected until Monday, but VTsIOM's exit polls in nine other regions showed United Russia appearing to retain approximately the level of support it had in the old regional assemblies.

While 14 parties and their candidates competed in the elections, critics said the appearance of genuine pluralism was only superficial.

Voters in St. Petersburg expressed dismay that some parties had been barred from the ballot -- notably Yabloko, a liberal party that was excluded by a ruling that more than 10 percent of the signatures it gathered to enter the race were invalid.

''It didn't look good -- it looked rather artificial that they were not allowed,'' said Anna Vyborova, 33, a tour guide.

The liberal Union of Right Forces, known by its Russian abbreviation SPS, was barred from the ballot in four regions -- in some cases, its leader said, because candidates withdrew under pressure from threats or with promises of jobs.

Sunday's vote signaled the start of a year of elections that will culminate with a March 2008 presidential vote in which Putin is constitutionally barred from running, because he has served two terms. Critics say the Kremlin -- nervously eyeing his departure -- wants to choreograph the elections to ensure a smooth succession and enable the popular president to maintain influence after he steps down.

''Russia today technically is a police state and this corrupt and unethical Putin regime is trying to survive at any cost,'' They know that with free and fair elections and no censorship they will not last long,'' former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who leads the Other Russia opposition movement, told The Associated Press.

Putin has hinted he will choose a favored successor and he evidently wants to leave little to chance.

By limiting the outlets for opposition sentiment, the Kremlin has pushed some opponents into the streets. Last weekend, police in St. Petersburg violently dispersed one of the largest opposition demonstrations in Russia in years; among protesters' main complaints was that opposition parties were blocked from the ballot.

United Russia and Just Russia were on the ballots in all 14 regions, along with the Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, whose flamboyant ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky is seen as loyal to the Kremlin. SPS, Yabloko and several smaller parties were also on some of the ballots.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Russian diplomat who once chaired a U.N. budget committee was found guilty on Wednesday of helping launder hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and taking a share of the money.

A federal jury in Manhattan found Vladimir Kuznetsov, 49, guilty of a single count of laundering more than $300,000, said a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Kuznetsov had helped fellow Russian Alexander Yakovlev, a U.N. staff member who handled procurement, pocket illegal payments from firms seeking U.N. contracts. Yakovlev pleaded guilty in 2005 to soliciting more than $1 million in bribes and cooperated with authorities.

Kuznetsov, arrested in September 2005, is a Russian Foreign Ministry official who served as chairman of an influential U.N. General Assembly budget committee. Kuznetsov, who will be sentenced on June 25, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

The charges grew out of a criminal probe into corruption in the now-defunct $64 billion humanitarian U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq. The program was first investigated by a U.N.-established commission, headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who traced about $950,000 held by Yakovlev to companies that won U.N. contracts.

Kuznetsov was alleged to have found out about the secret payments in 2000 and arranged to receive a share in a bank account in Antigua.

The oil-for-food program was designed to soften the blow to civilians of U.N. sanctions against Iraq by allowing Baghdad to sell oil to finance purchases of humanitarian goods. The sanctions were imposed after Baghdad's troops invaded Kuwait in 1990. It began in late 1996 and ended in 2003.

Saddam Hussein's government raised $1.8 billion through kickbacks and surcharges on the sale of oil in the program.

But he probably earned $10 billion more from oil that he smuggled out of the country outside of the U.N. program in violation of sanctions. More than 2,300 companies have been investigated and some governments accused of paying bribes or receiving funds.

U.S. federal prosecutors have indicted 12 people in relation to the program, including oil traders. Three U.N. staffers have been indicted.

MOSCOW - A journalist who plunged to his death from his apartment building window faced threats while reporting on a highly sensitive story that Russia planned to sell sophisticated missiles to Syria and Iran, his newspaper reported Tuesday.

Ivan Safronov, a military affairs writer for the daily Kommersant, died Friday after plunging from a stairwell window between the fourth and fifth stories.

Kommersant reported Tuesday that Safronov had told his editors he was working on a story about Russian plans to sell weapons to Iran and Syria via Belarus.

The deals, if concluded, could upset the balance of power in the Middle East and strain Russia's relations with Israel and the United States, which have strongly objected to earlier Russian weapons sales to the two countries.

Kommersant reported that Safronov, 51, had recently told colleagues he was warned he would face a criminal investigation for possibly releasing state secrets if he reported allegations that Russia had struck a deal to supply Iskander missiles to Syria.

