The IMC's findings are seen as crucial in the run-up to next week's talks to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland.

Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern hope the report will provide the right mood music for the negotiations in St Andrew's in Scotland and will help build unionist confidence in Sinn Fein's credentials as a future partner in a devolved government.

The Commission, whose report will also focus on the activities of loyalist paramilitaries and dissident republicans, is expected to show that the IRA has stopped recruiting members, directing those who want to join towards Sinn Fein.

It will also show that intelligence-gathering on security force members has stopped, training and the procurement of weapons has ended, and the organisation has resisted approaches from the community for it to punish anti-social elements.

The four-member panel will acknowledge the efforts of those in the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defence Association to steer their loyalist organisations away from crime.

However, while it will encourage those efforts, the report will insist that loyalists have a considerable distance to travel before they emulate what the Provisional IRA has achieved in transforming its organisation.

The report will also claim that despite its efforts to wind down criminal and paramilitary activity, the UVF leadership sanctioned the murder attempt on leading loyalist Mark Haddock in a gun attack in May.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain today that claimed people would see when the report was finally published at lunchtime today that the Provisional IRA had undergone an historic, seismic, irreversible change and was no longer a terrorist threat.

"What I do think now is an imperative for all the (Northern Ireland) parties is for them to recognise that the paramilitary situation, in particular the situation of the IRA, has changed absolutely fundamentally and radically," he said.

"The IMC is the judge of that - not me, not anybody else.

"You cannot second-guess the IMC. You have to take what it says on face value as it relies on a process based on absolute integrity."

Mr Hain said it was a matter for Northern Ireland's parties to reach their own judgments on the IMC report.

However, he warned them of the implications if they disputed the report's findings.

"On other parties and individuals making their judgment on the IMC, I think people are going to have to say that they really do not trust the IMC and they do not accept the integrity of their members and do not agree with the independence of its members if they dispute its conclusion," the minister told BBC Radio Ulster.

"I think that is a very serious development indeed."

Speaking later on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Hain said he believed the IRA was now "absolutely locked in" to a move away from violence to democracy.

"People will judge for themselves from the IMC report, but I believe that trend is absolutely locked in and I think the DUP and Dr Paisley will want to recognise that that is the case."

He added: "People need to make their minds up.

"Has Northern Ireland changed fundamentally? The answer's yes. Is there now a security threat from the IRA? The answer's no.

"Is Northern Ireland now on the path to increasing prosperity and security? Yes.

"However, the politics is still paralysed.

"People will want to know in Northern Ireland, because there's a growing impatience with the politicians, whether they are up to discharging their responsibilities and doing their jobs or not.

"I do not believe anybody thinks that the IRA can come back as a war machine. That is over for them, they have chosen a different, democratic, path.

"The change in the IRA has been fundamental but we need to be certain that this is locked in and the parties will make their own judgment when the IMC report is published around midday of what it says."

Russia will only remain in contact with Georgia on matters regarding the implementation of agreements on the withdrawal of two Russian military bases from Georgia, the source said.

Russia suspended postal, air, road, rail and sea links with Georgia on Tuesday following Tbilisi's arrest of four Russian officers, which Russia President Vladimir Putin publicly denounced as "an act of state terrorism."

The four officers were released on Monday and returned to Moscow later that day aboard an Emergency Situations Ministry plane.

The spy row has added to an already tense relationship between Russia and Georgia. Ties have been strained by the Georgian leadership's bid to join NATO and a Russian ban on imports of Georgian wines.

Earlier, Russia recalled its ambassador from Georgia and evacuated some of the Russian personnel there amid the worst crisis in recent years between the two countries.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at a news conference in Moscow, said Russia has no intention of restoring the transport links with Georgia any time soon.

The top Russian diplomat said there is no need to involve mediators to help solve the dispute.

"Frankly, I see no need for inviting any mediator or third party to issues related to Russian-Georgian relations," Lavrov said, quoted by Interfax.

"Third parties have actually interfered in relations between Russia and Georgia and this has only done harm," he said.

In a telephone conversation on Monday with U.S. President George W. Bush, Putin also warned against intervention by third countries.

