Parliament

Moscow -- It can take as many as eight years for a case to journey, from start to finish, through the halls of justice at the European Court of Human Rights, where some 90,000 complaints are pending. Yet a plan designed to streamline the court's operation has stalled on Russia's doorstep. The nation is the lone holdout, among the 46 countries in the Council of Europe, in ratifying 2 1/2 -year-old reform measures that supporters say are badly needed to address the mounting caseload at the chronically overburdened court.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. officials said yesterday that they are working with the Iraqi government to determine whether a member of parliament was a convicted terrorist who had been sentenced to death in Kuwait for bombing the U.S. and French embassies there in 1983. The legislator, Jamal Jaafar Mohammed, was elected in December 2005 to represent Babil, a province south of Baghdad. Sheikh Dhiauddin Fayadh, another legislator, said Mohammed was not aligned with a particular political party and had not been seen since late December.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's Shiite prime minister exchanged heated words with a Sunni lawmaker over the country's new security plan yesterday, leading parliament to temporarily suspend debate and Iraqi television to abort its coverage. The argument underscored the deep divides that have bedeviled attempts to quell Iraq's deadly sectarian conflict. As the legislators debated, the violence continued, with more than 80 Iraqis and at least one U.S. soldier killed in a string of bombings and other attacks.

LONDON -- Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected calls yesterday to withdraw British soldiers from Iraq by October, then dodged a blistering debate in Parliament in which there was almost unanimous condemnation for the war and little optimism for a U.S. plan to boost troop presence in Baghdad. Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett suggested that British troops might complete the handover of security responsibilities in southern Iraq to the Iraqi government by November. But she said a withdrawal would depend on "conditions and circumstances."

MOSCOW -- After six days of anti-government protests, opposition and pro-government lawmakers in Kyrgyzstan said last night that they had agreed to a new draft constitution sharply reducing the president's power. The document will be considered by the full 75-member parliament today, they said. It was not immediately clear whether President Kurmanbek Bakiyev would agree to the proposed constitution, but he has said previously that he would go along with a shift in powers from the presidency to parliament.

JERUSALEM -- Israel's president, dogged by rape allegations and calls for his resignation, sat out the opening of the parliament's winter session yesterday after police recommended he be indicted. Some members of the Knesset had threatened to boycott the ceremony or to stay in their seats if President Moshe Katsav took part in it. It is customary for lawmakers to rise as the president, whose post is largely ceremonial, takes his place in the gallery seats reserved for dignitaries. Katsav, who has denied the accusations, decided to skip the session after police recommended Sunday that prosecutors indict him on rape and other sexual misconduct charges involving former female employees.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's sectarian leaders stepped back from a simmering constitutional crisis yesterday, agreeing to wait at least 18 months before setting up autonomous regions that would shift power away from the central government. During the cooling-off period, Iraq's parliament would consider amendments to the country's constitution, providing a public forum for the divisive issue of autonomy. The deal, which was being fine-tuned last night, allows lawmakers to avoid a looming constitutional deadline that threatened to worsen the sectarian violence ravaging the country.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi lawmakers returned to work yesterday, some traveling from the Kurdish north, others from the Sunni Arab west and still others from the Shiite south. More than one-third of the members, however, did not bother to attend. After a monthlong vacation, the large number of no-shows for the short parliamentary session generated dismay among legislative colleagues and confusion about voting rules. "No more orphans, no more widows," Mahmoud Mashadani, the Sunni speaker of parliament, declared in front of rows of empty chairs during his opening statements.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. military officials unveiled yesterday a plan to combat chronic problems with renegade Iraqi security forces by creating Iraqi-led inspection boards and standardized uniforms. The boards will conduct battalion-level reviews of police leadership and accountability systems, said Maj. Gen. Joe Peterson, the top U.S. police trainer in Iraq. Battalions will be judged on how well they can track weapons and vehicles - a response to widespread diversion of equipment for criminal activities.

KIEV, Ukraine -- Viktor F. Yanukovych, the humiliated loser two years ago when Orange Revolution protests forced a presidential runoff election to be repeated, completed a remarkable political comeback yesterday by becoming Ukraine's prime minister. Yanukovych swiftly declared that he intended to govern as a partner with President Viktor A. Yushchenko, his 2004 rival. Yushchenko ended months of political uncertainty Thursday by agreeing to nominate Yanukovych as prime minister rather than dissolve parliament and call new elections.