Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet has died, according to an announcement from a military hospital in Santiago. Pinochet, 91, suffered a major heart attack.

In recent years Chilean authorities have made multiple efforts to bring the ex-dictator to justice for dozens of human rights violations he is accused of committing during his military rule from 1973 to 1990.

Pinochet suffered from mild dementia, strokes, arthritis and other ailments that made his fitness to stand trial questionable. He enjoyed general immunity from prosecution under the 1980 Chilean Constitution, but was incrementally stripped of that immunity in light of charges brought against him.

Two weeks ago, a judge ordered he be placed under house arrest in connection with the executions of two of former President Salvador Allende's bodyguards during the so-called Caravan of Death that followed the 1973 coup in which Pinochet seized power; the house arrest order was lifted earlier this week for his recuperation. Last month, on the occasion of his birthday, Pinochet publicly assumed full political responsibility for the actions of his former regime.

China leads the world with 31 imprisoned journalists, 19 of which are held in relation to information they published on the Internet. Behind China, Cuba and Eritrea round out the top three states with most imprisoned journalists. The US currently has three journalists imprisoned including AP photographer Bilal Hussein and Aljazerra cameraman Sami al-Haj. According to CPJ statistics, the first journalist imprisoned for publishing on the Internet was jailed in 1997.

The new center-left government of Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi promised before taking office last May to consider recognizing civil unions. The government's position has already prompted condemnation from the Vatican, with Pope Benedict denouncing any legal recognition of same-sex couples.

Washington -- The chance that the gem on your finger is an illicit or "blood diamond" has been greatly diminished, thanks to an innovative international partnership called the "Kimberley Process" that controls and monitors the world's $30 billion annual trade in rough stones.

The multination process, with roots in a meeting held in Kimberley, South Africa, in 2000, was launched formally in November 2002.  It has "fundamentally reformed the rules of the game of the trade in rough diamonds … and is a success story for multilateral diplomacy," says Paul Simons, a deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs.

Simons updated journalists December 5 on progress made by the 71 Kimberley Process signatories in curtailing the illicit cross-border trade in diamonds that has helped fuel conflict, especially in West Africa in the 1990s. The United Nations defines blood diamonds, also called conflict diamonds, as diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments and used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council.

Simons, who attended a Kimberley Process plenary meeting in Gaborone, Botswana, November 6-9, said the Kimberley Process "creates an exclusive trading zone of committed countries.  All the world's major diamond producers, polishers and consumers are part of the process” and have agreed to trade only with other members.

He said a major reason for the success of the "certification scheme" is the partnership between government, the diamond industry and prominent civil society groups.

U.S. government support for the Kimberley Process broadened when Congress passed the Clean Diamond Trade Act in April 2003.  The United States provides technical help to upgrade internal controls on the diamond sectors in countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia and has spent $7.6 million since 1999 on diamond trade control assistance, Simons added.

Money from the sale of blood diamonds helped fuel Sierra Leone’s civil war, which killed or maimed thousands. That conflict is the subject of a new film, Blood Diamond, that debuts on international screens in early 2007.

After seeing an advance screening of the film, Simons said, "It is very good, but it depicts a picture that occurred in the late 1990s."

During that "peak period," blood diamonds were estimated to account for 4-15 percent of the world's total trade in the gemstone, he added.  But now the rate has dropped to less than 1 percent, thanks to the certification and sanctions regime the Kimberley Process implemented early in 2003.

In many ways Kimberley is unique because "it contains a disciplinary component to take action if there are any irregularities," Simons pointed out.  This is done through "warnings or expulsion processes."

For example, he said, the Republic of Congo-Brazzaville was expelled from the process in 2004 because it was exporting more diamonds than it produced.  In contrast, policing of the industry has been good for formerly war-torn Sierra Leone, whose official diamond exports went from virtually zero to $140 million in 2005.

Kimberley also has "a clearly robust tool kit that includes mechanisms to monitor country performance ... [and] provisions to report diamond trade and production statistics -- we have a statistics working group that compiles and monitors these," Simons added.

