After he composed himself, Pace described his older sister, who went to law school, and his older brother, who, like himself, attended the Naval Academy and was a Marine.

"There is no other country on the planet that affords that kind of opportunity to those who come here," Pace concluded. The audience burst into applause.

Pace's father was born in Italy in 1914, immigrated to the United States and became an electrician in New York City, raising four children there. The first Marine to be named chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Pace has been chairman since September 2005 after serving as vice chairman for four years.

Pace, whose last name means "peace" in Italian, is a 1967 graduate of the Naval Academy and has served in Thailand, Korea and Japan.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who was at the hearing, said Pace made an "enormously moving comment and statement" and added: "We just hope our colleagues in the Congress can hear it."

Field hearings are being held around the country on the separate House and Senate immigration bills currently before Congress. The subject of the Miami hearing, chaired by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.), was the contributions immigrants have made to the armed forces.

The House bill calls for tighter border controls, 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border and funding for local law enforcement agencies along the border. It also calls for tougher deportation standards and stringent enforcement of rules governing employers who hire undocumented workers.

The Senate's immigration bill, co-sponsored by Kennedy and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), includes similar provisions. But it also outlines a method for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens and calls for a guest-worker program that would provide legal residency status for as long as six years.

In recent weeks, the White House and Senate Republicans have indicated a willingness to tackle border security first, but only if the action later triggers some or all of the Senate bill's residency-related provisions.

House GOP leaders have dismissed such features as the guest-worker program as an unacceptable "amnesty" for lawbreakers. They were the first to call for field hearings as a means of showcasing popular support for their approach while also delaying negotiations with senators on a final bill.

After Pace's emotional testimony, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) asked the general whether his parents were still living. Pace replied that his mother was still alive.

"When you have Italian blood in you, sometimes it wells up and grabs your heart," he told Graham.

Graham said, "It takes a strong Marine to cry."

The small arms trade is not subject to a comprehensive global agreement. Instead, there is a patchwork of national export laws, which unscrupulous arms dealers can easily circumvent. As a result, small arms fall into the wrong hands every day. During the two-week conference most governments said that they supported an agreement to control sales, but instead of fighting to secure a deal that would protect the millions of people worldwide living in daily fear of armed violence, they stood by while the conference was scuppered. It collapsed without agreement after a small number of countries, most prominently the US, blocked key issues.

In the first week of the conference, a group of countries led by Kenya and Britain proposed a set of guidelines for small arms sales based on international human rights and humanitarian law. These principles would have prevented weapons from being sold if there was a risk they could be used to kill or terrorise innocent people. The proposal was not a radical one. Five years ago, governments met for the first time to address the problem of small arms violence and agreed they should regulate sales in line with their existing responsibilities under international law. This proposal merely elaborated what those responsibilities were under human rights and humanitarian law.

Because the conference agreement had to be approved by all 192 countries attending, any government was able to veto any part of it. Cuba, India, Iran, Israel and Pakistan all opposed global controls. And while the US had said at the beginning of the conference that it would consider controls, it objected to so many parts of the draft that it in effect blocked agreement of the entire document.

Even before the final collapse, a handful of states succeeded in blocking the crucial proposal for controls and in removing references to human rights and humanitarian law. They made it clear they saw small arms control solely as a national security issue.

The link between the uncontrolled small arms trade and human rights abuses could not be clearer on the ground. I have seen it myself many times - for example when I visited Rwanda just after the 1994 genocide. There, supplies of small arms allowed the Hutu militia to take an estimated 800,000 lives while the world stood by.

A resolution is likely to be put forward at the UN general assembly in October for governments to start negotiations on an international arms trade treaty, which could be based on states' existing responsibilities under human rights and humanitarian law. Several governments have indicated they want a resolution to start work on such a legally binding instrument. Governments must not let the setback of the review conference stop them winning the battle against the unregulated trade of small arms.

- Mary Robinson, a former UN high commissioner for human rights, is president of Realising Rights: The Ethical Globalisation Initiative and honorary president of Oxfam International

The contingency blueprint addresses how the city would implement infection control, address surge capacity in hospitals and enact disease containment measures like closing schools or limiting public gatherings.

Health Commissioner Thomas Friedman said even the best-laid plans could not prevent the social and economic chaos a pandemic would bring, but they could help lessen the impact.

"Without a vaccine, and with medications of limited supply and effectiveness, traditional measures of reducing disease spread -- such as covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze, or staying home from work or school if you have fever -- would be crucial," Friedman said.

The plan envisages a worst-case scenario of widespread, serious illness that significantly impacts all sectors of society for at least several months.

The health care system would be overburdened and there could be dramatic reductions in workforce availability in all sectors as employees become ill or remain home to care for sick family members

Some of the measures included in the blueprint have been worked out from large-scale emergency response exercises to a simulated biological attack on the city.

The new plan is essentially a response to the spread of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus which has been found in 60 countries in the past two and a half years.

Although the H5N1 virus does not spread easily between people, those who come in contact with sick birds can contract it, and scientists fear a pandemic if it mutates into a disease transmissible between humans.

The virus has so far infected 229 people. More than half -- 131 -- have died.

The president of Cuba's National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, said the world should be outraged by the actions of the US.

"They will not destroy the nation. They will not succeed in doing that. But they will cause harm and deprivation and suffering of individuals," he said.

The US announcement comes as President Castro, in power since 1959, prepares to celebrates his birthday in August and amid moves by the Cuban government to give a higher profile to his designated successor, his 75-year-old brother Raul Castro.

In a statement, President Bush said he had approved a "compact" with the Cuban people which outlined how the US would support them "as they transition from the repressive control of the Castro regime to freedom and a genuine democracy.

"The report demonstrates that we are actively working for change in Cuba, not simply waiting for change," Mr Bush said.

Dissident concern

The report, drawn up by the US Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, also includes other measures such as enforcing sanctions already in place against the communist regime and "providing uncensored information" for Cubans who want change.

US President George W Bush President Bush says the US will not wait for change

The commission's members include US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

Ms Rice said the funding and report's recommendations aimed to help "Cuba's brave opposition leaders and to encourage those Cubans still silent out of fear but free in their hearts and minds to dream of a better future."

However, dissidents in Havana voiced concern that the new funding could serve as a pretext for the Cuban authorities to step up the pressure on them.

"I really appreciate the solidarity of the United States government and people, but I think that this report is counterproductive," dissident journalist Oscar Espinosa Chepe told foreign news agencies.

"I believe Cubans have to be the ones who solve our problems and any interference serves to complicate the situation."

Since the fall of the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959, Cuba has been a one-party state led by Mr Castro.

Since 1961, the US has maintained a strict economic embargo against Cuba.