Belgium has become the first country to criminalize investment in companies that make cluster bombs. Legislation passed the Belgian Senate on Thursday, and the Parliament plans to publish a list of companies that manufacture cluster munitions. Belgian banks KBC and Fortis have already terminated their investments in such companies, and KBC has published its own list of manufacturers. The new law will prohibit Belgian banks from owning shares in cluster bomb manufacturers or offering them credit.

Last week, 46 countries pledged to develop a new international treaty to ban the use of cluster bombs by 2008 at the Oslo Conference on Cluster Munitions. Last year, Belgium was the first country to ban cluster bombs. Although the US did not attend the Oslo conference, top Democratic lawmakers recently introduced a bill in the US Senate that would ban federal funds for the use, sale or transfer of cluster bombs. Cluster munitions, which have been used by at least 23 countries, are considered by many to be inaccurate weapons designed to spread damage indiscriminately and could therefore be considered illegal under multiple provisions of Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions (1977).

The Chinese parliament will consider amending a law allowing the state to send criminal suspects to labor camps without a trial during the National People's Congress (NPC) scheduled for next week, the China Daily reported Thursday. The system, called "re-education through labor," or "laojiao", currently allows the police to send those suspected of committing petty crimes, such as theft, prostitution, and illegal drug use, to jail for up to four years. Judicial review is only granted after time has been served at the jail. The changes being considered next week would limit incarceration to less than 18 months and make judicial review more lenient. The camps would be called "correctional centers," instead of "re-education centers."

Since its inception in 1957, laojiao has detained as many as 400,000 criminals. Critics say the government uses the system to detain political and religious activists. The reform being considered next week was initially added to the NPC agenda in 2005, but was postponed for two years due to disagreements about its terms. In 2005, Human Rights in China said the reform would be a major improvement but still called for the complete eradication of the entire system. Among 20 other items on next week's agenda are proposed amendments to laws involving education, corporate tax, and property rights.

Croatia might drop its suit against Serbia at the highest UN court and seek an out of court settlement with it, a Croatian negotiator said yesterday.

The decision reflects the country's scepticism about its case after the court cleared Serbia of genocide in Bosnia.

Like Bosnia, Croatia also sued Serbia at the International Court of Justice for genocide committed here during the 1991 war, when Serbia backed Croatian Serbs' armed rebellion against Croatia's independence from the ex-Yugoslavia.

Charges have been brought against former interim president of Liberia Gyude Bryant for embezzling $1.3 million during his tenure from October 2003 until January 2006, according to a Liberia government statement Tuesday. The indictment was based on an audit conducted by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which monitored the interim government after former President Charles Taylor stepped down in August 2003. Taylor is currently awaiting trial at The Hague before judges of the Special Court for Sierra Leone on crimes against humanity charges.

On Monday, current Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf announced the government's plans to prosecute all present and former government officials involved in corruption. In December, two former finance ministers and a former minister of commerce were charged with corruption; however, the men were subsequently freed. Bryant has denied the charges against him and is expected to face trial in an intermediate court in Monrovia.

Oil rose on Monday as a burst of cold weather boosted heating demand in the United States and as world powers discussed tightening UN sanctions on Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter.

US crude rose 26 cents to $US61.40 a barrel, just below the 2007 high of $US61.80 hit on Friday. London Brent was up 47 cents to $US61.35.

Analysts said wintry weather sweeping across the key Midwest and North-east heating markets was supporting oil's gains, and added that prices could find even more strength heading into the spring, when gasoline demand picks up.

"It is the first time this year that the large speculative funds are showing a net long position in crude oil," said Olivier Jakob, an analyst at Swiss-based Petromatrix.

Oil prices have swung between a high of $US78.40 last July, when fighting flared in Lebanon, and a 20-month low of $US49.90 in January, when an expected influx of fund money failed to materialise, disappointing oil investors.

A steady recovery in prices since late January has been supported by gradually tightening supplies - OPEC has twice cut output since November - and by concerns over a possible disruption of Iran's oil supplies.

Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr said in a live television interview with Al Jazeera Sunday that he was "savagely tortured by the CIA when kidnapped" and taken from Milan to Egypt in 2003. Nasr, who has been at the heart of Italian judicial proceedings against US and Italian intelligence agents implicated in his alleged kidnapping, did not say in the interview whether he was tortured during his four years of Egyptian imprisonment, although he alleged that previously. He also personally revealed plans previously disclosed by his lawyer to sue former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi [JURIST news archive] for his participation in the abduction, as well as plans to seek monetary compensation from the US for his suffering.

Nasr was released from prison earlier this month. The US State Department has refused to comment on his case.