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"We could never dream of being included in a presidential council," says Kirill Kabanov, head of the privately run National Anti-Corruption Committee. "President Medvedev not only listens to us, but he makes decisions based on the reports we prepare for him."

Others aren't so sure. Opinions were particularly divided last week, when a Moscow court unexpectedly ordered the early release of Svetlana Bakhmina, a mother of three and former lawyer for Khodorkovsky's Yukos oil company, after five years in prison on charges of tax evasion.

Medvedev has always insisted that the courts are kept entirely free from political interference, but no one takes that assertion seriously. "Nothing in our country happens without confirmation from above, especially on something as political as the Yukos case," says Sorokina.

Some saw last week's ruling as evidence that Medvedev was finally making good on his promises of reform. Bakhmina's defenders have always argued that she's only a victim of the campaign against Khodorkovsky. But others, pointing out that the state's attorneys endorsed her release, suggest that she may have agreed to testify against her old boss, whose trial on new charges is currently in progress.

Nevertheless, there's a change in the air. The first sign of it came early this year, when the president blocked a draconian treason law, drafted under Putin, that would have criminalized many forms of dissent. Medvedev's decision followed the issuance of a report slamming the bill as a license for political repression.

Elena Lukyanova, one of the legal experts who authored the report, says the legislation was meant to benefit the siloviki—the hardline nationalist faction of Putin's inner circle.

In addition to giving the Democrats their strongest Senate majority since 1979, Specter's move greatly increases his chances of winning re-election next year to his sixth term. Specter faced an extraordinarily tough primary challenge from former Congressman Pat Toomey, a conservative whom he narrowly defeated in the 2004 primary.

Ten techniques are approved, listed as: attention grasp, walling (in which the suspect could be pushed into a wall), a facial hold, a facial slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, sleep deprivation, insects placed in a confinement box (the suspect had a fear of insects) and the waterboard. In the latter, "the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The individual's feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner........produces the perception of 'suffocation and incipient panic'."

'Walling' involved use of a plastic neck collar to slam suspects into a specially-built wall that the CIA said made the impact sound worse than it actually was. Other methods include food deprivation.

The Bush administration, in particular former vice-president Dick Cheney, claimed that waterboarding did not amount to torture but the Obama adminstration has ruled that it is. Obama ordered the closure of Guantánamo and the CIA secret detention sites abroad.

Spanish human rights lawyers last month asked Judge Baltasar Garzón, who indicted the former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet in 1998, to consider filing charges against the former US attorney-general, Alberto Gonzales, and five others.

civil rights organisations have been disappointed by a series of rulings by the Obama administration that have protected a lot of material relating to Guantánamo and the sites abroad. The release of the memos today reversed that trend, though there will be unhappiness over the immunity from prosecution.

Echoing the president, the attorney-general, Eric Holder, reiterated that there would be no prosecution of CIA operatives working within the guidelines set by the Bush administration."It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the justice department," Holder said.

The director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, told CIA employees that "this is not the end of the road on these issues", apparently in expectation of Congressional inquiries and court actions abroad. He promised legal and financial help for any CIA employees who faced such action.

In Spain, the chances of court action against six senior Bush administration members over the torture receded today after a ruling by the attorney-general, Candido Conde-Pumpido.He said that any such action should be heard in a US court rather than a Spanish one, and that he would not allow Spain's legal system to be used as a plaything for political ends.

In the first of the memos, dated 1 August 2002, the justice department gave the go-ahead to John Rizzo, then acting general counsel to the CIA, for operatives to move to the "increased pressure phase" in interrogating an al-Qaida suspect.

Obama, in a statement from the White House, said: "In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carrying out their duties relying in good faith upon the legal advice from the department of justice that they will not be subject to prosecution."

"All this crossfire shows what I really stand for is our own national interest," she says. Then she is quick to add: "The Russians worry that we are trying to privatize our pipelines by stealth, but that's not the case and would be illegal. We have to reassure them on that."

"There is no doubt we want to join the EU. At least 60 percent of our public opinion favors this option, and we are now closer to this goal than, say, one year ago. This policy must be the essence of all our actions," she says. But, she warns, it cannot succeed by confronting Moscow or ignoring its concerns.

