JAKARTA, Indonesia, Dec. 11--Indonesia's powerful anti-graft officials Saturday said they were investigating the daughter of ex-president Suharto over claims a British arms firm paid her millions of dollars over a deal to sell tanks, AFP reported.
The inquiry into Siti Hardiyanti "Tutut" Rukmana, Suharto's eldest daughter, is the Corruption Eradication Commission's first into the inner circle of the former dictator, who has escaped trial for massive graft due to ill health.
"We are currently studying the documents. I admit that this is a very interesting case because it has an interesting name, Tutut, in it," said the Commission's deputy head Erry Hardjapamekas.
Rukmana's lawyer Amir Syamsuddin said he was aware of the case, but his client had not consulted him on the matter, according to the Detikcom news portal. The website quoted close friends of Rukmana denying her involvement.
The inquiry follows the publication by the Guardian newspaper of documents allegedly showing that British arms firm Alvis paid 16.5 million pounds (31.9 million dollars) in bribes to Rukmana to secure the sale of Scorpion tanks.
Alvis attempted to keep the documents over the 160 million pound tank deal a secret, but Britain's high court last week ruled that the newspaper could have access to material.
Hardjapamekas said he was inspecting the documents prior to preparing a dossier that could lead to a court hearing. He said the role of the Indonesian army was also being investigated.
Indonesia's anti-corruption body, which works independently of the country's often tainted legal system, has been charged with tackling the widespread graft--a key goal of new President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
An investigation into Suharto's daughter is a bold step for the Commission as it will encroach on the former president, whose continued liberty has been condemned by activists who say he must face justice for crimes during his rule.
A Jakarta court in September 2000 ruled that Suharto was mentally and physically unfit to stand trial on charges of embezzling 571 million dollars in state funds.

DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec. 11--Thousands of Bangladesh opposition activists have gathered on Saturday in cities and urban centers to form an unprecedented 900-km "human chain" to demonstrate no-confidence in the government, Reuters reported.
Opposition leaders expect about five million activists and supporters of the Awami League and 13 other left leaning parties to complete the chain by late afternoon.
"We will stand hand in hand on the roadsides linking Teknaf in the southeast with Tentulia in the northwest for an hour to show a total no-confidence in the government of Begum Khaleda Zia," said Mohammad Abdul Jalil, general secretary of the Awami League party.
The government has deployed thousands of police and paramilitary troops to tackle any possible violence during the formation of the cross-country human chain.
Police, witnesses and opposition leaders in most of the places where the human chain has been planned said thousands had already converged at the sites carrying loudspeakers, banners and placards with anti-government slogans.
Helicopters carrying troops from the elite Rapid Action Battalion have fanned out to major urban centers in the densely popyulated country of 132 million to monitor the protest.
For security reasons, authorities have banned movement of motorbikes at protest sites throughout the country for the day.
"We want resignation of the government as it failed to give security to the public life, curb corruption, arrest commodity price hikes and gagged the opposition," said Rashed Khan Menon, president of the Bangladesh Workers Party.
Opposition parties said police had arrested more than 1,000 of their leaders and activists over the past two days in a bid to frustrate the campaign.
"The security has been tightened to stop any sort of mayhem, because vested groups might instigate bloody incidents to shift the blame on the government," State Minister for Home Affairs M. Lutfuzzaman Babar told reporters.

Romania's Prime Minister Adrian Nastase casts his ballot at a polling station in Bucharest, November 28. (AFP File Photo)

BUCHAREST, Romania, Dec. 11--Romanians vote Sunday to choose between Prime Minister Adrian Nastase and Bucharest Mayor Traian Basescu in a presidential runoff election closely monitored by observers following fraud allegations in the first round, AFP reported.
Nastase, a Social Democrat, led in the first round November 28 in the former communist state with 40.94 percent of the vote, ahead of center-right opposition candidate Basescu (33.92 percent).
Campaigning for Sunday's run-off round ended ahead of the weekend with Basescu considered the winner of the only face-to-face debate broadcast over the past weeks.
But Nastase still leads in opinion polls and according to analysts only massive turnout of urban voters, more favorable to the opposition, could reverse this trend.
Endemic corruption in Romania and the government's plans for the eastern European state to join the European Union in 2007 dominated the campaign.
A deal struck on Wednesday sealing the end of Romania's EU accession talks could not come at a better time for the outgoing government.
"This is a historic day for Romania," Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana said in Brussels, in comments echoed hours later by Nastase on public television.
But Basescu's Justice and Truth Alliance said the closure of accession talks was "premature", as "Romania cannot objectively fulfil the conditions laid down by the EU."
Under the deal, Romania's membership, scheduled for January 2007, could be put off for a year if it does not fulfill its obligations in reducing state aid in the steel sector and if it does not clamp down on corruption and bolster controls at what will be the EU's eastern border.

Viktor Yushchenko

LONDON, Dec. 11--Ukraine's opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko says the European Union should change its attitude towards his country following the momentous political changes in the former Soviet state, Reuters reported.
"Ukraine is waiting for real concrete steps in response to these democratic and political processes that are occurring in Ukraine," Yushchenko told the Financial Times in an interview published on Saturday.
"We are awaiting analogous steps from the European Union," he added.
Yushchenko suggested to the paper a four-point plan for EU membership, under which Ukraine would be acknowledged as a market economy, join the World Trade Organisation, become an associate member of the EU, and finally a full member.
The EU has so far rejected Ukraine's proposal to set membership even as a long-term goal, the paper said.
Yushchenko predicted on Friday he would score 60 percent in a re-run of a rigged presidential poll due on December 26 against Prime Minister Victor Yanukovich, who is backed by outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and neighboring Russia.
Ukraine's Supreme Court annulled last month's poll run-off in which Yanukovich was declared winner amid huge street protests by Yuschenko's supporters.
"In these 17 days we have shown we are a different country, a different people," Yushchenko told the paper.

