Pakistan's Supreme Court on Monday suspended a judicial inquiry into misconduct charges against the country's top judge that triggered weeks of nationwide protests.

The court ordered the suspension as it took up a petition from Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry challenging his sacking, a decision likely to embarrass President Pervez Musharraf's government.

Musharraf suspended Chaudhry on March 9 on allegations of misconduct and abuse of authority, sparking a wave of massive protests by opposition parties and lawyers who branded it an attack on the independence of the judiciary.

The misconduct allegations were being investigated by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), a panel of five senior judges, but Chaudhry argued that it was not competent to try him.

"The SJC proceedings have been stayed," Tariq Mehmud, a lawyer for Chaudhry, told AFP after the hearing.

Mehmud said the Supreme Court had demanded that Chaudhry's case should be heard by a full court comprising all of its judges.

"The SJC would not hear the case until Supreme Court decides the petition of chief justice," Chaudhry's main lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan said.

"The court's order shows that the proceedings so far of the Supreme Judicial Council were unconstitutional," Ahsan added.

The SJC was scheduled to resume its proceedings on Wednesday.

Government lawyers said the decision showed the judiciary was independent.

"I am not unhappy over the order," Malik Mohammad Qayyum, a senior lawyer representing the government, told reporters.

"We are saying from the beginning that judges are independent and let them decide the case," Qayyum said.

Asked if the government would appeal against the suspension order, he said there could not be an appeal against an interim order and added that when a full court assembled, it could decide the matter.

The decision comes in the wake of a judicial crisis that poses one of the most serious threats to the eight-year rule of Musharraf, an army general who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

Opposition parties and lawyers have staged anti-Musharraf rallies on each of Chaudhry's eight appearances before the council in the past two months.

In a 132-point petition the chief justice also challenged the composition of the council, the decision to send him on forced leave, and the misconduct charges, lawyer Ahsan said.

A massive rally was held in the eastern city of Lahore on Sunday where Chaudhry was cheered by tens of thousands of supporters.

Opponents accuse Musharraf of sacking Chaudhry illegally in an attempt to weaken the judiciary to make it easier for him to remain in charge of the army after 2007, when he should give up the position.

Musharraf is also expected to seek re-election by the outgoing parliament for another five years ahead of national polls due to be held late this year or in early 2008 -- a move that could spark other legal challenges.

MOSCOW -- A court Monday found the principal of a village school guilty of using bootleg Microsoft software and ordered him to pay a fine of about $195 in a case that was cast by Russian media as a battle between a humble educator and an international corporation.

The trial of Alexander Ponosov, who was charged with violating intellectual property rights by using classroom computers with pirated versions of the Windows operating system and Microsoft Office software installed, has attracted wide attention.

Russian officials frequently allege that foreign governments, including the U.S., are meddling in Russia's internal affairs, and Russian media reports have portrayed the case as that of a Western corporation bringing its power to bear on one man _ in this case, a principal who also teaches history and earns $360 a month.

Microsoft, however, has said repeatedly it has nothing to do with the charges, which were brought by Russian prosecutors in the Ural Mountains region where Ponosov's school is located.

The case "was initiated by Russian authorities under Russian law," the company said in an e-mailed statement after the verdict. "Microsoft neither initiated nor has any plans to bring any action against Mr. Ponosov."

Prosecutor Natalya Kurdoyakova said in televised remarks that Ponosov knew he was violating the law "and illegally used these programs in computer classes."

Ponosov has maintained his innocence, saying that the computers at the school came with the software already installed.

"I had no idea it wasn't licensed," Ponosov told The Associated Press by telephone. He said that he planned to file an appeal.

"Prosecutors made a lot of mistakes starting from the moment they checked the computers," he said.

Ponosov was found guilty of causing $10,000 in damage to the company, RIA-Novosti quoted judge Valentina Tiunova as saying.

In February, the court in the Vereshchaginsky district of the Perm region threw out the case, saying Ponosov's actions were "insignificant" and presented no danger to society. Both Ponosov and prosecutors vowed to appeal in hopes of forcing a clear decision, with Ponosov saying he wanted a full acquittal.

In March, the regional court ordered Ponosov to stand trial a second time.

Despite government pledges to crack down on Russia's rampant piracy, the country remains the No. 2 producer of bootlegged software, movies and music after China.

In April, the Bush administration put Russia, China and 10 other nations on a "priority watch list," which will subject them to extra scrutiny and could eventually lead to economic sanctions if the administration decides to bring trade cases before the World Trade Organization.

The designation was made in an annual report the administration is required to provide to Congress each year that highlights the problems U.S. companies are facing around the world with copyright piracy. The report said that the United States will be closely watching to see how Russia fulfills the commitments it made to upgrading copyright protection as part of a U.S.-Russia accord reached last year which was seen as a key milestone in Russian efforts to join the WTO.

The Canadian Senate Wednesday passed a US-style bill to have federal elections on fixed dates every four years. An Act to Amend the Canada Elections Act requires that an election be held on the third Monday of October four years after the last federal election, although the chief electoral officer has limited discretion to change the date if it's found to be inappropriate for some reason. Opposition parties can still force an earlier vote if a minority government loses a confidence vote in the Canadian House of Commons. The bill is scheduled to receive royal assent and become law Thursday.

