Another of his plans involved blowing up three limousines, packed with flammable gas cylinders and explosives, in underground car parks somewhere in Britain. The locations were not specified.

Prosecutors told Woolwich crown court how Barot, of Willesden, north-west London, was arrested in August 2004 and how details of the plans to target a series of high-profile buildings were found on a computer. Edmund Lawson QC, for the crown, said the buildings included the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings in Washington, the New York stock exchange and Citigroup headquarters in New York, and the Prudential premises in Newark, New Jersey.

"These being plans ... to carry out explosions at those premises with no warning, they were basically designed to kill as many innocent people as possible," said Mr Lawson, outlining the basis of Barot's plea.

The plan to detonate limousines full of explosives and gas cylinders - the "gas limos project" - was to form the "main cornerstone" of a series of attacks in the UK, added the prosecutor.

Kenyan-born Barot, who moved to Britain with his Indian parents as a child and is believed to have converted to Islam as an adult, also wanted to set off a dirty bomb made up of radioactive material.

Mr Lawson said that, according to expert evidence, this would have been unlikely to cause fatalities by itself, but was designed to affect about 500 people, and raise widespread panic and social disruption.

"The project was, on its face, designed to achieve a number of further and collateral objectives so as to cause injury, fear, terror and chaos."

Mr Lawson said three additional projects, including the dirty bomb plan, were designed to be executed in a "synchronised, concurrent and back-to-back way" with the main gas limos project. "The gas limos project was supplemented by three other projects which were presented for consideration, the first being as it was described the 'rough presentation for radiation or dirty bomb project'," said the QC. "The defendant's expressed preference was that the radiation project was designed to be an independent project on its own."

The crown did not dispute claims from the defence that no funding had been received for the plots, nor had any of what would have been the necessary vehicles or bomb-making equipment been acquired.

Armed police stood guard outside the courtroom and prison officers surrounded Barot as he appeared in the dock behind high transparent screens.

He had a short beard and was wearing a khaki-coloured zip-up sweater, black shirt and jeans.

The court clerk said: "On count one of this indictment you are charged with conspiracy to murder. The particulars of the offence being that on diverse days between January 1 2000 and August 4 2004, you conspired together with other persons unknown to murder other persons. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?"

Barot stared intently ahead and showed no emotion as he answered: "I plead guilty." Mr Lawson said Barot had indicated that he pleaded guilty in respect of count one against him, which concerned both the US and the UK.

Barot had also faced 12 other charges: one of conspiracy to cause public nuisance, seven of making a record of information for terrorist purposes, and four of possessing a record of information for terrorist purpose.

Following the defendant's guilty plea, the judge, Mr Justice Butterfield, ordered all 12 to lie on file. He will sentence Barot at a later date.

Mr Lawson said that by pleading guilty, Barot "makes no admission with regard to the involvement of any of his seven co-defendants in the conspiracy". Seven other men, who deny all charges against them, are due to face trial next year.

Barot, 34, also allegedly plotted to cause explosions at several US financial buildings "designed to kill as many innocent people as possible".

Prosecuting QC Edmund Lawson said plans had been found by police on a computer after Barot was arrested in August 2004.

Locations in the US allegedly targeted
Sites of the alleged American targets of the plot

The plans were for attacks on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank buildings in Washington, the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup buildings in New York and the Prudential buildings in Newark, New Jersey.

"These being plans...to carry out explosions at those premises with no warning, they were basically designed to kill as many innocent people as possible," said Mr Lawson.

The defendant also plotted to blow up three limousines "packed" with gas cylinders and explosives in underground car parks in the UK, the court heard.

Mr Lawson said the plot - known as the Gas Limos Project - was to form the "main cornerstone" of a series of synchronised attacks in the UK.

Other bombings being planned included a so-called "dirty bomb project".

Mr Lawson said this plot was designed to achieve "a number of further and collateral objectives such as to cause injury, fear, terror and chaos".

According to expert evidence, if the radiation (dirty bomb) project had been carried out, it would have been unlikely to cause deaths, but was designed to affect about 500 people, he said.

The Crown could not dispute claims from the defence that no funding had been received for the projects, nor any vehicles or bomb-making materials acquired, he said.

Barot had also faced 12 other charges: one of conspiracy to commit public nuisance, seven of making a record of information for terrorist purposes and four of possessing a record of information for terrorist purposes.

The judge ordered all these charges to lie on file following his guilty plea to conspiracy to murder.

Mr Lawson said that by pleading guilty, Barot made "no admission with regard to the involvement of any of his seven co-defendants in the conspiracy".

Seven other men are due to face trial next year.

Barot will be sentenced at a later date.

The four-year study that encompassed 130 countries was completed by Paulo Pinheiro, an independent expert appointed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

It concludes the majority of violent acts experienced by children take place in areas where they should feel most safe, such as at home and school, or in state care.

While the report notes violence in the home usually doesn't leave serious or permanent physical injuries, it is most often accompanied by psychological violence, including threats, belittling, isolation and rejection.

