GENEVA – Sudan has won reelection to the UN Commission on Human Rights, despite concerns about its record in the strife-torn western region of Darfur, prompting the United States to walk out saying it would “not participate in this absurdity.” Sudan’s representative responded by accusing the United States of trying to cover up abuses committed by US forces in Iraq.

   ISRAELI ‘SPIES’ IN NEW ZEALAND COURT

AUCKLAND – Two men reportedly believed by New Zealand government officials to be Israeli spies, appeared briefly in court on Wednesday for a procedural hearing on passport charges. Urie Zoshe Kelman, 30, and Eli Cara, 50, stood in the dock at the High Court in Auckland for the hearing, details of which were suppressed by Justice Judith Potter. New Zealand said it would make a “strong and public response” after the case had gone through court. UNKNOWN GROUP CLAIMS DAMASCUS ATTACK

NICOSIA – A previously unknown group, the Martyr Adib Al Kilani group, has claimed responsibility for the April 29 attack in the Syrian capital, saying the attack targeted “senior officers and officials of the sectarian regime which carried out the most horrible massacres” in Hama. Syrian authorities said four people were killed and two attackers seriously wounded in a shootout that followed a bomb attack on a former UN building. BELGIAN EMBASSY GIRLS FREED

BRUSSELS – Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel said that two girls were allowed to return to Brussels, after their divorced parents reached an agreement. Sarah and Yasmine Pourhashemi had sought refuge in the Belgian embassy in Tehran in December, after escaping from their Iranian father who had snatched them from their mother. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt recently met Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi to discuss the case. POWELL ADDS 10 TO TERROR LIST

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Colin Powell has designated 10 additional groups as terrorist organizations, including Dhamat Houmet Daawa Salafia, a group representing the Salafi Muslim sect, the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, the Islamic International Brigade, the Riyadus-Salikhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs, the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment, and the Tunisian Combat Group. 600 CHILD SLAVES RELEASED IN SUDAN

NAIROBI – At least 600 children from southern Sudan, captured by Arab militias in the north, were released from slavery, the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) said on Monday. The SPLA, which is in peace talks with the Khartoum government after two decades of fighting, believes that up to 40,000 children are still held as slaves in government-controlled territories. CHECHNYA FIGHTING CLAIMS 11

GROZNY – Four Russian soldiers were killed in a shootout with rebels who blocked off a military convoy in the southern Shatoi region of Chechnya on Sunday. Three bodies of suspected separatist fighters were found later at the site. In a separate incident, four security guards for Chechnya’s pro-Moscow leader, Akhmad Kadyrov, were killed in a clash with a rebel group linked to Chechnya’s separatist ex-president, Aslan Maskhadov. ALGERIAN EXTREMISTS KILL 14

ALGIERS – A mother and two children were killed by Islamic extremists in the village of Sabounet in the Relizane region of western Algeria last weekend, bringing to 14 the number of people killed in two days of extremist violence, after a period of relative calm. Violence has surged since President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika was reelected in April, with radical Islamic groups apparently rejecting his renewed call for reconciliation. 2003 BAD YEAR FOR MOROCCO PRESS FREEDOM

RABAT – Press freedom suffered setbacks last year in Morocco, where several reporters were jailed before being pardoned by King Muhammad VI, according to the national journalists’ union annual report, released to coincide with World Press Freedom Day on Monday. The international organization Reporters Without Borders said the Arab world, including Morocco, “was the region with least press freedom” in 2003. MADRID SUSPECT HELD ON DRUG CHARGES   

RABAT – The Moroccan authorities confirmed on Sunday that Hicham Ahmidan, wanted by Spain in connection with the March 11 train bombings in Madrid in which almost 200 people died, has been arrested and faces charges of drug-trafficking. He is a relative of Jamal Ahmidan, identified by Spanish police as one of several suspects who blew themselves up to avoid capture by police in a Madrid suburb in April. AUSTRALIA CRACKS DOWN ON KURDISH REBEL GROUP

SYDNEY – Australia has moved to halt any local funding of a Kurdish rebel movement fighting for self-rule in southeastern Turkey, on the grounds the group is involved in terrorism. The Kurdistan People’s Congress, the People’s Congress of Kurdistan, and Kongra-Gel have been formally listed as aliases of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), making it a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in prison for anyone to provide funds to the three groups or deal in assets they control.