"Ivan Safronov said he was not going to write about it for a while because he was warned that it would create a huge international scandal and the FSB (Federal Security Service) would launch a criminal case on charges of breaching state secrets," the newspaper said.

Safronov did not say where the warning came from, according to Kommersant, but he had repeatedly been questioned by the FSB — the KGB's main successor agency — which suspected him of divulging state secrets.

A spokeswoman for state arms trading monopoly Rosoboronexport refused to comment on the Kommersant report.

Independent analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, who knew Safronov and met with him shortly before his death, said deals with Iran and Syria would be sensitive enough to lead to Safronov's killing.

"It's quite probable that such deals have been signed, and it's also probable that he (Safronov) was killed because of that," Felgenhauer told The Associated Press.

In the face of sharp U.S. and Israeli criticism, Moscow has delivered 29 Tor-M1 mobile surface-to-air missile systems to Iran under a $700 million contract, and Russian news reports have said Iran was pushing to buy the much more potent, long-range S-300 air defense missile systems.

Kommersant reported that, before traveling to an international arms fair in the United Arab Emirates last month, Safronov had said he would try to confirm rumors that Russia planned to sell S-300 missiles to Iran and Su-30 fighter jets to Syria via Belarus. He later called the editors from Abu Dhabi and said he had confirmation from Russian officials who attended the exhibit, the paper said.

Upon his return, Safronov told colleagues he also had learned about Russia's plans to provide Syria with Iskander missiles, MiG-29 fighter jets and Pantsyr-S1 air defense systems, the newspaper reported.

The Iskander, a sophisticated surface-to-surface missile with a range of 175 miles, would give Syria the capability to strike targets in Israel with very high precision. Israel has complained strongly about past sales of anti-tank missiles to Syria, saying some landed in the hands of the militant group Hezbollah.

A 2005 Kommersant report about planned sales of Iskander missiles to Syria caused an uproar and Putin later said during a trip to Israel that he had blocked the deal, the newspaper reported.

Felgenhauer told the AP the Iskander is in a different league than North Korean-built Scud missiles in Syria's inventory.

"The Syrians always wanted to get Iskander missiles," he said. "Iskander would give the Syrians a capability to strike point targets, like the military general staff building in Tel Aviv."

Felgenhauer said Russia previously conducted shadowy weapons sales through Belarus, so the allegations that it could serve as a conduit for Russian weapons sales to Iran and Syria were plausible.

Vladimir Nesterovich, a top official with Belarus' Security Council, said the allegations were "pure provocation." He added: "Those who are disseminating this false information are making the latest attempt to discredit Belarus in the eyes of the international community."

However, former Belarusian Defense Minister Pavel Kozlovsky said Russia had long used Belarus as conduit for weapons to suspect regimes. "This scheme has been used for the last 10 years or so. Earlier, Belarus supplied weapons to (Saddam) Hussein and Iraq," he said.

Safronov, a colonel in the Russian Space Forces before joining Kommersant in 1997, frequently angered authorities with his critical reporting. Kommersant and other media described him as a cheerful person who would not take his own life and suggested foul play.

Felgenhauer said a Russian military affairs writer whom he refused to name was brutally beaten by Russian military intelligence agents several years ago over his report on arms sales.

"I also feel scared since I'm writing about similar subjects," he said.

Prosecutors have said nothing about the incident, except that they are investigating it as a suicide.

The death comes amid a rash of attacks on journalists who write about official corruption, Chechnya and other abuses and amid fears that, under Putin, Russia has is backsliding toward authoritarianism.

Investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, a Kremlin critic, was shot dead in Moscow in October. The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists said that 13 journalists have been killed in contract-style murders since Putin took office in 2000.

"Given this terrible record, Safronov's sensitive beat and the questions surrounding his death, we call on Moscow authorities to thoroughly investigate every lead, including foul play," Committee to Protect Journalists Executive Director Joel Simon said.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) -- Police clubbed protesters and dragged them into waiting buses on Saturday in response to a defiant demonstration against the Kremlin in the heart of President Vladimir Putin's hometown.

Several thousand members of liberal and leftist groups chanted ''Shame!'' as they marched down St. Petersburg's main avenue to protest what they said was Russia's roll back from democracy. The demonstration, called the March of Those Who Disagree, was a rare gathering of the country's often fractious opposition.

It was at least the third time police have moved in to break up an anti-Kremlin protest in recent months.

St. Petersburg authorities had prohibited the march, only granting permission for a rally far from the city center, but the activists defied the ban and marched down the Nevsky Prospekt, the city's main street, blocking traffic. The mayor called the protesters extremists trying to destabilize the city ahead of local elections.