"Violence against children in the family may frequently take place in the context of discipline and takes the form of physical, cruel or humiliating punishment," said the report.

"Harsh treatment and punishment in the family are common in both industrialized and developing countries."

Corporal punishment common

Mali Nilsson, Save the Children's global advisor on child protection, said corporal punishment is one of the most common forms of violence against children.

"In most regions, it is looked upon as justifiable and socially accepted," she said.

Millions of children are exposed to sexual violence each year, says the report.

"As many as 150 million girls and 73 million boys worldwide are subject to sexual violence each year, usually by someone in their family circle," said the report.

A 2002 Canadian study showed children made up 23 per cent of the population, but accounted for 61 per cent of sexual assault victims.

Hundreds of millions of children witness domestic violence each year, according to the report. Estimates range as high as 275 million, including as many as 362,000 in Canada.

Most are exposed to fights between parents or a mother and her partner, it says.

Khan Williams said violence in the home is "a private space that's hard to throw light on."

State-sanctioned violence

The world's children are also exposed to state-sanctioned violence, such as corporal punishment at schools and child labour.

More than 100 countries allow physical punishments such as beating and caning in schools, while violence also occurs in the form of fights and bullying on school playgrounds.

Much of this violence is directed against females and homosexuals, said the study.

"Sexual and gender-based violence is facilitated by government's failure to enact and implement laws that provide students with explicit protection from discrimination," said the report.

About 218 million children are part of the world's labour force, while roughly one million children are in prisons around the globe.

It's mostly boys who experience violence in state-run institutions such as detention centres, orphanages and reform schools, said the report, which noted 77 countries accept violent punishments in penal institutions.

"Children may be beaten, caned, painfully restrained, and subjected to humiliating treatment such as being stripped naked and caned in front of other detainees," said the report.

"Girls in detention facilities are at particular risk of physical and sexual abuse, mainly when supervised by male staff."

There are also as many as 250,000 child soldiers around the world. In Congo, more than 11,000 children are missing and believed to be either forced into armies and militias or used as sex slaves.

Harmful traditional practices encouraged by community leaders, such as female genital mutilation, are prevalent in Africa and occur in immigrant communities in Europe, Asia, Canada and the U.S., said the report.

"These are centuries-old traditions and attitudes we've had," said Khan Williams, who said she hopes the study will increase awareness of levels of violence against children.

The report called for the camp to be closed.

In response, Washington said it looked forward to the camp's closure but emphasized the need to keep terrorist suspects in prison.

"We don't want to be the world's jailers. We certainly would look forward to the day when Guantanamo is closed," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at a daily briefing.

But he stressed that the military camp in Cuba was housing "very dangerous people, including those who were responsible for the attack on this country which killed 3,000 people."

The United States has been widely criticized for human rights violations at the Guantanamo base, where it holds some 450 suspected al-Qaida and Taliban members. Some have been held for more than four years without trial.

Earlier this week the Nizhny Novgorod regional prosecutor's office told The Associated Press that a court in the central Russian city was to examine prosecutors' request to shut down the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society on Thursday.

"The government cannot accept any criticism of its conduct in Chechnya," said the group's leader, Stanislav Dmitriyevsky, who linked the threatened closure to the weekend murder of a prominent Russian investigative journalist who was also a fierce critic of the Kremlin over Chechnya.

Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in an apparent contract killing in her Moscow apartment building on Saturday. Her colleagues linked the murder to her work exposing rights abuses in the troubled southern region; it came as the journalist was about to publish an article about torture and kidnappings in Chechnya based on witness accounts and photos of tortured bodies.

"Whoever ordered it, it's absolutely clear that the authorities either were directly behind it or at the very least created the conditions that allowed it to happen," said Dmitriyevsky, who was one of thousands of mourners who attended Politkovskaya's funeral on Tuesday.

His non-governmental organization, which successfully fought off an attempt to close it last year, has faced increased official pressure in recent months. In February, a court handed Dmitriyevsky a two-year suspended sentence after finding him guilty of inciting ethnic hatred.

The rights group has vigorously campaigned against the more than decade-old conflict against separatists in Chechnya and published reports alleging torture, abductions and murder of civilians by Russian forces and their pro-Moscow Chechen allies.

The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society said in a statement that prosecutors justified the demand for its closure under a new law that made it illegal for an NGO to be headed by a person with a criminal record.

The restrictive law, which came into effect early this year, imposed government oversight of NGO work and financing, giving the authorities scope to close down groups whose activities are perceived to contradict their stated goals or harm state interests.

The law provoked a tide of criticism from Western governments amid concerns that it could herald a tightening state control over non-governmental organizations. President Vladimir Putin has been accused of stifling media freedoms and rolling back post-Soviet democratic freedoms since coming to power in 2000.

"This marks the start of a general campaign against NGOs which are involved in monitoring Chechnya," warned Oleg Orlov from Memorial, the leading Russian human rights body, of the move against the Nizhny Novgorod group. "We expect to be next."