Despite the ongoing infighting that marks Iranian politics, a key point for Westerners to bear in mind is that all factions in "mainstream" Iranian politics support the idea that Iran should have the fuel cycle and a nuclear "option."

U.S. negotiators should be under no illusions. The idea that Iran should have some form of fuel cycle commands broad consensus within its current political system. The reasons why have as much or more to do with a very hardheaded analysis of Iran's security needs as with any ideological questions. It is not a matter of waiting for the present political order to throw up a leader who sees differently. That is not going to happen.

Those on both sides who seek to make the nuclear question the only issue, and who frame it in absolute terms and argue that it must be addressed before anything else can be considered, are not serious. This need to address other matters, even as the nuclear question is discussed, may have the effect of playing into Iran's hands as to the timing of its nuclear program, but it is a reality anyway.

And, finally, U.S. officials must realize that real dialogue, improved relations, and broader rapprochement mean more to Iran's elite than a simple thawing of relations. For Iranian hard-liners, all this heralds the end of a central tenet of the revolution -- that Iran must guard against contamination by, and collaboration with, the decadent West, and especially the United States. The Iranian people want a new relationship with the West. They are tired of being isolated. But in many ways, discussions between Tehran and Washington will be more of a watershed for their leaders than they will be for us.

Leading calls against the wall has been Argentina's President, Cristina Kirchner, who last week told the mayor of San Fernando, Osvaldo Amieiro, that she was "astonished" at the proposal, describing it in terms that suggested social apartheid.

The controversy has emerged at a sensitive time. With legislative elections due in June, crime has emerged as one of the biggest issues, not least in the urban belt surrounding the capital, which has one of the highest rates of crime in the country. The crime rate in Argentina has nearly doubled in the past two decades

Argentina has announced a decline in the numbers living in poverty, but this was met with much scepticism by independent analysts in a country where inflation is running at up to 25%.

Argentina has also been hit hard by the economic downturn, with industrial output falling by 12.2% in February.

Doctors working in the no-fire zone say that over the past week they have treated hundreds of civilians, accusing the Sri Lankan government of shelling the zone; one claimed that about 50 civilians are dying every day. The government denies these charges and there is no way of proving the claims because independent media are barred from entering the area.

Others among the 22 female inmates held behind barbed wire confirmed that they had received orders from the LTTE to use hand grenades to commit suicide rather than be taken alive. The instruction was simple: hold the grenade against your head or stomach and detonate it.

What appears to have turned some former supporters against the LTTE was its decision in 2007 to start conscripting fighters to fill their depleted ranks. Niraiesai, 26, says she was given no choice but to fight. She had just finished teacher training when the Tigers turned up at her home in 2007. Every family had to send one member to fight, they were told. "Many people didn't like it, but they compelled us so we had to join."

Niraiesai was held in a military camp for two months, then sent to Ambepusse. She says the Tigers stole her youth. "For 25 years, we were ruled by the LTTE and we believed them. But after 2007 people hated them because they compelled the children to fight. We were brainwashed that the Sinhalese were bad and we believed them," she says. "But now I think we can live together."

The protest leaders, who head more than a dozen opposition parties, have long shunned talks. But on Friday they said they were willing to talk to the president, if certain conditions were met.

No talks have been scheduled, but European Union special representative Peter Semneby said he was in touch with both sides to help bring them together. "It's in the air that this could happen," he told The Associated Press.

The protesters are most angry with Saakashvili over his handling of the brief war last summer with Russia. The Georgian army fled ahead of invading Russian troops, and the country lost territory as separatists and their Russian allies took full control of two breakaway Georgian regions.

The protesters also accuse the president of concentrating power in his hands and embarrassing his countrymen by his erratic behavior.

Many Georgians still support Saakashvili, who has overseen significant economic growth, although he faces criticism for not doing enough to help the poor and create jobs.

