In recent decades, women's advocates and human rights activists have made huge progress on the issues of rape and sexual assault - in the United States and globally. Both crimes are now more powerfully defined in state and federal laws. In international law, where rape and sexual assault have long been classified as torture and war crimes, the world has begun to accept the importance of enforcement. In 1998, a tribunal convicted a paramilitary chief for watching one of his men rape a woman in Serbia. A year ago, the world rose up in outrage when United Nations peacekeepers raped women in Congo.

You'd think this was a settled issue. But it's been opened up again in the bill on jailing, interrogating and trying terror suspects that President Bush is trying to ram through Congress in a pre-election rush. Both the White House and Senate versions contain provisions on rape and sexual assault that turn back the clock alarmingly. They are among the many flaws that must be fixed before Congress can responsibly pass this legislation.

Rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse are mentioned twice in the bill - once as crimes that could be prosecuted before military tribunals if committed by an "illegal enemy combatant," and once as "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions that could be prosecuted as war crimes if committed by an American against a detainee. But in each case, the wording creates new and disturbing loopholes.

In the bill, rape is narrowly defined as forced or coerced genital or anal penetration. It utterly leaves out other acts, as well as the notion that sex without consent is also rape, as defined by numerous state laws and federal law. That is the more likely case in a prison, where a helpless inmate would be unlikely to resist the sexual overtures of a guard or interrogator.

The section on sexual abuse requires that the act include physical contact. Thus it might not include ordering a terrified female prisoner to strip and dance, which happened in Rwanda, or compelling a male prisoner to strip and wear women's underwear on his head, or photographing naked prisoners piled together, both of which happened at Abu Ghraib.

Rhonda Copelon, a professor of law at the City University of New York who was an author of the international law on rape as a war crime, says the bill also could make it impossible to prosecute rape or sexual assault as torture, because the definition of torture in the legislation requires proof of specific intent to commit the crime. Motive is very hard to prove in cases of rape or sexual assault.

Experts on sexual violence fear that the intent is to absolve American soldiers and their commanders from prosecution for deeds that have occurred since Sept. 11. Ms. Copelon also points out that the United States has been trying for years to write a specific intent requirement into international law on torture. The co-authors of the bill, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, did not respond to questions about the section.

But it does not really matter. This language simply needs to be changed, and Senators McCain and Graham should do it. If not, Democrats should insist on this among many other changes they should be demanding before agreeing to a vote on the prison measure.

He also said that one of his clients had been repeatedly interrogated in an attempt to implicate him in three suicides.

The lawyer was quoted as saying that in the midst of a mass hunger strike in August 2005, "a military lawyer took me into a cell and said it would be for me, as he alleged I was behind the hunger strike. They have been making stuff up about the clients and now they are making it up about me."

US officials aroused worldwide outrage earlier this year by describing three suicides in June, the first at Guantanamo since the detention camp's opening in 2002, as "an act of asymmetric warfare" and "a good PR move."

The court had been expected to hand down a verdict on the six defendants, who were held for up to three years at the US base in Cuba following their capture in Afghanistan in 2001.

"I am sorry," said Judge Jean-Claude Kross, addressing the lawyers. "We have to start again from scratch.

"We may have to consider obtaining access to classified intelligence material," he added.

The court notably wants to hear from French foreign intelligence agents who questioned the suspects in Guantanamo.

At the men's trial in July, defence lawyers accused France of colluding with the US authorities over the Guantanamo detentions by sending secret service agents to question them in Cuba, outside of any legal framework.

Mourad Benchellali, 25, Nizar Sassi, 26, Khaled Ben Mustapha, 34, Redouane Khalid, 38, Brahim Yadel, 36, and Imad Achab Kanouni, 29, were captured in 2001 during the US-led war to oust the Taliban and handed over to US forces.

Released to France in 2004 and 2005, they were accused of staying in Afghan camps linked to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and charged with "criminal conspiracy in relation to a terrorist enterprise".

The state attorney called for all but Kanouni to be found guilty, but asked for lenient, one-year prison sentences, saying their "abnormal detention" in Guantanamo should be taken into account.

She argued that the five others knowingly travelled to Afghanistan using a "terrorist" underground network based in London.

Some of them had admitted to staying in Al-Qaeda camps, but all denied fighting US forces or planning attacks in Europe.

Though none is currently in detention, all six spent periods in pre-trial custody and could therefore expect to avoid jail if the court follows the prosecutor's recommendation.

Separately, a 37 year-old Moroccan man suspected of having links with the September 11 attackers, went on trial in Paris Wednesday accused of terrorist-related offences.