Taiwan's opposition leader Lien Chan casts his vote for the parliamentary elections in Taipei, December 11. (AFP Photo)

TAIPEI, Taiwan, Dec. 11--Millions of Taiwanese went to the polls Saturday to choose a new parliament in an election seen as a referendum on future relations with arch-rival China, AFP said.
A pro-independence coalition led by President Chen Shui-bian is trying to wrest control of the legislature from a coalition which favors warmer ties with the mainland.
The 13,930 polling stations across the island closed at 4:00 pm and vote-counting began immediately under tight security.
Final results will be announced before 9:00 pm.
Chen, who heads the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), voted at a Taipei primary school, accompanied by his wheelchair-bound wife Wu Shu-chen.
"I ask our voters to rewrite history with their ballots," he told reporters outside the polling station, which was heavily guarded amid reported bomb threats by anti-independence activists.
Chen wants a parliamentary majority to help him push for a new constitution to be adopted in 2008 after a referendum set for 2006.
China sees a new constitution as tantamount to an independence declaration by the island which it claims as its territory, despite their split in 1949.
China has repeatedly threatened to invade if Taiwan makes formal moves to break away and has pointed more than 600 missiles at the island.
Chen says he will not push for formal independence. But at campaign rallies he urged voters to hand his Pan Green alliance a milestone victory to "write a new chapter in history."
The Pan Green alliance, which includes Chen's DPP and the ultra pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union, has 100 seats in the 225-member parliament.

DUBAI, UAE, Dec. 11--Al-Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia have been weakened by a government crackdown but remain determined to attack US targets whatever the cost, Reuters quoted US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage as saying.
"We are aware that our enemy is determined to attack us and they do not care about their lives but want to inflict the most damage on others...They are bloodthirsty," Armitage told Arabic satellite television Al Arabiya in comments aired on Saturday.
Al-Qaeda gunmen stormed the US consulate in Jeddah on Monday, killing five people and briefly taking hostages before Saudi security forces retook the complex and killed four of the five militants.
Saudi officials say they have broken the back of a deadly 19-month Al-Qaeda campaign against foreigners and government targets in the world's biggest oil exporter. Armitage praised Saudi Arabia's response but said it must remain vigilant.
"I think (Al-Qaeda) are becoming weaker but are still active and our friends the Saudis are aware of that and so are we," said Armitage, whose comments were dubbed from English into Arabic. "We have to be more cautious at all times and we cannot let up for a single moment."
More than 170 people, including militants, civilians and security forces, have been killed in Saudi Arabia since May last year when Al-Qaeda suicide bombers hit three expatriate residential compounds in the capital Riyadh.
Security forces responded with a nationwide crackdown, killing or arresting 17 out of 26 of the kingdom's most wanted suspects.

BRAZZAVILLE, Congo Republic, Dec. 11--A human rights organization in the Congo Republic has denounced "the systematic practice of torture" in the central African country, AFP reported.
"Testimonies we have gathered support the thesis that torture is almost systematic throughout Congo," the Congolese Federation of Human Rights (FECODHO) said in a report issued late Friday.
The report, compiled after six months of investigations, accuses security forces of openly torturing people to extract confessions from them.
FECODHO said it spoke to around 100 people who said they had been victims of torture at police stations, but only seven witness statements are published in the report, all illustrated by graphic photographs.
"Torture becomes even more serious when, added to it, you have denials from the legal system, which rejects the right to reparations and allows the guilty to go unpunished," said the report.
FECODHO, which is an umbrella group for 12 human rights organizations, calls in the report for the Congolese government to take steps to end torture, to compensate victims of torture and to train police to prevent it and other forms of cruelty.

DUBAI, UAE, Dec. 11--Leading Arab and world figures, including former US president Bill Clinton, gather here next week to chart a vision of the Arab world's future, AFP quoted organizers as saying Saturday.
The three-day Arab Strategy Forum, convening Monday under the theme "The Arab World in 2020," will look into the challenges and opportunities facing the region, which sits on huge oil reserves and is the home of major hotspots.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari will be the keynote speaker at a session that will focus on his war-torn country.
Former US Central Command chief General Tommy Franks and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEI) director Mohamed ElBaradei will be among speakers on security issues, according to the program released by the organizers.
Saudi Arabia's ambassador in London Prince Turki Al-Faisal, whose country is battling Islamist radicals, will address the fight against terrorism, while prominent Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi will take part in the debate on political reform.
Sessions devoted to economic growth and reform and human development will be joined by ex-Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri and Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, while a number of Persian Gulf oil ministers will attend a debate on "the future of oil and gas."
The gathering will be opened by Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed Al-Maktoum, the driving force behind the transformation of Dubai, part of the seven-member United Arab Emirates federation, into a regional business and leisure hub.
Meanwhile, top officials from North African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries gathered in the Moroccan capital of Rabat on Saturday to hear US proposals for democratization of the Middle East.
As the meeting opened, US Secretary of State Colin Powell told participants that change could only come from within, but he stressed the link between democracy and economic evelopment.