According to a communiqué from the November Gaborone meeting, the statistics working group in 2006 monitored $37.6 billion in rough diamond exports, and participating nations issued 59,000 certificates verifying their authenticity.

In late November, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution reaffirming its continuing support for the Kimberley Process.

Barbara Barrett, a member of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. and senior adviser on diamonds and conflict issues, said in a statement: "We join those in the international community who commend the Kimberley Process for dramatically reducing the flow of conflict diamonds and thus contributing to regional security, peace and stability."

Despite Kimberley’s successes, challenges remain, Simon told journalists.  Liberia is still unable to export diamonds because of U.N. sanctions -- a legacy of the Charles Taylor dictatorship.

And diamonds from rebel-held regions in Cote d'Ivoire allegedly enter international markets through Mali and Ghana.  The Gaborone meeting communiqué said Ghanaian officials are “committed to take appropriate measures to maintain the integrity” of the process."

But the main point, Simons said, is that the Kimberley Process overall is "a success story.  We're keeping a vigilant eye around the world" and continue to upgrade capabilities of countries that could be vulnerable to the illicit trade in diamonds.

More information is available on the Kimberley Process Web site.

Washington – "In order to fight corruption you have to deny safe haven for the corrupt," according to John Brandolino, director for anticrime programs for the U.S. Department of State's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. The United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) provisions on asset recovery help do that, he said.

"No other convention deals with the asset recovery issue in such a comprehensive way," Brandolino said in an interview with USINFO December 4. The convention’s provisions on asset recovery promote international cooperation in training and confiscating illicitly acquired funds and return them to their country of origin.

For the asset recovery efforts to be effective, there must be full participation of the international community, Brandolino said, so that corrupt entities cannot take their funds from one nation to another.

Brandolino made his remarks ahead of the first high-level conference since the convention came into force on December 14, 2005. Representatives of the countries that have ratified the U.N. Convention Against Corruption will meet in Dead Sea, Jordan, December 10 -14, to work on turning the international anti-corruption convention’s words into actions. The goal of the conference is to get parties together to develop a process for promoting implementation of the convention, Brandolino said.

The convention, the first international legally binding anti-corruption agreement, outlines actions governments are required to take to reduce corruption. It has been signed by 140 nations and ratified by 80.

According to a November 29 U.N. press release, asset recovery is one of three key issues at the Jordan conference. The 800 delegates also will focus on monitoring nations' compliance with the convention and providing technical assistance to ensure that police, prosecutors and judges are equipped with the tools needed to prevent and punish corruption.

International cooperation is a key element of the convention. It establishes guidelines for improving mutual law enforcement, investigations and extraditions.

UNITED STATES ACTIVE IN FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION

The United States became a party to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption on November 29. The U.S. ratification sends a strong message to the world that the United States views the convention as an important focal point for anti-corruption efforts, Brandolino said.

The United States goal at the Jordan conference, Brandolino said, is to work with the parties to make sure the convention is implemented effectively. The U.S. delegation to the conference includes representatives from the State Department, Justice Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The United States already has been working actively with the United Nations and independently to fight corruption worldwide. It has given money to help countries fight corruption as part of the U.N. Global Program Against Corruption. U.S. assistance also has helped other nations learn how to institute the proper laws, financial management systems and public procurement systems to prevent corruption.

The full text of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption is available on the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Web site.

More information about the convention will be available in a December 12 webchat at USINFO’s Webchat Station.

An Italian prosecutor on Tuesday requested the indictment of 26 Americans and five Italian secret service officials in the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan - a case that continues to be an irritant to U.S.-Italian relations.

Prosecutor Armando Spataro said the indictment request is aimed at CIA agents and the former head of Italian military intelligence, Nicolo Pollari, for alleged involvement in the kidnapping.

Prosecutors have identified all but one of the Americans as CIA agents, including former station chiefs in Rome and Milan, and the 26th as a U.S. Air Force officer stationed at the time at Aviano air base near Venice.

Last month, Spataro asked the center-left government of Romano Prodi to request the Americans' extradition; he has not received a response.

