At the time Turkey took the incident as national humiliation. In this film the fictional hero sets out for revenge.

From then on, the action pits good Turks against very bad Americans, in a mix of fact and fiction with a deeply nationalistic flavour.

US violence

In one scene, trigger-happy US troops massacre civilians at a wedding party.

In another they firebomb a mosque during evening prayer. There are multiple summary executions.

And for the first time, the real-life abuses by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison are played out on the big screen.

Even the doctor - played by Gary Busey - is evil, removing human organs from Iraqi prisoners to send to patients in the US, Israel and Britain.

"Our film's a sort of political action," explains script-writer Bahadir Ozdener at the production company's stylish office on the Asian side of Istanbul.

"Maybe 60 or 70% of what happens on screen is factually true. Turkey and America are allies, but Turkey wants to say something to its friend. We want to say the bitter truth. We want to say that this is wrong."

In a mainly Muslim country that has enjoyed a long strategic partnership with the US, Valley of the Wolves has sparked intense interest.

The US ambassador to Ankara was quizzed for his reaction to the film on a major news channel; even Turkey's foreign minister has felt moved to comment on it. Both were anxious to appear conciliatory.

But the film clearly capitalises on a wave of anti-American feeling that peaked with the Sulaymaniyah controversy, but began to swell with preparation for the invasion of Iraq.

Middle East expert Cengiz Candar says the incident in Sulaymaniyah added deep insult to injury in Turkey, where there was already strong opposition to the war across the border.

Fears of nationalism

Cengiz Candar feels relations had started to improve. Now he fears Valley of the Wolves will reignite the embers, with all its talk of defending Turkish honour and pride.

"This film poisons the climate in a way that enhances jingoistic nationalism among Turks," Cengiz complains.

"It's pushing society to be inward-looking and hostile to our allies and would-be allies. This kind of mentality will do no good for Turkey."

Part of the pull for the crowds flocking to cinemas here is certainly the Turkish actors involved.

The film is a spin-off from a cult TV series from the same producers.

That show pitted the all-action hero Polat against the Turkish mafia. But in changing the enemy and the location, the team behind the film appear to have judged the public mood well.

Back at the multiplex there was an all-round vote of approval from the audience for the movie, and general disapproval for the US.

"Everything we've been hearing on the news about Iraq is in this film," one woman says as she emerges from the auditorium.

"We condemn this war and will continue to condemn it. But I don't see America as our fundamental enemy," she adds.

"I'm really upset after this, really upset," an older man says, as rushes away.

"If I see an American when I get out of here I feel like taking a hood and putting it over their head."

The film is due for release in Europe soon. Then it is off to the US.

Brazilians, who have long nurtured hopes of becoming a world superpower, are reacting with pride to the new facility in Resende, about 70 miles from Rio de Janeiro.

Other countries enriching uranium on an industrial scale are the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, China and Japan.

The plant initially will produce 60 percent of the nuclear fuel used by the country's two nuclear reactors. A third reactor is in the planning stages. The government hopes to increase production eventually to meet all of the reactors' needs and still have enough to export, Brazilian officials said.

"We want to build new power plants and grow our enrichment program to be self-sufficient," said Odair Dias Goncalves, the president of Brazil's National Nuclear Energy Commission. "In the whole world, there's a big reinvestment in this area. Countries are turning back to nuclear energy."

The Resende plant's inauguration had been set for Jan. 20, but was delayed because construction wasn't completed, Dias Goncalves said. The plant may begin uranium enrichment without the hoopla later this month, officials said.

Unlike Iran, Brazil is considered a good global citizen that isn't seeking nuclear weapons, although its military ran a secret program to develop a nuclear weapon as recently as the early 1990s.

Still, some U.S. observers fear Brazil's program will encourage more countries to make nuclear fuel, raising the danger of nuclear weapons proliferation.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, earlier this month reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council for failing for three years to disclose all aspects of its nuclear program to agency inspectors. Iran responded by restricting IAEA inspections, a move that stymies efforts to determine whether it's producing fuel for power plants or developing nuclear weapons.

Brazil's nuclear fuel needs, more than 120 tons of enriched uranium a year, don't warrant the country launching an industrial facility like Resende, especially with global supplies of the material running high, said Lawrence Scheinman, a former U.S. arms control official.

