"A climate of extreme violence in which people were killed for political and other reasons continued (in Iraq)," the report said. "Police abuses included threats, intimidation, beatings, and suspension by the arms or legs, as well as the reported use of electric drills and cords and the application of electric shocks."

In Iraq on Wednesday, the bodies of 18 men -- bound, blindfolded and strangled -- were found in a Sunni Arab district of Baghdad, apparent victims of the sectarian turmoil gripping Iraq.

The global report also listed abuses among both allies and traditional foes, from close friends Saudi Arabia and Egypt to adversaries Iran, Syria and Zimbabwe.

Governments targeted in the report frequently point to abuses by the United States and lambaste the report as hypocritical, a criticism Washington brushes aside.

"We are not saying we ourselves are perfect. When we find something wrong in our own rights record, we try to fix it. But usually those who charge us with hypocrisy are putting up a smoke screen and trying to ignore the facts in the report," said a State Department official, who asked not to be named.

ABUSE IN IRAQ

President George W. Bush cites abuses by ousted President Saddam Hussein and a desire to establish democracy to justify the 2003 invasion, ordered originally to confront a threat from Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, which were never found.

Bush administration officials, while acknowledging abuses in Iraq, say the new government is trying to improve conditions and that the United States is spending money helping it.

The unrelenting violence came amid a deepening political stalemate among Iraqi ethnic and religious factions that threatens the creation of a unity government U.S. officials hope can stabilize the country so foreign forces can start going home this summer. Underlining U.S. concerns, the ambassador held talks with a top Shiite leader Tuesday.

An American patrol found 18 of the bodies all males in an abandoned minibus Tuesday night on a road between two notorious west Baghdad neighborhoods. Most bore marks indicating they were hanged or strangled, and two were shot to death, said Dr. Mohanad Jawad at Yarmouk Hospital, where the bodies were lined up on stretchers in the morgue. Police believed at least two of them were foreign Arabs.

Police found the bodies of four other handcuffed and strangled men in an open field in east Baghdad on Wednesday. Another body, shot in the head, was found near a shop in an eastern suburb.

The gruesome discoveries followed a surge of sectarian violence unleashed by the Feb. 22 bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in the central city of Samarra and reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics. Sectarian killing has diminished in recent days, but other attacks have increased, the Defense Ministry reported Tuesday.

A string of explosions Wednesday killed at least four people including two young boys in the capital, police said.

One bomb hidden under a parked car near the University of Technology detonated as police from the interior minister's protection force were driving through central Baghdad, killing two officers, police said. Five other people, including a policemen, were injured in the blast. The minister was not in the convoy at the time, police said.

Another bomb missed an American convoy on the northern outskirts of Baghdad and killed two Iraqi boys who were selling gasoline by the roadside, police said. He estimated their age at 10 or 11.

At midday, an Iraqi patrol saw four gunmen pull a man from the trunk of a car and shoot him to death in west Baghdad, police reported. They said the patrol tried to intercede, but the gunmen fired at them and fled.

The inability to agree on a broad-based government after December parliamentary elections is threatening to crush American hopes of beginning a troop pullout this summer. Washington policy holds that such a unity government would inspire sufficient loyalty from all parties to enable it to fight the raging insurgency by itself.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari declared Tuesday he would not be "blackmailed" into abandoning his campaign for a second term despite opposition from Sunni, Kurdish and some secular Shiite leaders who have vowed not to cooperate with him.

Al-Jaafari's Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, which has the largest bloc of lawmakers, asked President Jalal Talabani on Tuesday to delay summoning parliament into session until the dispute is resolved.

Alliance members are themselves divided over al-Jaafari, who won the Shiite nomination by a single vote last month, with the backing of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Talabani, a Kurd, had hoped to bring the dispute to a head by convening parliament on Sunday. Under the constitution, parliament is supposed to elect a new president within 15 days of its first meeting. It then has 15 more days to approve the prime minister, and 30 days after that to vote on his Cabinet.

To convene the session, Talabani needs the approval of his two vice presidents, Abdil Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite, and Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni. Abdul-Mahdi, al-Jaafari's main rival for the Shiite nomination, has declined to sign, for now.

An evening meeting Tuesday between the Kurdish faction in parliament and the Shiite Alliance failed to break the impasse.

Representatives of the main political blocs planned to meet at Talabani's office Thursday to discuss the standoff and decide a new date for parliament to meet.

Underscoring Washington's concerns over the deteriorating political situation, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad held a meeting with Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the powerful Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the two dominant parties in the Shiite coalition.