The operation was believed to be part of an alleged CIA "extraordinary rendition" program in which terrorism suspects are transferred to third countries where some allegedly are tortured. It is the first known prosecution of alleged participants in such operations, which have come under growing criticism by America's allies in Europe.

The United States and Italy have an extradition treaty, although it was not likely that CIA agents would be turned over for trial abroad. In some instances, only the aliases of the agents are known.

The previous government of conservative Silvio Berlusconi had refused to request the Americans' extradition, and contended his government and Italian secret services were not informed about the operation and did not take part.

Berlusconi, one of the United States' staunchest allies in the war against terrorism and the invasion of Iraq, expressed support for Pollari.

"Gen. Pollari was one of the few to fight terrorism in the front lines, with the result that he came under the scrutiny of all Italians. Let's ask the government how it intends to protect those like Pollari who go up against terrorists, and the good name of our intelligence and Italy's reputation abroad," Berlusconi said.

Pollari was replaced last month as part of a purge that also included the heads of the civilian secret service agencies. Pollari, 63, had long resisted calls for his resignation that only intensified with the abduction case. He took over SISMI, the Italian military intelligence agency, in 2001 after holding key posts with Italy's financial police and civilian secret service agency.

Besides Pollari, the request also names his former deputy Marco Mancini, and three other secret service officials.

Pollari has insisted in questioning before parliamentary committees that Italian intelligence had no role in the cleric's disappearance, while Mancini, who was arrested this summer, is said by his lawyers to be cooperating with prosecutors in implicating his boss.

Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, an Egyptian cleric and terrorist suspect, also known as Abu Omar, was allegedly abducted from a Milan street in February 2003 and flown out of Italy from Aviano.

Among the Americans named in the request are Robert Seldon Lady, a former station chief in Milan, and Jeffrey Castelli, identified as a former CIA chief in Rome.

Spataro also is seeking indictments on charges of aiding and abetting against two other secret service officials and the deputy director of the newspaper Libero, Renato Farina. Four others - three secret service officials and a reporter for Libero - were dropped from the investigation.

From the outset, U.S. officials have declined comment. A lawyer for Lady, the only American who was living in Italy when arrest warrants were issued, said she was surprised by the indictment request.

"Even the documents of the prosecution show that he was not an organizer. If anything, he was someone who obeyed orders," lawyer Daria Pesce said.

Lady left the country before the warrant was served. Pesce said he lives in the United States, but declined to say where.

Prosecutors raided Lady's home near Turin last year, collecting a central piece of evidence - a picture of Nasr taken in January 2003 on the street where he was allegedly abducted a month later.

In another case, lawmakers from an Italian communist party demanded Tuesday that the government take action in the case of Abou Elkassim Britel, a Moroccan-born Italian citizen whose family and lawyer say was seized during a 2002 trip to Pakistan, tortured and interrogated by U.S. intelligence and local officials, then put on a CIA flight to Morocco, where he is serving a nine-year prison sentence on terrorism charges.

A report issued last week by the European Parliament committee investigating alleged CIA kidnappings and prisons in Europe condemned Britel's extraordinary rendition and said documents presented by lawyer Francesca Longhi show the Italian Interior Ministry cooperated with the foreign secret services who seized him.

Longhi and the lawmakers told reporters in Rome that Britel was sentenced in Morocco on the basis of a 2001 Italian terror investigation that has since been closed without any charges being brought.

Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif has announced an 18-month timetable for lifting the state of emergency that Egypt has lived under since 1981. The administration of President Hosni Mubarak will present proposed changes to the Egyptian Constitution to parliament this year, with a referendum on those changes expected in the summer. Egypt has remained under the emergency laws, which give the president quasi-military control over the population, since the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. After the referendum, the government hopes to introduce new anti-terror laws that would replace the emergency laws.

Proposed changes to the constitution would limit the president to two seven-year terms of office. Mubarak has governed since 1981. Another proposed change, announced by Mubarak last week, would allow political parties with one member in either house of parliament to nominate a presidential candidate. The present system grants that privilege only to parties holding 5 percent of the seats in each house. The reforms will not allow the opposition Muslim Brotherhood to nominate a presidential candidate, however.