MOSCOW, March 12--Moscow on Saturday warned the United States and the European Union against any attempt to pass a resolution on Chechnya at the annual session of the UN Human Rights Commission, which opens next week, AFP quoted Interfax news agency as saying.
"It is clear to everyone that the situation in the northern Caucasus is constantly improving ... and that under these circumstances, presenting a resolution on Chechnya would be tantamount to telling Russia that it is wrong to pursue a political process in the northern Caucasus," Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov told Interfax in an interview.
"Any such move on the part of the EU could not be more out of place or more inopportune," he emphasized.
The Human Rights Commission is due to hold its 61st session from Monday to April 22 in Geneva.
Moscow on Tuesday presented the killing of the Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov as a major victory in its fight against terrorism in the breakaway province.
But non-governmental organizations have deplored the massive human rights violations committed in Chechnya in Moscow's bid to "normalize" the rebel republic.
Moscow was condemned for the first time in February by the European Court of Human Rights for violating the rights of six Chechens during military operations in Chechnya between October 1999 and February 2000.
More than five years after pouring in its troops in October 1999 to restore control, Russia remains bogged down in a bloody guerrilla war despite setting up a pro-Moscow local administration.

Mica Stanisic

THE HAGUE, Netherlands, March 12--Former Bosnian Serb interior minister Mica Stanisic surrendered Friday to the UN tribunal to face war crimes charges and is being held at a detention center in the Hague, AFP quoted the court as saying.
Stanisic, 50, left Belgrade on a government plane accompanied by Darko Matijasevic, interior minister for Republika Srpska, the Serbian part of the new Bosnian federation, and Zoran Loncar, a member of the Serbia-Montenegro council for cooperation with the war crimes court.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said Stanisic would face 10 indictments for crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed when he was interior minister--during the opening phases of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, which cost some 200,000 lives.
The indictment said he was responsible for moves to "permanently remove and ethnically cleanse, by force or other means, Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Croats and other non-Serbs from the territory of the planned Serbian state."
Stanisic was the interior minister of the Bosnian Serb government from April 1992 until January 1993. The ICTY said the accusations include responsibility for crimes committed by his subordinates.
After the war he moved to the neighboring former Yugoslav republic of Serbia where he set up two businesses outside Belgrade.
In an interview with the Bosnian Serb SRNA news agency Thursday, Stanisic said he was innocent of the charges and was looking forward to his day in court.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan,
March 12--The mountainous former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan holds run-off parliamentary polls on Sunday amid a spate of protests in opposition strongholds against President Askar Akayev's rule, AFP reported.
Around 1.4 million people are due to vote for 41 of the 75 seats in Kyrgyzstan's single-chamber parliament that were not won outright at the February 27 first round, AFP reported.
Observers say the process--already heavily criticized by Western observers--has been rigged to secure the new parliament's loyalty ahead of October 30 elections at which Akayev, 60, has vowed to stand down.
Among those standing in the second round is Akayev's daughter Bermet, whose brother Aidar clinched a seat in the first round, fuelling claims that the previously somewhat independent parliament is being fashioned to protect the current first family.
With several figures of questionable loyalty already disqualified in the first round, the authorities are putting the finishing touches to a race that leaves little for voters to decide, critics say.
Ahead of Sunday's polls an opposition candidate in the remote Naryn region was disqualified for starting his run-off campaign too early, in what observers said was probably the first in a series of such rulings leading up to polling day.
"The election will be free, but without any opposition," an observer in the capital Bishkek said.
But while there has been little sign in Bishkek of the Ukraine-style popular uprising that some opposition figures have hoped for, the government has not had things all its own way.
The first round was marked by angry exchanges between the government and US officials keen to show democratic gains in Central Asia to accompany Washington's basing of airforce units in both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Since then government warnings against attempts to foment unrest have focused on southern Kyrgyzstan, a distinctive region bordering Uzbekistan that for centuries was part of the Silk Road trading route between Europe and Asia.
Opposition there is sharpened by claims that Akayev has pandered to the Uzbek minority following Kyrgyz-Uzbek clashes in the Soviet Union's last months that left hundreds dead.