The two met at al-Hakim's Baghdad home Tuesday to discuss "the current political situation concerning the formation of a new government and developments related to the alliance's candidate to head the Cabinet," the SCIRI Web site reported with an accompanying photo of the session. The U.S. Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for further information.

In an interview published Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times, Khalilzad said the 2003 U.S. ouster of Saddam Hussein had opened a "Pandora's box" that could see the violence and turmoil now gripping Iraq turn into an all-out regional war if American troops are withdrawn too quickly.

But narrowing the differences among Iraq's Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds has become an increasingly difficult task in the aftermath of the Feb. 22 bombing of the golden domed Shiite Askariya shrine.

Sunni politicians have accused the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia loyal to firebrand cleric al-Sadr, of launching many of the revenge attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics with the blessing of the Shiite-controlled government security apparatus charges denied by the government.

In a report Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said U.S.-led coalition forces and Iraq's authorities may be violating international law by arbitrarily detaining thousands of people.

The report, which studied the situation in Iraq for the last three months, said its prison system remains a major concern and lamented that an investigation into allegations of torture in Interior Ministry jails had not been made public as promised.

As political negotiations stalled, the violence raged on.

A former brigadier in Saddam Hussein's army was shot and killed Wednesday in western Baghdad, police said.

A bomb exploded at the Basra headquarters of Iraq's South Oil Co., causing minor damage but no casualties. Crude production and exports were not affected, said Jabar Luaibi, the company's director general.

Also Wednesday, an Iraqi civilian was killed in a collision with a U.S. Bradley Fighting vehicle after failing to head warning signs to stop, the military said in a statement.

The death of the U.S. soldier that was reported Wednesday brought to at least 2,302 the number of U.S. military members who have died since the beginning of the war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians.

Bombings, mortar blasts and gunfire killed 19 people Tuesday, and police also reported finding four bullet-riddled bodies two with their eyes gouged out.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

"He signed the decree today. I expect the first session to be held on Sunday or by the end of next week at the latest," said Nadim al-Jabiri, head of one of seven Shiite parties that make up the United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament.

Unidentified attackers hit the al-Rawafid Security Co. at 4:30 p.m. and forced the workers into seven vehicles, including several white SUVs, said Interior Ministry Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi. The victims, including bodyguards, drivers, computer technicians and other employees, did not resist because they assumed their abductors were police special forces working for the Interior Ministry, al-Mohammedawi said.

Interior Ministry Undersecretary Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Khefaji denied any involvement by his department, saying: "It is a terrorist act."

Members of the Sunni Arab minority who dominated under ousted leader Saddam Hussein accuse the Shiite-led security forces of repeated abductions and killings under the cover of fighting the Sunni-driven insurgency. Many of Al-Rawafid employees are former members of Saddam's armed forces.

The company is one of dozens providing protection for businesses and other clients in the violence-plagued country. One of its main clients is Iraqna, a cell phone firm owned by Egyptian-giant Orascom. Its offices are in Zayouna, a volatile mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood in east Baghdad.

Bombings, gunfire and other violence claimed at least 12 other lives, Iraqi police and the U.S. military said today. Among the reported deaths was a U.S. soldier who was killed by a roadside bomb Tuesday near the northwestern city of Tal Afar. Four other soldiers were wounded in the attack, the military said.

An American military patrol found 18 of the bodies - all males - in an abandoned minibus Tuesday night on a road between two notorious mostly Sunni west Baghdad neighborhoods.

The bodies were brought to Yarmouk Hospital and lined up on stretchers for identification. Most had bruising indicating they were strangled and two were shot, said Dr. Muhanad Jawad. Police believed at least two of the men were foreign Arabs.

Police found the bodies of six more men - four of them strangled and two shot - discarded in other parts of the city.

The gruesome discoveries followed a surge of sectarian violence unleashed by the Feb. 22 bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in the central city of Samarra and reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics. Sectarian killing has diminished in recent days, but other attacks have increased, the Defense Ministry said.

A string of explosions today killed at least six people - including two young boys - in the capital, police said.

One bomb hidden under a parked car detonated as police from the interior minister's protection force were driving through Baghdad, killing two officers and injuring another, police said. Four bystanders were injured. The minister was not in the convoy at the time.

Another roadside bomb hit a police patrol in northern Baghdad, killing two officers and injuring four others, police said.

A third one missed an American convoy on the northern outskirts of Baghdad and killed two Iraqi boys - about 10 or 11 years old - who were selling gasoline by the roadside, police said.

A car bomb targeting another U.S. convoy in north Baghdad injured five bystanders, police said. There was no immediate word on American casualties.