Riot police beat dozens of protesters with truncheons, but several thousand broke through police cordons. They marched toward the city center and rallied for about 40 minutes until police moved in again, detaining people and dragging them into buses.

Several activists attacked a law enforcement officer. Between 20 and 30 people were detained, the ITAR-Tass reported, citing police officials.

Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion who helped organize the event, said on Ekho Moskvy radio that the participants numbered up to 6,000, though the crowd appeared to be about half that number. Among those detained were the head of the radical National Bolshevik Party and an independent city legislator.

''The authorities are destroying ... the constitutional structure, rights and freedoms,'' former Primer Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who now heads on opposition movement, told AP Television News. ''Unfortunately we are going through a very difficult time in our country, but we will continue to fight for our rights.''

The activists accused Putin's government of cracking down on the opposition, stifling freedom of speech and eating away at democratic institutions by abolishing direct elections of provincial governors and creating an obedient parliament.

The sidelined and often divided opposition has faced increased harassment in recent years, with protest meetings barred on suspicious legal grounds or party congresses broken up or canceled for no reason. Putin's policies have drawn criticism from the United States, straining ties between the two countries.

In December, police pulled hundreds of opposition activists off buses and trains and detained them ahead of an anti-government demonstration in Moscow. The next month, police arrested dozens of Bolshevik party members rallying in support of activists detained in earlier unauthorized protests.

The Bolshevik party, led by an ultranationalist novelist and known for political pranks and street theater targeting Putin, was banned by the Supreme Court in 2005. Authorities have cast it as an extremist force.

Mayor Valentina Matviyenko, a close ally of St. Petersburg native Putin, called Saturday's protesters ''guest stars from Moscow'' and ''youths of extremist persuasion,'' accusing them of stirring turmoil ahead of elections for the city legislature later this month.

''Our city has always had solid democratic traditions'' Matviyenko said on Russian state television. ''We must allow for the possibility to express criticism of the authorities, but in a civilized way.''

She said some activists held banners in support of Boris Berezovsky, an exiled tycoon wanted in Russia on money laundering charges, and the jailed former billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was convicted of fraud and tax evasion in a case widely seen as a Kremlin-driven punishment for challenging Putin.

Matviyenko suggested the banners meant the protesters were receiving support from dubious sources: ''It is clear how such meetings are financed.''

The city election campaign has been marred by allegations of intimidation and harassment after the Yabloko party, one of the country's two main liberal parties, was eliminated from the ballot for what it called groundless technical reasons.

Elections in a number of Russian provinces later this month are seen as a precursor for December parliamentary balloting and the March 2008 presidential election, in which Putin, who is barred from running for a third consecutive term, has hinted he will choose a favored successor.

Since he took office in 2000, Putin has taken gradual steps to centralize power and eliminate democratic checks and balances. He has created an obedient parliament, abolished direct gubernatorial elections, tightened restrictions on rights groups and presided over the reining in of non-state TV channels.

ROME (AP) -- Premier Romano Prodi resigned Wednesday after nine months in office following an embarrassing loss by his center-left government in the Senate on foreign policy, including Italy's military mission in Afghanistan.

Prodi aides did not rule out the possibility that President Giorgio Napolitano would ask Prodi to try to form a new government, and from first discussions among some allies, support for another Prodi government seemed to be building.

''We are ready to reconfirm our full faith in the Prodi government,'' said Dario Franceschini, a leader of the Olive Tree, the largest grouping in Prodi's coalition.

Napolitano's office said political consultations would begin Thursday on which leaders might have enough support to form a new government. In the meantime, it said, the president, who met with Prodi on Wednesday night, had asked him to stay on in a caretaker role.

The loss, by two votes in the Senate, came on a bid by Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema to rally the often bickering partners in the coalition, which range from Christian Democrats to Communists.

He was hoping the allies would close ranks in the vote on foreign policy, including Italy's military mission in Afghanistan, but his bid backfired.

''Foreign policy involves the role and image of Italy in the world and the life of our soldiers committed to international peace mission,'' said conservative opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi, whom Prodi had defeated in elections in April. The loss meant Prodi had the ''obligation'' to resign, Berlusconi insisted.

Berlusconi has been predicting for months that the premier's government would collapse because of the radical leftists in the coalition. Prodi took office May 17.

There appeared to be no immediate talk of early elections, which could be called by Napolitano if no leader can muster strong enough support to win the required confidence vote of confirmation in Parliament's Chamber of Deputies and Senate.

