Benatta was among 1,200 mostly Arab and Muslim men detained nationwide as potential suspects or witnesses in the investigation following the terrorist attacks. The government has refused to discuss their fate, but human rights groups have said they believed the former Algerian air force lieutenant was the only one still in custody.

Heather Tasker, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, refused to discuss Benatta's release, which was first reported by The Washington Post.

U.S. officials agreed to release Benatta after the Canadian Consulate General's office in Buffalo granted him temporary residency, according to court papers filed Wednesday in New York.

The last detainee's odyssey began Sept. 5, 2001, when, after overstaying a six-month visa, he crossed the border near Buffalo to seek asylum in Canada. After the Sept. 11 attacks, his background as a Muslim man with flight experience prompted Canadian officials to turn him over to U.S. authorities.

He spent the next six months in solitary confinement in a federal jail in Brooklyn. Though the FBI concluded he had no links to terrorism, he was eventually charged with carrying false identification - a case that was dropped after a federal magistrate found his right to due process had been violated.

The magistrate wrote in a 2003 decision that Benatta had been "undeniably deprived of his liberty," and "held in custody under harsh conditions which can be said to be oppressive."

Despite the ruling, immigration officials kept him in custody in Buffalo while he appealed a deportation order and renewed his quest for asylum based on a claim that, as a military deserter, he would tortured or killed if he returned to Algeria.

A United Nations human rights group that studied the case noted that most asylum seekers are released pending the outcome of their cases.

"The imprisonment Mr. Benatta has endured has been a de facto prison sentence," the U.N. group wrote in findings made public in March. "In no way can the simple administrative offense of having stayed in the United States after his visa had expired justify such a disproportionate sentence."

But Zimbabwe is not on the front lines of the war on terror, and government agents could use the proposed powers to monitor the communications of the political opposition, journalists and human rights activists who are critical of President Robert Mugabe.

Secret police and intelligence agents could violate attorney-client privilege, track financial transactions and negotiations, and eavesdrop on anyone's private life. Anytime a Zimbabwean visits a Web site, makes a deal or tells a joke, Big Brother could be listening or watching.

Internet and cell phone service providers would, at their own expense, have to provide the government with equipment to sort and intercept communications.

The aim "is to monitor and block communications for political reasons and to use information they get to persecute opponents," said Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly, a group critical of repressive laws and actions of Mugabe's government.

Telephoned from neighboring South Africa, he said: "It is part and parcel of the process of controlling dissent and stifling democratic debate."

South Africa has quietly adopted a similar law, with the important difference that a court must approve any interception. In Zimbabwe, that authority would rest solely with Mugabe's minister of transport and communications.

A package of other security and media laws has done away with freedom of press and speech. People cannot protest against the government or hold political gatherings without prior police approval. Clergymen have been arrested for holding unauthorized prayer vigils.

To a government which has arrested people for insulting the president, joking about him is no laughing matter. It's a felony. It is also illegal to say or write something that can "falsely" bring the government into disrepute.

"Jokes about Mugabe are a crime," Jim Holland, the chief executive of Mango, a Zimbabwean Internet service provider, said in a telephone interview. "But people send these jokes all the time on cell phones or e-mails."

In one of them, a policeman asks a motorist for a donation toward the ransom demanded by terrorists who have abducted Mugabe and threatened to douse him with gasoline and set him alight. The motorists asks what other people are giving and is told, two or three gallons.

In another, a man tired of waiting in line at a closed gasoline station announces he's off to State House to shoot the president. He returns a short time later complaining that the line there was even longer.

Holland believes the proposed law will have a chilling effect on such humor but that the real dangers lie in the government's ability to target legitimate opponents and monitor sensitive business and financial communications.

"It is troubling in a country like this with its record on corruption that the government could monitor financial transactions or even internal communications ahead of a company making a tender offer," Holland said.

He said in early discussions of the bill a man who would be involved in any government monitoring effort told a gathering there was no cause for concern because the proposed law was only a threat "to criminals and human rights activists."

There is a chance that opponents will manage to block the bill, arguing that it is unworkable and could further undermine the faltering economy. The opponents also draw some hope from the fact that Mugabe is not personally pushing the bill. But all agree the chance is slim.

That leaves the courts, but lawyers here note the government has packed them with friendly judges, and simply ignored rulings it dislikes.

The assessment, initially reported by The Washington Post, was posted on the institute's Web site.

The analysts concluded that the diameter of the structure's metal shell suggests a very large reactor "operating in excess of 1,000 megawatts thermal," according to the report.

"Such a reactor could produce over 200 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium per year, assuming it operates at full power a modest 220 days per year," the technical assessment said. "At 4 to 5 kilograms of plutonium per weapon, this stock would allow the production of over 40 to 50 nuclear weapons a year."