The crowds have steadily diminished since the protests began on Thursday, when tens of thousands of protesters packed the capital's central avenue.About 10,000 people protested Saturday

Both the opposition and the government have expressed a commitment for the protests to take place peacefully. Police have not intervened, even when protesters have blocked traffic.Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said Friday that police would not disperse the protests no matter how long they continued. "But it's already over," he told the AP.

Berlin's city government has banned sausage sellers and souvenir stalls from the area, hoping to preserve the decorum of a site that symbolizes the nation's history of division and unification like few others. But there's not much it can do about street performers, who don't require official permits to pose for tourists.

This morningelection officials in Moldova began a recount of votes, which was ordered by President Vladimir Voronin following the protests. The results of the recount will be announced on Friday.

"Not only did we underestimate the power of Twitter and the internet, we also underestimated the explosive anger among young people at the government's policies and electoral fraud," said Morar.

The demonstrations continued into Tuesday peacefully. But later that day, with no response from the government, protesters swept police aside to storm the parliament building and the towering presidential palace opposite. Fire broke out in one wing of the parliament, and the young protesters vented their fury by wrecking computers and office furniture.

Moldova, with a population of 4 million, is Europe's poorest country, and a large number of young people are forced to find work in the west.

She does not believe the current vendetta against her is purely the work of the Moldovan authorities, but sees the Kremlin's hand in it as well: "It was when Russia expressed strong support for Moldova's position on the elections, and condemned the protests, that they started targeting us."

Morar was expelled from Russia in 2007 after writing a series of articles accusing top Kremlin officials, including Alexander Bortnikov, the current head of the Russian security services, the FSB, of being behind the murder of Russia's central bank deputy head Andrey Kozlov in September 2006.

Moldova’s main opposition leaders announced Tuesday that they would not participate in a vote recount in disputed parliamentary elections, and the president of Romania angrily rejected accusations that Romanian agents were behind huge anti-Communist rallies last week.

“We will not allow Romanians to be blamed simply because they are Romanians,” President Traian Basescu of Romania said in an address to Parliament in Bucharest that was posted on his Web site. “We will not allow Romania to be accused of attempting to destabilize the Republic of Moldova. We will not allow Romanians who live across the Prut to be humiliated simply because they believe in an open society.”

Communists made a better-than-expected showing in parliamentary elections held April 5, leading to youth demonstrations that turned violent. President Vladimir Voronin of Moldova immediately cut diplomatic ties with Romania, saying its secret services had staged the events in an attempt to topple his government.

Mr. Voronin ordered a recount of votes last Friday. But Vlad Filat of the Liberal Democratic Party said at a news conference that he would insist that the elections be invalidated and held again, Interfax reported. Mr. Filat said voter lists had included the names of long-dead people, minors and longtime expatriates.

What Moldovans think about Romania and Russia depends entirely on whom you ask, even among the 76 percent of the population that, according to the 2004 census, identify themselves as ethnically Moldovan.

Moldova is the poorest country in Europe, with remittances from workers abroad making up 36.5 percent of its gross domestic product, according to the World Bank

Vasile Botnaru, a journalist, has a different perspective. He was 13 when he stumbled across Romanian books in his father’s attic and realized, to his astonishment, that the language was so close to Moldovan that he could read it without a dictionary. Everything he had learned in Soviet schools — that Moldovans were ethnically and linguistically distinct from Romanians — was wrong, he said.

As the Soviet Union entered its final years, a movement to reconcile the two countries burst into the mainstream. Moldova’s Parliament switched to the Roman alphabet, and Romanian replaced Russian as the state language. Clocks changed from Moscow to Bucharest time, and the government introduced a new flag virtually identical to Romania’s.

Unification with Romania became a high-profile political cause. Its splashy figurehead, Iurie Rosca, spoke beside huge maps of a “greater Romania” that included most of Moldova.

But the notion was anathema to Russian-speaking Moldovans, the Soviet-era elites who made up about a quarter of the population. And in 2001, after a decade of unruly capitalism had left the country bankrupt, there was a swing back to the old order. Voters elected the Communist government of Mr. Voronin, who promised to restore the Soviet-era safety net and join a union with Russia and Belarus.