It was unclear if Berlusconi, who has had heart problems since his election loss, would jump into the race should there be early elections.

Italy has 1,800 troops in Afghanistan, which were sent in by Berlusconi. The current government has agreed to keep the troops there, sparking opposition from its own Communist allies.

A decree refinancing the Afghan mission is awaiting parliamentary approval. It was passed by the Cabinet last month, but three radical leftist ministers walked out of the room to signal their opposition.

Government decrees need to be converted into law by parliament. In this case, parliament has until the end of March to convert it.

A centrist opposition leader, Pier Ferdinando Casini, said it would be tough for Prodi to try to put together a new government.

''He pretends not to see'' his problems in mustering a majority, Casini said in an interview on state TV. ''If he wants to go ahead, good luck'' in trying to form a new government, but ''the country is paying the price,'' Casini said.

While Prodi's backers had a razor-thin majority on paper in the Senate, which failed to come through for him in Wednesday's vote, his coalition partners have a more comfortable margin in the lower Chamber of Deputies.

Editor's commentary: This is what happens to alliance built on hatred toward Berlusconi and America. After victory you are supposed to do something constructive and progressive not just to seat in parliament and watch UFOs. This collapse occurred just after recent football violence by fans in Italy. It is very similar to what happened in Croatia just before civil war broke out in 1991.

BELGRADE, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Serb police on Friday removed a suspect device from a car used by the Liberal Democratic Party leader two days before a parliamentary election but found what they said was a harmless bundle of wires and wet powder.

"We found a package, tied with wires, which contained a brick-coloured powder inside, very wet with no detonator. We do not believe it could have exploded ... we don't believe it could have caused injury," police spokesman Rodoljub Milovic told B92 television.

Party leader Cedomir Jovanovic was in a Belgrade restaurant when his security detail noticed something suspicious under his car parked outside, party sources said earlier.

"His security saw the object hanging under the car. It looked like a bomb. They didn't know what to do so they called the police," one witness told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Jovanovic, 35, rose to prominence as a student leader who organised protests against the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic and was instrumental in his arrest and handover to the Hague war crimes tribunal in 2001.

He was a close associate of Serbian reformist Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who was assassinated in March 2003, allegedly by Milosevic loyalists.

Jovanovic is the only politician who has urged Serb voters to ignore promises from mainstream parties that breakaway Kosovo province, whose 90 percent Albanian majority demands independence from Serbia, can be forced to remain under Serbian sovereignty with diplomatic backing from Russia.

The West favours granting Kosovo a form of supervised independence.

Note: LDP statement about this incident in Serbian here. Jovanovic already received numerous death threats that he is not going to enter parliament alive. Police run by Jocic, member of Kostunica's party DSS is doing nothing as usual.

By Barry Wood

Serbia's parliamentary election campaign is nearing its end with latest opinion surveys indicating that reformist Democratic Party has taken a lead over the nationalist Radical Party. VOA's Barry Wood is in Belgrade and filed this report.

Until recently the Radicals were ahead, with surveys suggesting they may get from 25 to 32 percent of the vote. But a survey released this week by the Center for Free Elections and Democracy shows that support for the Radicals is steady at 26 percent, while the opposition pro-European Democratic Party has risen to 29 percent.

Prime Minister Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia comes third with 19 percent.

Marko Blagojevic of the Center for Free Elections and Democracy says economic issues have dominated the two-month campaign.

[The issues have been] "Better living standards, more jobs, better social welfare, rule of law," he said.

Kosovo has not been a dominant issue except for the Radicals.

Analysts say the outcome of Sunday's election is likely to determine the shape of Serbia's relations with the west for the next several years. Democratic Party leader Boris Tadic promises to speed Serbia's integration into European structures. He promises full cooperation with the Hague war crimes tribunal.

No single party is likely to obtain a majority in parliament, in which case there would likely be weeks of negotiations before a government is formed. Prime Minister Kostunica, who has led a minority government for three years, is keeping his options open and has not ruled out a post-election coalition that would include the Radicals.

Full story here.

The former head of the UN oil-for-food programme for Iraq, Benon Sevan, has been charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit fraud by the US.

Mr Sevan allegedly accepted $160,000 (£81,500) from Baghdad to illegally influence the $64bn programme.

If convicted he could face up to 50 years in prison.

The 69-year-old Cypriot is charged along with another man, Ephraim Nadler.

Mr Nadler, 79, a brother-in-law of former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, is accused of channelling kickbacks between the Iraqi government and Mr Sevan.