Pakistan currently is capable of producing about 10 kilograms of plutonium a year, enough for about two warheads, The Washington Post said.

Construction of the new reactor in Khushab apparently began sometime after March 2000. But the report's authors said Pakistan does not appear to be moving quickly to finish the reactor, and cited possible shortages of necessary reactor components or weapons production infrastructure.

"India is likely aware of this reactor construction in Khushab," the institute's David Albright and Paul Brannan wrote. "Has this influenced India to increase its own plutonium production capacity for its nuclear weapons program?

"South Asia may be heading for a nuclear arms race that could lead to arsenals growing into the hundreds of nuclear weapons, or at minimum, vastly expanded stockpiles of military fissile material."

Pakistani officials would neither confirm or deny the report, but a senior Pakistani official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that a nuclear expansion was under way, the Post reported.

The newspaper reported that a Europe-based diplomat and nuclear expert and a U.S.-based expert who reviewed the commercially available satellite images and supporting data concurred fully with the institute's estimates.

Points raised by Baker -- whose centre-left party opposed the Iraq war -- included the fact that Kelly supposedly cut his ulnary artery in his wrist, a more difficult and painful option than the radial artery.

In 2003, Baker said, Kelly was the only person recorded to have taken his or her own life in this fashion.

Baker also said that paramedics who attended the scene where Kelly's body was found in Oxfordshire noticed that he had lost little blood and was "incredibly unlikely" to have died from the wound they saw.

Police said that 29 tablets of pain-killer coproxamol were missing from a packet in his home, but all that was found in Dr Kelly's stomach was the equivalent of one-fifth of a tablet, Baker said.

Volunteer searchers who found his body said he was slumped against a tree, rather than lying prone, as police stated.

And despite the stress he was under in the days leading to his death, Baker said contacts with friends and relatives showed no sign that Kelly had suicidal thoughts.

Baker also faulted the way Kelly's death was investigated, saying that the pathologist assigned to the case was one of the least experienced in the country, and that Lord Brian Hutton, who conducted the judicial inquiry, had never conducted such a public inquiry before in his long career.

"Many people find it hard to accept that Dr Kelly's death was suicide and the passage of time has only firmed up that doubt," wrote Baker in the Mail on Sunday, which editorially is highly critical of Blair's government.

"I am conscious that some, particularly those who were close to him, will want to put all this behind them, to move on. The reality, however, is that this episode is not going to go away."

"The WTO negotiations are suspended," Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath told reporters.
When asked how long the suspension could last, the minister said it "could take anywhere from months to years" to restart the negotiations.

Signor Roveraro, a former Italian Olympic pole-vaulter, had been questioned in an inquiry into the collapse and fraudulent bankruptcy of the food and dairy conglomerate Parmalat, which is based in Parma. In 2003 Parmalat collapsed with €14 billion of debt - Europe's largest corporate failure.

Signor Roveraro, who had helped Parmalat to list its shares on the stockmarket a decade ago, was last seen on July 5 at a meeting in Milan of the secretive organisation Opus Dei. Italian media reported that he was closely linked with the arch-conservative movement. Some reports said Signor Roveraro was a "supernumerary" or member of Opus Dei. The organisation never confirms individual membership.

Police have made no linkage between his disappearance and Opus Dei.

The speed of the arrests suggested that police had already followed leads concerned with his financial activities.

Noted for his reserve and discretion, Signor Roveraro once said in a rare statement about his involvement with Opus Dei that it was was "not concerned with finance - finance is not Catholic or masonic, it is just finance".

Initial reports said that Signor Roveraro's corpse had been burnt, but police later said it had deteriorated badly in the heatwave and had been in an advanced state of decomposition when found.

The chief of the police squad that found the body, Luciano Garofano, said: "We are dealing here with a particularly savage murder."

The alleged ringleader of those arrested is Filippo Botteri, 43, described as a former financial consultant from Parma who allegedly had had business dealings with Signor Roveraro.

Police said that he had confessed to the kidnap and murder but had refused to reveal a motive. He had told investigators he had suffered a memory loss, adding: "Don't ask me any more questions, I don't remember a thing". Police said that the kidnappers appeared to have intended to murder Signor Roveraro from the start given that credible ransom note had been received.

In Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, Opus Dei is portrayed as a ruthless organisation whose members practise corporal mortification and which is prepared to kill to keep its secrets. Opus Dei has vigorously denied this as ludicrous, and has denounced both the book and the film.

The news magazine Panorama yesterday headlined its account "The Roveraro Code", saying the case involved "rivers of money, opaque interests and shady figures".