Former Minister for Democratic Reform Rob Nicholson introduced the bill last year on behalf of Canada's new Conservative government to promote "greater fairness" in the Canadian electoral system, since current rules let the prime minister choose the date for the general election and tell the governor general to dissolve Parliament. According to Prime Minister Stephen Harper [official profile], this allows the ruling party to set the time of the election to its own advantage.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday slammed a Constitutional Court decision to annul the first-round vote in the presidential election as "a bullet fired at democracy," but then backed down saying his remarks were not aimed at the court.

"We respect the decision of the Constitutional Court, (but) it will be much debated from the legal point of view," Erdogan told members of his Justice and Development Party in parliament.

"The election of a president in parliament has been blocked, the election of presidents has been made almost impossible in future parliaments from now on.

"And you know what is it at the same time? It is a bullet fired at democracy," he said.

His remarks prompted a strong response from the Constitutional Court, which warned that the prime minister was committing a crime by criticising court rulings.

Erdogan's remarks are "irresponsible, go beyond their original intent and turn the institution into a target," the court statement said.

The court Tuesday cancelled the first-round vote in Turkey's turbulent presidential elections on the grounds that the 550-member parliament started voting without the required quorum of a two-thirds majority.

Questioned by reporters about the court's reaction, Erdogan said his words were aimed not at the tribunal, but at Deniz Baykal. Baykal is the chairman of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), which had petitioned the court to annul the vote.

Baykal had said ahead of the ruling that Turkey would plunge into conflict if the court did not cancel the vote.

"My words were directed completely at Mr. Baykal," the Anatolia news agency quoted Erdogan as saying. "Why would I otherwise say that I respect the ruling? ... The ruling has been made, we must respect it."

In its statement Wednesday, the court also criticised Baykal's remarks.

Both statements violated the independence of the judiciary and were crimes under the penal code, it said.

The CHP had petitioned the court with the intention of blocking the election of the sole presidential candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, and forcing early elections. They object to Gul because of his Islamist background.

Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP), the moderate offshoot of a now-banned Islamist movement, holds the majority in parliament with 351 members. But it does not have the two-thirds majority of 367 that the court said was required for voting to begin in Friday's session.

The opposition had boycotted the vote.

Following Tuesday's ruling, the AKP called for early general elections in June and said it would also submit a package of constitutional amendments, including a far-reaching reform for a popular vote to elect the president.

Senior officials of the United States and Japan had talks on Tuesday with the two sides urging the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to fulfill its promise to shut its major nuclear facility.

"We agreed that we must continue to expect North Korea to immediately fulfill its initial action agreements," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters after talks with her Japanese counterpart Taro Aso, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Japanese Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma.

The DPRK, which failed to shut down its main nuclear reactor by an April 14 deadline as agreed in six-party talks in February, insisted that its 25 million U.S. dollars frozen at Macao-based Banco Delta Asia (BDA) must be returned before closing the Yongbyon nuclear reactor and starting new negotiations.

The United States said in mid-April that it has agreed with other parties to the six-party talks to give the DPRK "a bit more time" to fulfill its promise to shut its major nuclear facility.

The DPRK funds were frozen after the United States blacklisted the Banco Delta Asia bank of Macao in September 2005 for allegedly helping Pyongyang launder money, an allegation the bank has denied. Pyongyang denies the U.S. charges.

Washington and the bank, Banco Delta Asia, said last month that the DPRK's accounts were no longer frozen. ?

British Army Corporal David Payne, convicted of abusing Iraqi detainees in 2003, was sent to jail for one year on Monday. Payne, who was one of seven British soldiers who faced court-martial for charges of detainee abuse, had pleaded guilty to charges of inhumane treatment in September. The court-martial of the seven was the first prosecution of British military personnel under the International Criminal Court Act 2001 (ICCA) and Payne was the first British soldier to admit to committing a war crime in Iraq.

The charges stemmed from a 2003 raid on a hotel in Basra in which British troops detained several Iraqi civilians, including hotel receptionist Baha Musa [Herald report], who died while in custody. The soldiers allegedly took the Iraqis to a detention facility where they were held for 36 hours and subjected to physical abuse, causing Musa's death, according to prosecutors. Charges against the other soldiers were eventually dropped.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Saturday that NATO will investigate allegations of human rights violations committed by Afghan prison officials. Scheffer's comments follow allegations made by Canadian human rights groups that Canada, a NATO member and prime contributor to ISAF, NATO's security assistance force in Afghanistan, is violating international human rights law and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in allowing detainees initially held in Canadian custody to be turned over to Afghan forces, where they suffer abuse. The groups have filed suit against the Canadian government alleging that the current Canada-Afghanistan Detainee Agreement does not do enough to ensure detainees will not be tortured by Afghan forces.

Scheffer said that NATO countries have the responsibility to defend international human rights, and that NATO has an obligation to prevent Afghanistan from torturing prisoners in its facilities.