If found guilty, he could also face a lengthy jail sentence.

US attorney Michael Garcia said that the US had lodged warrants for the arrest of both men and would seek their extradition to the US for prosecution.

Full story here.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein's half brother and the former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court were both hanged before dawn Monday, Prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon said, two weeks and two days after the former Iraqi dictator was executed in a chaotic scene that has drawn worldwide criticism.

Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, had been found guilty along with Saddam in the killing of 148 Shiite Muslims after a 1982 assassination attempt on the former leader in the town of Dujail north of Baghdad.

Full story here.

China and Russia have cast a double veto in the UN Security Council, to stop a US draft resolution calling for an end to human rights abuses in Burma.

The two countries' ambassadors said the resolution was outside the remit of the Security Council as Burma posed no threat to international security.

US envoy Alejandro Wolff said he was "deeply disappointed" by Russia and China's first joint veto since 1972.

South Africa, a new non-permanent member, also opposed the document.

Qatar, Indonesia and the Republic of Congo abstained while the nine other members voted for.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: The only question here is what happened to UN Charter of Human Rights? If countries that violate human rights do not militarily threat other countries they can continue abusing people at their own discretion!? This is excellent proof that we would be better without UN. Why waste 2 billion dollars to renovate UN HQ building so that people around the world can be slaughtered like animals. For 2 billion dollars you can buy tons of mercenaries and weapons that can easily liberate Burma from military junta. Remember Jagged Alliance games? It is just that easy. Suu Kyi should hire Rambo instead of begging corrupt UN for help.

AMMAN (Reuters) - Less than 48 hours before he was hanged, Saddam Hussein said he had doubled the workout on his treadmill to be in good shape when he faced the gallows, according to his Iraqi lawyer.

Wadood Fawzi Shams Deen, who met the ousted leader at a U.S. military camp in one of his former palaces on December 28, says Saddam told him and another lawyer that he had done 35 minutes of exercise in the previous two days.

``I am making extra effort to prove to them that an Arab dies with honor and dignity defending honorable principles,'' Shams Deen quoted Saddam as saying.

Saddam's hanging, secretly recorded in footage distributed on the Internet, has turned him into a martyr in parts of the Arab world, overshadowing memories of his often brutal and bloody rule and of his conviction for crimes against humanity.

Pictures of his composed conduct and erect bearing in the face of taunting at a shambolic execution has helped the supporters who have already begun burnishing his image as a hero -- even as the court still trying Saddam's associates shows pictures of thousands of Iraqi Kurds killed in chemical attacks.

The value of posterity was not lost on Saddam. ``The execution will turn Saddam Hussein into a symbol for another hundred years,'' he said, according to the lawyers, who took extensive notes of their last conversation with him.

Saddam, smoking a Cuban Cohiba cigar and wearing the same black overcoat he wore when he was hanged on December 30, told the lawyers he had turned down an offer of tranquilizers from a U.S. doctor when the appeals court upheld his death sentence.

``I told him that God has given me enough faith to do without them,'' Shams Deen said Saddam told him and Bander Awad al-Bander, the lawyer son of one of Saddam's co-defendants.

``I will face my creator with a brave heart and clean hands.''

Offering cigars to his visitors and a nearby U.S. guard, Saddam said he had been crossing the Tigris River in broad daylight, swimming part of the way and using a small fisherman's boat for the rest, only days before his arrest in a tiny farmhouse cellar near his hometown, Tikrit, in December 2003.

Editor's commentary: The only one he will meet in hell is Satan. This story clearly shows that he was unrepentant for his gross crimes until the end. He deserved to die long time ago. Definition of martyr is: a person who willingly suffers death rather than renounce his or her religion. Saddam was not religious, he actually persecuted people on their religious beliefs. He was communist all the way with his role model Stalin. Following that logic, any murderer, rapist or thief unrepentant till the end could be martyr as well. Those who see him as a martyr are criminals as Saddam was. Glorification of Saddam is equivalent of glorification of Holocaust which is crime in any civilized country. If there is a religion named terror than Saddam would be a martyr but then again he lived in golden palaces and luxury all his life which means that he didn't sacrifice anything from himself while he for sure forced others to relinquish their possessions in his name. The only true martyrs are millions of innocent people who ended up dead during his reign of terror. Many of these people will have their names and graves forgotten forever but we will all remember their sacrifices and their sad end forever. Saddam, on the other hand, will be remembered for at least thousand years as the symbol of death and destruction. If someone can be proud of this then let it be.