An Iraqi patrol saw four gunmen pull a man from the trunk of a car and shoot him to death in west Baghdad, police reported. They said the patrol tried to intercede, but the gunmen fired at them and fled.

More gunmen pulled over a school bus carrying about 25 high school girls and shot the driver in front of his terrified passengers. The wounded driver was hospitalized, police said.

Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi's signature today on an executive order opened the way for the much-delayed first session of the parliament elected Dec. 15 - and also signaled fundamental disagreement within the once-unified majority Shiite ranks.

The constitution dictates that the first meeting be held no later than Sunday, but negotiations were still under way on a specific date, said al-Jabiri, the Shiite official.

The first session had been delayed by weeks of intense political infighting and reached an impasse after Abdul-Mahdi refused to sign President Jalal Talabani's decree Monday.

The dispute centers around Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's bid for a second term, which is opposed by a coalition of Sunni Arab, Kurdish and secular Shiite politicians.

Talabani, a Kurd, has openly challenged al-Jaafari's candidacy on grounds he is too divisive and would be unable to form a government representing all Iraq's religious and ethnic factions. There was also great unease over al-Jaafari's close ties to radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr

The Shiite Alliance is itself divided over al-Jaafari's candidacy. He defeated Abdul-Mahdi by a single vote in a Shiite caucus last month, due in large part to al-Sadr's support.

Talabani had hoped to bring the dispute to a head by convening parliament Sunday. Under the constitution, parliament is supposed to elect a new president within 15 days of its first meeting. It then has 15 more days to approve the prime minister, and 30 days after that to vote on his Cabinet.

To convene the session, Talabani needed the approval of his two vice presidents. Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni who is out of the country, gave Talabani power of attorney Monday to sign on his behalf. Abdul-Mahdi initially declined, but reversed his position today.

Another key Shiite political figure, speaking anonymously because of the sensitive nature of the information, said Abdul-Mahdi had acquiesced after U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad sought the intervention of powerful Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim in breaking the stalemate during a meeting Tuesday.

Abdul-Mahdi heads the Shiite parliamentary bloc loyal to al-Hakim, who leads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Al-Jabiri, however, said the decision to sign was taken on advice today from Iraq's Federal Court, which said parliament could be convened through an alternative process if Abdul-Mahdi continued to hold out.

As political negotiations progressed, the violence raged on.

Gunmen shot and killed a Sunni imam, Sadi Mahmoud, on his way home from a mosque in west Baghdad, police said.

A former brigadier in Saddam's army was shot and killed in west Baghdad, police said. Gunmen also attacked the convoy of Interior Ministry Undersecretary Hekmet Moussa in west Baghdad, killing two bodyguards and injuring two others, police said. Moussa was not in the convoy.

A bomb exploded at the Basra headquarters of Iraq's South Oil Co., causing minor damage but no casualties. Crude production and exports were not affected, said Jabar Luaibi, the company's director general.

Also today, an Iraqi civilian was killed in a collision with a U.S. Bradley Fighting vehicle after failing to heed warnings to stop, the military said.

The death of the U.S. soldier that was reported today brought to at least 2,302 the number of U.S. military members who have died since the beginning of the war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians.

"If you closed the camp down tomorrow, what would you do with these people? Where would they go? It's a difficult one. But the central point is if it is seen to be undermining the cause of democracy and freedom, you have got to address that."

Mr Howells' comments go beyond anything said about Guantanamo Bay by Tony Blair, or by the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. Mr Blair's official spokesman said yesterday: "He has always said that it is an anomaly that should be dealt with sooner rather than later, but he has equally recognised the circumstances under which it arose."

Mr Howells was speaking at a meeting in the House of Commons organised by Human Rights Watch to discuss whether governments have been "bending the rules" that forbid torture and civil rights abuses. The shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, told the same meeting: "Reports of prisoner abuse by British and American troops - however isolated - and accounts, accurate or not, of the mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition flights leading to the torture of suspects, have led to a critical erosion in our moral authority. In standing up for the rule of law, we must be careful not to employ methods that undermine it."

Mr Gonzales claimed that the 500 Guantanamo detainees included terrorist trainers, bomb makers, former bodyguards of Osama bin Laden, and potential suicide bombers. All are assessed by US authorities and given a separate, formal hearing of their case before a tribunal, with a right to appeal.

"We operate Guantanamo because there's a necessity, a need, for the United States to detain enemy combatants somewhere," he said, in a speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "That was the genesis of Guantanamo. This need continues today."