"There really isn't much justification for new enrichment facilities unless countries have a very substantial number of reactors to be serviced and don't want to depend on outside suppliers," he said. "Neither Brazil nor Iran are in those positions."

Despite the criticisms, Brazil's program hasn't drawn the outcry that Iran's nuclear plans have. Disagreements between the IAEA and Brazilian officials in 2004 over access to the Resende facility were resolved within months.

Like Iran, Brazil has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the global agreement to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. All of Brazil's 20 facilities using nuclear material are under IAEA safeguards.

Brazilian officials have worked closely with the IAEA throughout Resende's planning and construction, Dias Goncalves said. IAEA inspectors have visited the facility 32 times.

Iranian officials, on the other hand, hid their uranium enrichment work for 18 years and obtained much of their technology from a Pakistani-led smuggling ring. Iran's leaders also have called for the destruction of Israel and are known sponsors of terrorism.

"There is no way to doubt the intent of our plans because they are completely open," Dias Goncalves said. "We have to take account of every gram of uranium used."

The road to Resende did hit a few bumps in 2004 when Brazil refused to let inspectors view centrifuges used in the enrichment process, saying they had to protect Brazilian-designed innovations vulnerable to industrial espionage.

After months of negotiations, the two sides agreed to a confidential inspection regime, which is still in place, an IAEA official said.

That agreement allows IAEA inspectors to examine material coming in and out of the centrifuges but not the equipment itself, which is covered by opaque panels, said Edson Kuramoto, president of the non-governmental Brazilian Nuclear Energy Association.

Brazilian energy adviser Rogerio Cezar Cerqueira Leite said the Resende plant will allow Brazil to sell to growing markets for enriched uranium and fuel a domestic nuclear program that's bound to expand.

"Without enriched uranium, you don't have nuclear technology," Cerqueira Leite said. "It's not just national prestige. If you don't make it yourself, you will always be behind in the nuclear race."

Many Brazilians see the eventual opening of Resende as the first step in the country becoming a world leader in nuclear research, said Cerqueira Leite. Brazil has the world's sixth largest deposit of uranium.

French media, which ran extracts, said the report reserved some of its strongest criticism for the police, who were apparently described by the Council of Europe as operating with a "sense of impunity".

Le Parisien said the report denounced a culture among officers that hindered investigations into cases of police brutality and violence. Highlighted abuses included claims that arrested suspects were not being automatically allowed legal representation during police interrogations and cited the numerous restrictions that made the lawyer's role "very limited".

"A democratic society has nothing to fear from the presence of responsible lawyers ... during [a suspect's] detention," read one extract from the report.

Mr Gil-Robles said he was "shocked by the lamentable state" of certain police cells where "detainees even sleep on the floor and are not given any mattress or bed linen". He said it was a "sad fact" that chronic overcrowding and a lack of money in French prisons "deprived a large number of detainees from exercising their basic rights" and made their incarceration a "double punishment".

A spokesman for Mr Gil-Robles said the French media reports were accurate: "This is an accurate copy based on our draft - though not final - report. It reflects the tenor of the report accurately."

The report is due to be presented on Wednesday to the committee of ministers.

Le Parisien said the council's report also criticised the fact that prisoners who misbehaved could be placed in punishment cells for up to 45 days.

The Council of Europe is a 46-member international body founded in 1949 and based in Strasbourg, France. It focuses on democracy, the rule of law, human rights, discrimination and other problems facing European society.

Mr Gil-Robles told France-Info radio: "For me the most important thing is that the prison route is not a route of vengeance but a route to obtain justice - to give criminals a punishment and afterwards allow them to be reintegrated into society ... In France that is not possible."

Mr Gil-Robles had harsh words for France's immigration policy and the announcement last year by the French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, of a 50% rise in expulsions of illegal immigrants.

"The very fact of announcing quotas is a shocking practice," Mr Gil-Robles said.

Only last week French government ministers considered new proposals from Mr Sarkozy to establish immigration quotas based on a points system. According to Le Monde, the report denounced the "penalisation" of foreigners in France because of the "hardening of immigration policies" that could "lead to the stigmatisation of asylum seekers suspected of being economic migrants".