Karim Mehdi, who was arrested in June 2003, is the only person to face charges arising out of the French judicial investigation into the 2001 attacks in the United States.

According to documents read in court, the Moroccan was in contact with Ziad Jarrah -- a Lebanese who was on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania -- as well as Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni believed to have been among the plotters.

However there was no evidence he took part in planning the suicide hijackings.

Prosecutors also believe Mehdi had links with German national Christian Ganczarski, suspected of involvement in the 2002 bomb attack on a synagogue in the Tunisian town of Djerba which killed 21.

Mehdi told the court that he met the two men only once, on a visit to the German city of Hamburg. "I have nothing to do with these stories," he said.

He was detained in 2003 at Charles-de-Gaulle airport en route from Germany to the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, where investigators say he was planning to carry out surveillance for a future bomb attack.

Janelle Hironimus, a State Department spokeswoman, said a US consular officer had last week denied Mr Ramadan's application for a temporary business and tourism visa based on new information the government had learned about the scholar.

She said it had been determined that Mr Ramadan was ineligible to enter the country "based solely on his actions, which constituted providing material support to a terrorist organisation."

Ms Hironimus said she could not reveal specifics about Mr Ramadan's case due to confidentiality rules regarding visa applications.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the US government had notified Mr Ramadan that he was being denied a visa because he donated money French and Swiss organisations that provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

The ACLU said the organisations are legitimate charities in France, but the Bush administration contends the groups gave funds to the militant Islamic group Hamas and has invoked a law allowing it to exclude individuals whom it believes have supported terrorism.

"This case is really about speech," said Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU lawyer. "The government is using the immigration laws as a means of silencing and stigmatising a prominent critic."

Mr Ramadan, whose family fled Egypt to settle in Switzerland, has said he opposes the US invasion of Iraq and US policies in Israel and the Palestinian territories, but has no connections to terrorism, opposes Islamic extremism and promotes peaceful solutions.

On his website, Mr Ramadan said in a statement Monday that he brought the donations to the State Department's attention and that the organisations "are not deemed suspect in Europe, where I live."

"I donated to these organisations for the same reason that countless Europeans - and Americans, for that matter - donate to Palestinian causes: not to provide funding for terrorism, but because I wanted to provide humanitarian aid to people who are desperately in need of it," he said.

In a letter received by Mr Ramadan on Thursday, he said the State Department had put an end to rumors surrounding his case since the government revoked his visa in 2004 on grounds he had "endorsed or espoused" terrorist activity, a claim the government later dropped.

He said the 2004 revocation had come as a shock after he had accepted a double-tenured position at the University of Notre Dame, rented a house in South Bend, Indiana, and enrolled his children in schools there.

"I have consistently opposed terrorism in all of its forms,' he said. "While I have criticised specific United States policies, I have always condemned terrorism and I continue to do so today."

In 2005, Mr Ramadan applied for a visa that would allow him to temporarily visit the United States to lecture or attend conferences, as he had done prior to 2004 when he spoke at Harvard University, Stanford University and elsewhere.

When the State Department did not rule on the application, the ACLU brought a lawsuit on behalf of several groups which had invited Mr Ramadan to speak to force it to act.

In June, a US district judge ordered the government to rule on Mr Ramadan's application within three months.

In his statement on Monday, Mr Ramadan said it was "clear from the history of this case that the US government's real fear is of my ideas."

Ms Hironimus defended the government's policies, saying the United States "welcomes the exchange of culture and ideas with the Islamic world."

But Mr Jaffer said the ACLU had an option to return to court to argue that the government was using immigration laws to censor political debate in the United States.

"We do think this is reflective of a broader pattern. Increasingly, the government is relying on the immigration laws as a tool to manipulate debate here in this country," he said.

Abuse testimony

Mr Matairi, who had a brother killed by Saddam Hussein's regime, gave evidence to the court through an interpreter.

He said he felt hurt at being ill-treated by British soldiers he had welcomed to Iraq.

"I put flowers in my children's hands to welcome the British soldiers when they came to free us from Saddam," he said.

"I could not believe that these were criminals from Britain. According to our knowledge it was a civilised country so I could not believe it.

"We were hit all the time, continuously without knowing the reason why."

A total of nine Iraqis claim they were hooded and beaten after being detained.

Mr Matairi, who is the first of the Iraqi witnesses to give evidence, also claimed that the equivalent of US$3,100 (£1,635) was taken from a safe by the soldiers.

'Systematic abuse'

"Passing by me lying on the floor, he would hit me with his boots on the head - an insult kick," Mr Matairi told the hearing.

Prosecutor Julian Bevan QC described the soldiers' behaviour at the Basra holding centre where detainees were taken as "systematic abuse".