"Any action by third countries that the Georgian leadership could interpret as support for its destructive policy is unacceptable and constitutes a danger for peace and stability in the region," the Kremlin quoted Putin as saying in a statement.

Speaking in Ankara, Mr Rehn said there was still time to stop a "train crash" in the accession talks, but it was crucial that "new initiatives are taken and tangible progress is still achieved" before the commission presents its report on November 8. Since accession talks began, Austria, Germany and France have become increasingly disenchanted at the prospect of Turkey joining the EU. Mr Blair has emerged as Turkey's leading champion in Europe, partly because he is keen to have a Muslim country inside the EU to counter criticism that it is a Christian club.

A Turkish government source said yesterday the compromise was still at a sensitive stage and would require goodwill on all sides. The source said that, in order to meet EU criticism of its human rights record, Mr Erdogan is expecting changes to the Turkish penal code to go through parliament this month.

Mr Rehn demanded that Turkey scrap article 301 of its penal code that has been used in 70 cases against authors, including the renowned novelist Orhan Pamuk, journalists and intellectuals for "insulting Turkishness". "It is high time Turkey brings the penal code into line with the European Convention on Human Rights," he said. "Nowhere is there such a sweeping conception of insulting, say, Englishness or Finnishness."

Turkish leaders, including Mr Erdogan, have threatened to walk away from the EU membership talks over the last few weeks. Mr Erdogan insists that, to allow access to Turkish ports and landing strips to Greek Cypriots, the EU must also end the diplomatic and economic isolation of Turkish Cyprus. Turkey, which invaded northern Cyprus in 1974, is the only country in the world that recognises Turkish Cyprus.

During talks in Downing Street, Mr Blair and Mr Erdogan discussed ways to end the stalemate. The favoured plan is for Famagusta, the key port in Turkish Cyprus, to re-open under UN control in exchange for the return of the Greek Cypriot district of Varosha to its owners.

The teacher, whose latest book, Depression and Philosophy, is about to be published, does not shy away from controversy. A member of the board of Les Temps Modernes, a review founded by Jean-Paul Sartre, he criticised French pacifists at the start of the Iraq war.

In a comment piece in Le Figaro on September 19, he said Muhammad was "a merciless warlord, a looter, a mass-murderer of Jews and a polygamist". He called the Qur'an "a book of incredible violence" and contrasted what he said were Christianity's peaceful roots and Islam's violent ones, adding: "Jesus is a master of love, Muhammad a master of hate." He said this year's ban on g-string bikinis at Paris's artificial beach, Paris Plages, was an example of the "Islamicisation" of minds in France. Egypt and Tunisia banned the edition of Le Figaro.

The French government was at first cautious when commenting on the case, with the education minister, Gilles de Robien, saying: "State employees must show prudence and moderation in all circumstances."

But Mr Redeker went on radio last week complaining that he had been abandoned by the education ministry and had to arrange his own safehouses when police bodyguards moved him every two days.

"If Mr de Robien were right, there would never have been any intellectual life in France," he said, adding that he had "no regrets".

The case has become a political issue. Philippe de Villiers, head of the far-right Movement for France party, suggested that President Jacques Chirac should shelter Mr Redeker at the Elysée Palace.

Mr de Robien yesterday told the French parliament that Mr Redeker would return to teaching "whenever convenient", adding that freedom of expression was an essential part of the French constitution.

Mr Redeker has received the backing of several groups, including the press watchdog Reporters without Borders and two teachers' unions - although one of those said "we do not share his convictions".

Justin Vaisse, author of a new book about Muslims in France, Integrating Islam, told the Guardian he felt obliged to defend the principle of freedom of expression, but added that Mr Redeker's article stemmed from an "anti-Islam agenda" and was "stupid, politically irresponsible, intellectually inconsistent and very weak and feeble".

The French Human Rights League criticised Mr Redeker's "nauseating" ideas and "hateful discourse" while condemning the threats against him. "You don't fight the ideas expressed by Mr Redeker by turning him into a victim," it said.

France has the largest Muslim population in Europe and is battling to improve community relations and end violence such as the recent defacement of mosques in Quimper and Carcassonne, in which they were painted with swastikas and slogans including "France for the French".