The report also criticised the fact that those demanding asylum had to fill in forms in French. Detention centres for foreigners awaiting expulsion were said to be of varying quality, but the one in the Palais de Justice in Paris was described as "catastrophic and shameful to France".

Some spectators missed the historical reference to France's sale of New Orleans to the United States, in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Others laughed and clamoured for "Buy Us Back, Chirac!" bumper stickers.

"Since the federal government isn't taking care of us, our best strategy may be to sell Louisiana back to France and hope that President (Jacques) Chirac and the French Government can do a better job," joked Keith Twitched, a spokesman for the Krewe du Vieux.

The parade's overall theme "C'est Levee" took aim at the US Army Corps of Engineers. The federal agency has admitted failing to adequately maintain the city's protective levee system, which Katrina punctured on August 29, flooding most of the city.

Hundreds drowned; thousands were rescued and tens of thousands were displaced. Looting, fires and deprivation followed. An acute lack of housing and healthcare persist. The city is still less than half of its pre-Katrina population of 460,000.

At the parade, however, the shivering crowds seemed to enjoy the respite of the krewe's dark humour. One float titled "The 'Corpse' of Engineers presents: 'A Day at the Breach'" showed water cascading over a levee with two beach chairs in front of it.

Another float 'LEWDers Gone Wild!' suggested a city happily consumed by sexual appetites, rather than by post-Katrina looters.

Jimmy Roberts, 50, a native New Orleanian smiled widely as spectators and revellers danced to the pulsating music of the brass bands. Roberts, a vending machine service operator, wore a necklace of silver stars he caught from a krewe member. "Life is good," he said. "I feel sorry for the people who can't come back."

The Krewe du Vieux is the only one of the 34 Carnival parade organizations in New Orleans that still uses mule-drawn floats.

Because of its small size, the krewe also is the only Carnival parade allowed to march through the French Quarter, says Carnival historian Errol Laborde. "I love this parade," Laborde said. "This is what the early Mardi Gras parades must have been like in the early 1800s, when small bands of people marched in the streets."

Krewe du Vieux parades a week before the beginning of the Carnival season as defined by city ordinances, Laborde said. "Technically, it's not a 'Carnival' parade. But it's one of the greatest parades in terms of capturing the true spirit of Carnival."

"The prime minister remains in a critical but stable condition. His life is not in danger after yesterday's intervention," said Hadassah spokesman Ron Krumer.

The operation to extract around a third of his largest intestine came after doctors detected significant swelling to his abdomen.

Despite the success of the surgery, hospital director Shlomo Mor Yosef emphasised that the abdominal problems were merely a further complication to a patient who has still to emerge from the coma that was medically induced after he suffered a massive brain haemorrhage on January 4.

"It is important to re-emphasise that the general problem is his coma. It is not his abdominal pain," he said on Saturday night. "Every day that passes, his chances of recovering are reduced."

Ehud Olmert, who has taken over the reins of power, put a positive spin on the latest bulletin from the Hadassah.

"We are encouraged by the reports from the hospital on the state of the prime minister's health following his operation yesterday," he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.

"The entire government embraces (Sharon's sons) Omri and Gilad who are sitting at their father's bedside day and night."

While the days stretch into weeks, Israelis have become increasingly accustomed to the idea that the era of Sharon -- who dominated the political scene like no other prime minister -- is well and truly over.

Rather than sink in the absence of its skipper, Sharon's newly-formed Kadima party has sailed serenely on in the last 40 days.

The latest batch of opinion polls have all forecast that Kadima should win around double the number of votes of its nearest rivals when Israel holds a general election on March 28

Lior Horev, one of Sharon's senior advisors, said Kadima's strong lead in the polls showed that accusations that it was a one-man band were wide of the mark and its wider political platform was a vote-winner.

"The prime minister's state of health is not of primary importance from the electorate's point of view," Horev told Israeli radio.

In his first interview last week since taking over from Sharon, Olmert indicated that he planned to carry out more unilateral pullouts from the West Bank along the lines of Sharon's "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip last year.

He also pledged to strive to "redefine the borders of the state of Israel" in the coming years if elected -- a project that Sharon was widely expected to have embarked on had he not collapsed 40 days ago.