An Afghan woman wearing a burqa carries her young girl in Kabul July 24. (Reuters File Photo)

KABUL, Afghanistan,
March 12--A human rights group Saturday urged Afghanistan to tackle the rampant abuse of power by warlords and militias who are allegedly involved in the widespread rape of women and children, AFP said.
US-based Human Rights Watch said the Afghan government, the United Nations and NATO member states had not done enough to check the power of local strongmen who hold sway outside the capital Kabul.
"Warlords and their troops in many areas have been implicated in widespread rape of women and children, murder, illegal detention, forced displacement, human trafficking and forced marriage," the rights group said ahead of a meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva next week.
"Local military and police forces, even in Kabul, have been involved in arbitrary arrests, kidnapping, extortion, torture, and extrajudicial killings of criminal suspects," it added.
Key to tackling the problem and bringing abusers to book is disarming illegal militias and establishing a functioning judiciary and police force, the group said.
"Warlords and armed factions, including remaining Taliban forces, dominate most of the country and routinely abuse human rights, particularly the rights of women and girls," it added.
The New York-based group said that the "international community has failed to contribute sufficient troops or resources to adequately address the situation, and basic human rights conditions remain poor in many parts of the country, especially outside of Kabul," it added.
Steps had been taken to tackle the power of warlords by removing Ismael Khan as governor of Herat and by dismissing powerful former defense minister Marshal Mohammed Qasim Fahim, but more needed to be done, Human Rights Watch said.
Women had also made progress with widespread participation in the country's first presidential election in October but the country was still threatened by the power of drug kingpins.
"Afghanistan was the largest worldwide producer of opium and heroin in 2004 and drug profits led to continuing insecurity in rural areas, and stifled reconstruction and development efforts, including efforts to improve rule of law," the group said.

KUWAIT CITY,
March 12--Proposals to enfranchise Kuwaiti women and lower the voting age to 18 would triple the number of voters, AFP quoted an independent think tank as saying Saturday as an opinion poll showed 51 percent of Kuwaitis back women's rights.
Giving women the vote would increase the percentage of eligible voters from the current 15 percent to 38.9 percent out of a native population of 956,000, Al-Shall Economic Consultants said in its weekly report.
The number of Kuwaiti women over 21 years of age was 228,000 by the end of last year, representing 23.9 percent of the population.
Women in this category outnumber their male counterparts by 26,000.
According to the figures, Kuwaiti men over 21 years numbered 202,000 by the end of last year but only 143,000 of them, or 15 percent of the population, are eligible voters because servicemen are not allowed to vote.
Al-Shall said that if the voting age is lowered to 18, the number of eligible voters will increase by an additional 6.2 percent and total eligible voters in the emirate will constitute 45 percent of the population.
The percentage will rise to slightly more than 50 percent if servicemen in the army and the police force are allowed to vote.
Meanwhile, a government-sponsored opinion poll conducted recently showed that 51 percent of Kuwaitis support full political rights for women and only 29 percent oppose them, Al-Qabas newspaper reported.
The poll surveyed a random sample of 2,000 Kuwaitis--both men and women--and was conducted in cooperation with Kuwait University. It showed that 71 percent of the sample favor giving women only the right to vote, but not to run for office.
MPs agreed Monday to a government request to ask parliament's interior and defense committee to speed up discussing a bill that would grant women full political rights, as hundreds of women activists demonstrated outside the house.

DUBAI, UAE,
March 12--Al-Qaeda Organization in Iraq has slammed as a gathering of infidels an international conference to mark the first anniversary of the Madrid train bombings, and said Islam will prevail, Reuters reported.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the three-day conference in the Spanish capital on Thursday the world must quickly take concerted action against terrorism and deny extremists the chance to carry out a nuclear attack.
"How many times do the infidels meet in solidarity against Islam and jihad (holy struggle) ... and stand in the same trench with one thing on their minds; to fight Muslims and abuse them," the group said in a statement posted on a Web site used by Islamists on Saturday.
The group is behind some of the deadliest attacks in Iraq, including suicide bombings and the kidnapping and beheading of foreign hostages.
Around 20 heads of government, including Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, attended the conference organized to mark the anniversary of the March 11, 2004 attacks by Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda group that killed 191 people.
Annan called on UN members to put aside wrangling over the definition of terrorism that has for years obstructed agreement on an anti-terrorism treaty.
US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the conference that the fight against terrorism was being won "by nations that cherish freedom and democracy coming together to defend and project these values".
Al-Qaeda's branch in Iraq said the group was obliged to "terrorize the enemies of God" in a relentless struggle and that it was certain of victory.

KIEV, Ukraine, March 12--Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said she opposed changes to the constitution that will limit the responsibilities of President Viktor Yushchenko and make her post more powerful, Reuters said.
Tymoshenko, interviewed by Reuters late on Friday, said she remained ardently against the changes approved by parliament in December in a deal that allowed a re-run of rigged elections, despite standing to gain personally if she keeps her job.
"The fact is these reforms were done in an absolutely incoherent fashion and have nothing to do with what might be called a parliamentary republic," Tymoshenko said.
She has previously said she would challenge the changes in the Constitutional Court. She gave no indication she would follow her threat through, saying she would wait for Yushchenko's instructions.
Yushchenko has given no indication he wants to revisit the deal he made with another party to back him in exchange for the constitutional changes. Most of his supporters voiced no objections and reviewing the deal would spark uproar.