The inhumane treatment of persons charge faced by three soldiers - Cpl Donald Payne, L/Cpl Wayne Crowcroft and Pte Darren Fallon - is being brought as a war crime charge under the International Criminal Court Act (ICCA) 2001.

It is the first time British military personnel have been prosecuted under the act.

Cpl Payne, 35, pleaded guilty to treating detainees inhumanely at the start of the court martial - making him the first British serviceman to admit a war crime.

He denies manslaughter and perverting the course of justice.

The other six soldiers each deny the charges they face - ranging from negligence and assault, through to manslaughter.

Col Jorge Mendonca, Maj Michael Peebles and Warrant Officer Mark Davies are all charged with negligently performing a duty.

Sgt Kelvin Stacey is accused of assault occasioning actual bodily harm with an alternative count of common assault.

L/Cpl Wayne Crowcroft and Pte Darren Fallon are charged with inhumane treatment of persons.

The Queen's Lancashire Regiment now forms part of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment. The court martial, at the Military Court Centre on Salisbury Plain, continues.

Solana's spokeswoman and an Iranian source close to the negotiations also confirmed the meeting would take place.

"Mr Ali Larijani is in Berlin with his delegation to meet Mr Solana," the Iranian source told AFP.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said earlier that the talks had been supposed to take place in New York but were switched to Europe because Larijani had visa problems.

The discussions have been billed as a last opportunity for Iran to agree to a suspension of sensitive uranium enrichment activities as demanded by the UN Security Council and stave off the threat of UN sanctions.

Mottaki struck an upbeat note ahead of the talks.

"Since there is an atmosphere of understanding between Iran and Europe, we can be optimistic on the results of the meeting," he was quoted as saying by state television.

The deal offered by the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany asks Iran to accept a package of incentives in exchange for it freezing enrichment work the West fears could be channelled into producing nuclear arms.

The official news agency IRNA said Larijani could also use the occasion to meet German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier but Steinmeier's ministry said he would not take part in the meeting.

Key to the success of Wednesday's talks is the question of whether Iran is prepared to suspend uranium enrichment for a limited period of time before or even during full negotiations with world powers.

However there was confusion over whether Iran is considering such a step. European diplomats said Larijani made an offer at his last talks with Solana on September 9-10 in Vienna, but several Iranian officials have denied any suspension is on the cards.

"Such issues will not be addressed in the next negotiations," Atomic Energy Organization deputy head Mohammad Saeedi told the Iranian student news agency ISNA on Tuesday.

But the Washington Times also reported Tuesday that Iran was close to agreeing to a secret deal that would see it suspend uranium enrichment for 90 days in order for additional talks to take place with European nations.

The US State Department spokesman meanwhile spoke of "hopeful" signs from Iran but warned sanctions were still on tap if diplomacy failed.

The repeated delays for the latest Larijani-Solana meeting appear to reflect intense diplomatic efforts to ensure the nuclear dossier does not go to the Security Council.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meanwhile again hit out at the West for what he described as its failure to allow Iran access to peaceful nuclear technology.

"Today the people will not accept that some countries have warehouses full of nuclear weapons and then tell others that you cannot have a (nuclear) fuel cycle since you may deviate," he said in a speech.

Iran's uranium enrichment is particularly controversial as it can be used to make fuel for a nuclear power station but in highly enriched form can also be employed to make the explosive core of a nuclear bomb.

Iran insists that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful energy needs, vehemently rejecting US allegations that it is seeking to manufacture nuclear weapons.

The negotiations were given a last chance after Washington, under pressure from Europe and China, backed down on its demand for immediate sanctions against Iran for failing to meet an August 31 UN deadline to freeze enrichment.

According to European diplomats, Western powers have set the start of October as a final deadline for Iran to give its definitive response to the Security Council offer.

The Bundesmarine flotilla sailed from Wilhemshaven on September 21. It consists of two frigates - the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Karlsruhe - supported by helicopters, supply ships and patrol boats, with about 1,500 men on board. It is due in the Cypriot port of Limassol on October 2, and will assume command of Unifil's multinational naval contingent a week later.

This is far from Germany's first overseas military deployment. Since the early 1990s the Bundeswehr has been involved in UN and Nato missions as far afield as the Balkans, Congo and Afghanistan - evidence of an increasingly confident foreign and defence policy. Until unification, post-war (West) Germany's military activities were confined to the Nato alliance, and were strictly within its European area of operations.

In 1992 Helmut Kohl was the first to break the general taboo against deploying troops abroad by sending army medics to support the UN mission in Cambodia. A year later German soldiers were doing good works in warlord-plagued Somalia. But the really significant change came in 1999 when the Social Democrat chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, and his Green (and former pacifist) foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, defied domestic criticism to allow German Tornado bombers to take part in Nato attacks on Serb targets during the Kosovo campaign.