"The Moscow authorities are afraid of spontaneous mass protests in the regions … and, for this reason, Russian television is showing what is happening in an exclusively negative light," Dmitry Oreshkin, a Moscow-based political analyst, told Reuters. "It is beneficial for the Kremlin to show the consequences of peoples' protests to justify why it needs to be tough."

some of the anti-Communist opposition parties in Moldova want to join the EU, if possible by reunifying with Romania. The two nations were unified for a while before World War II, and about two-thirds of Moldovans claim Romanian descent. Reunification was a campaign issue in Sunday's election.

"If Romanians and Moldovans decide in favor of a union," one European diplomat said in last week's run-up to the vote, "the EU will not oppose them."

However, the Communist (and anti-Romanian) influence also has passionate defenders in Moldova, since Romanian troops allied with Nazis had a cruel record in Moldova during World War II. Russia is seen as a protective big brother against the Romanian influence in parts of Moldova -- especially Transnistria, a breakaway region with many Russian speakers and its own, but still internationally unrecognized, president.

Russian troops have kept the peace in Transnistria since 1992, and Russian support for the region has been compared to Russian support for breakaway regions in Georgia and Ukraine.

a large protest in the capital was brewing on Friday -- organized on a Twitter stream tagged #pman, which stands for the initials of Chisinau's biggest square-- with protesters claiming the government would use the threat of a Romanian coup as a reason to arrest people illegally.

The violence on Tuesday was a setback for the protesters' cause even within Moldova's anti-Communist community, and some experts wondered if it wasn't orchestrated.

"The protests were initially very peaceful, but then a small group, which seemed to be very well-organized, started these violent riots," Igor Munteanu, who runs a think tank in Chisinau called Viitorul, told Britain's Independent newspaper. "My suspicion is that this was provoked and directed from within. Elements of the Communist leadership do not want closer relations with the EU, as it will mean loosening their grip on power. They know that if they provoke a crisis with Romania and the EU, and improve relations with Moscow, they will be able to continue running the country as they please."

Some Russian analysts on Wednesday were blaming President Barack Obama for the Moldovan unrest, saying American's interest is to hem in Russia.

SPIEGEL: You are referring to India, Germany, South Africa? Should Iran also be a permanent member of the Security Council? Ahmadinejad: If things were done fairly in the world, Iran would also have to be a member of the Security Council. We do not accept the notion that a handful of countries see themselves as the masters of the world.

Does this mean that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, can save themselves the trouble of holding talks with Iran? Will uranium enrichment not be discontinued under any circumstances? Ahmadinejad: I believe that they already reached this conclusion in Vienna. Why did we become a member of the IAEA? It was so that we could use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. When a country becomes a member of an international organization, must it only do its homework or is it also entitled to rights? What assistance have we received from the IAEA? Did it provide us with any know-how or knowledge? No. But according to its statutes, it would have been required to do so. Instead, it simply executed instructions coming from America.

We say: We are willing to cooperate under fair conditions. The same conditions, and on a level playing field.

Ahmadinejad: I do not believe that the European countries would have been as indulgent if only one-hundredth of the crimes that the Zionist regime has committed in Gaza had happened somewhere in Europe. Why on earth do the European governments support this regime?

The second observation concerns the warmongers and Zionists … SPIEGEL: … your eternal enemy of convenience … Ahmadinejad: …whose existence thrives on tension and who have become rich through war.

Palestinians should be allowed to decide their own future in a free referendum.

the unnatural Zionist state

Do you believe that the German people support the Zionist regime? Do you believe that a referendum could be held in Germany on this question? If you did allow such a referendum to take place, you would discover that the German people hate the Zionist regime.

We have no interest in building a nuclear weapon.

Ahmadinejad: Allow me to set things straight, both legally and politically. At least 10 members of the UN Security Council… SPIEGEL: …which includes, in addition to the permanent members, US, Russia, Great Britain, France and China, 10 elected representatives based on a rotating principle… Ahmadinejad: …have told us that they only voted against us under American and British pressure. Many have said so in this very room. What value is there to consent under pressure? We consider this to be legally irrelevant. Politically speaking, we believe that this is not the way to run the world. All peoples must be respected, and they must all be granted the same rights.

I agree that our reputation with the American government and some European governments is not positive. But that's their problem. All peoples are fed up with the American government.

The Afghan government should have been given more responsibility in the last seven years. President Hamid Karzai said to me once: They don't allow us to do our work.

Are you seriously insisting on an American withdrawal from the region? Ahmadinejad: One has to have a plan, of course. A withdrawal can only be one of several measures. It must be accompanied by other, simultaneous actions, such as strengthening regional government. Do you know that narcotics production has grown fivefold under the NATO command in Afghanistan?

We have lost more than 3,300 people in the fight against drug smuggling. Our police force made these sacrifices while guarding our 1,000-kilometer border with Afghanistan.

Ahmadinejad: Look, more than $250 billion (€190 billion) has been spent on the military campaign in Afghanistan to date. With a population of 30 million, that comes to more than $8,000 a person, or close to $42,000 for an average family of five. Factories and roads could have been built, universities established and fields cultivated for the Afghan people. If that had happened, would there have been any room left for terrorists? One has to address the root of the problem, not proceed against its branches. The solution for Afghanistan is not military, but humanitarian.

Naturally, we cannot expect to see problems that have arisen over more than half a century resolved in only a few days. We are neither obstinate nor gullible. We are realists. The important thing is the determination to bring about improvements. If you change the atmosphere, solutions can be found.

the Afghan people have close historical ties to Iran. More than 3 million Afghan citizens live in our country

Ahmadinejad: We believe that the Iraqi people are capable of providing for their own security. The Iraqi people have a civilization that goes back more than 1,000 years. We will support whatever the Iraqis decide to do and which form of government they choose. A sovereign, united and strong Iraq is beneficial for everyone. We would welcome that.

Ahmadinejad: We pay no attention to the reports of American intelligence services.

The statement was the country's first reaction to the security council's unanimous condemnation yesterday of the 5 April launch, which Pyongyang says sent a satellite into space but the US and others say tested long-range missile technology.

The statement also said that the North "will never participate in the six-party talks" because other members "publicly denied" the spirit of the negotiations – which it said were respect of mutual equality and sovereignty - in the name of the UN security council.

The North said it will not be bound by any agreement signed under the talks and will restore nuclear facilities it has been disabling and will resume operating them.

Under a 2007 six-party deal, North Korea agreed to disable its main nuclear complex – a step toward its ultimate dismantlement – in return for 1 million tons of fuel oil and other concessions.

North Korea also said it will "actively consider" building a nuclear light-water reactor and reprocess spent fuel rods at a pilot atomic power plant.

Iran has so far reacted cautiously to U.S. overtures since Obama took office in January, saying it wants to see a real shift in Washington's policies rather than a change in words. Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday Iran sought "interaction and negotiation based on honor, justice and respect."

Analysts say Iran may be setting tough conditions for dialogue in a bid to buy time. Adding to uncertainty, it holds a presidential vote in June in which Ahmadinejad faces a challenge from a moderate politician seeking detente with the West.

One Iranian analyst said he expected Ahmadinejad to say in Isfahan, where Iran has a uranium conversion facility, that it has perfected the last of several phases of fuel output, with the production of uranium pellets and fuel rods for reactors.

According to official results, the party took about 49.9% of the votes, but opposition leaders dismissed the result as fraudulent and have demanded a rerun.

Despite some economic progress under the communists, who have been in power since 2001, Moldova remains the poorest country in Europe. About 600,000 Moldovans have left to find work in EU countries.

Moldova's provinces largely support the pro-Russian communists, but the capital favours the more western-leaning opposition.

Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said: "Moldova's violent 'Twitter revolution' is totally different from the peaceful protest of Ukraine's Orange revolution."This time, the crowd are not angry at a stolen election, but at the growing corruption of the ruling Communist party, its recent turn towards Russia and an imminent economic crisis."

Russian analysts, however, suggested that the protests were unjustified because western observers had confirmed that the communists were legitimate winners of the election and had certified the poll as fair."This is an active attempt by a small minority to take power," Vladimir Zharikhin, the deputy director of the Moscow Institute for the Study of Post-Soviet Countries, said.