The Middle East is a very different matter. The shadow of the Nazi Holocaust has always hung heavily over Germany's relations with both Arab states and Israel. Since Konrad Adenauer's agreement on reparations payments to Israel in the 1950s, Germany has tilted towards the Jewish state when other Europeans have moved in the opposite direction. Still, there have also been embarrassing hints of Arab admiration for Germany precisely because of its terrible anti-semitic past: a former senior Egyptian official bore the first name Hitler; a German ambassador in one Arab capital famously cringed at the approving "heil" salute he received whenever his official car was recognised by a policeman.

Germany dispatched Patriot anti-missile batteries to help defend Israel from Saddam Hussein's Scud attacks during the 1991 Gulf war. But there was no misunderstanding about where it stood in the run-up to the 2003 war in Iraq, when Schröder, facing re-election, opposed the US-led campaign, teaming up with France and Belgium to split Nato in one of its worst ever crises.

Angela Merkel, the Christian Democratic Union leader, has changed tack in foreign policy since becoming chancellor last year. She has worked to mend fences with Washington and has made no secret of her sympathy for Israel. Polling shows German elites are more favourable to the Jewish state than parallel groups in France and Britain.

Still, there is no popular enthusiasm for the naval mission.

Merkel's decision was made easier by the fact that Israel actively wanted this to happen. Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, made a startling diplomatic shift by signalling that Israel would welcome an expanded Unifil, despite years of hostility to the UN.

"There is perhaps no other area of the world," Merkel told the Bundestag, "where Germany's unique responsibility, the unique responsibility of every German government for the lessons of our past, is so clear." The Israeli request, she added, "is a signal of trust in Germany, the country in whose name the destruction of the Jews and the second world war began".

German diplomats admit privately that joining the Italians, French and others in an expanded UN ground mission would have been too difficult. "Sending a naval contingent was a solution that appealed to almost everyone in official Germany," commented Der Spiegel. "It gave politicians a sense of fulfilling their historic duty to protect Israel without asking armed and uniformed Germans to patrol the Israeli border - or, potentially, to fire on armed and uniformed Jews."

Viewed from Berlin, this is about Germany playing a role in Europe as well as the Middle East, and tiptoeing round the past. The European Union's largest country has long argued that the union needs to add some military and diplomatic muscle to its economic weight. Germany is at the centre of efforts to get the stalled EU constitution back on track when it takes over the rotating presidency for six months in January. With both Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac written off as lame ducks, Merkel looks like a natural leader.

Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, reflected this line of thinking when he addressed the Bundestag before it backed the Lebanon deployment. "Ten years ago, nobody would have thought about sending German soldiers alongside soldiers from other European countries to the Middle East," he said. "Peacemaking was a task that Europeans left to the United States."

Still, there are worries that Germany may be looking too close to Israel by doing its bit to help curb Hizbullah, a radical fundamentalist movement with links to Iran and Syria. Merkel has also been more combative than other European leaders in her comments about Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Voices on the left, such as Oskar Lafontaine, have wondered out loud whether Germany might be putting itself at risk of terrorist attacks.

Another view is that participating in the UN force may undermine Germany's special status as a shadowy go-between: it is widely assumed that the BND, Germany's foreign intelligence service, is working on how to engineer a swap of the two Israeli soldiers captured by Hizbullah for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners held in Israel - as it has done before.

Still, it is hard to argue with the proposition that Germany playing a bigger, more high-profile international role is a good thing - for Germany and for Europe. It should be good for the Middle East too.

The EU itself will reap benefits from the membership of Romania and Bulgaria in terms of security along its borders, social cohesion and economic strength, said Schulz.

He compared the joy of the two countries' EU accession to the one experienced at Germany's reunification.

Enthusiastic about Romania and Bulgaria's entry to the EU on Jan. 1, 2007, was also the European liberal democrats leader Graham Watson, who said that following the EU accession of the two states, both sides will reap benefits.

"The most important argument favoring the EU accession of the two countries are the 22 million Romanians and 7.5 million Bulgarians," said Brian Crowley, an Irish parliamentarian who is also co-chairman of the Union for Europe of the Nations.

He pointed out that the two states should be given the same opportunities as current EU states got when they were weaker and less developed.

The key word of the emphasis should be laid from now on is " transparency," said European parliamentarian for Bulgaria Geoffreyvan Orden (EPP-ED).

"The nationals of the two states should have confidence in authorities serving their interest adequately," said a British Euro-lawmaker.