World Watch

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Getting The Message
If the Russian media still needed a signal on how it would fare during President Vladimir Putin's second term, it came in loud and clear last Tuesday. Close to midnight, Russia's NTV television station abruptly fired star newsman Leonid Parfyonov and canceled his flagship Sunday night show, Namedni (The Other Day), which had run for 11 years. Two days earlier, the program had carried an exclusive interview with the widow of Chechen separatist Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, killed in Qatar last February, allegedly by two Russian agents now on trial in Doha . NTV ordered Parfyonov not to rebroadcast the segment. Parfyonov complied, but daily newspaper Kommersant ran both the interview and NTV's written order to kill it. The channel didn't hesitate to cancel the show. "Parfyonov has had it coming," Andrei Yegorshev, host of Obozrevatel, NTV's weekly media-review program, told TIME. "He's long been nasty to Putin personally, setting all of us up."

Parfyonov wasn't the only journalist to feel the heat. Federal Protection Service (FSO) officers assaulted two newspaper journalists covering a Moscow protest earlier that day, claiming they had failed to show their press credentials. Why the heavy hand? "The regime is getting even with everyone they haven't got even with yet," argues Pavel Gutiontov, secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists. "With the elections left behind, the time to observe the niceties is over." — By Yuri Zarakhovich

False Start
TURKEY A State security court halted the trial of 69 suspected al-Qaeda members charged in connection with the suicide bomb attacks that killed 61 in Istanbul last November. The court ruled it didn't have the authority to hear the case because reforms to Turkey's

MEANWHILE IN THE U.K. ... Quack Science Middlesex University academics comparing the quacks made by ducks in London with those heard in the South West of Britain claimed the birds have regional accents. While the Cockney ducks' quack echoes a shout or a laugh, the researchers said, the call of their Cornish cousins resembles a giggle. Can duck devolution be far behind?

justice system last month abolished its jurisdiction. It remains unclear when new courts will be established, allowing the trial to resume.

Steps Toward Justice
SIERRA LEONE The U.N.-backed trial of 13 suspects indicted for war crimes committed during the 1991-2002 civil war opened in the capital, Freetown. Progovernment militia leaders were first to stand accused of atrocities, with rebels — including alleged backer Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia who is currently in exile in Nigeria — scheduled to follow. The opening marks the first time an international war-crimes tribunal has convened in the country where the war took place. Some 50,000 people died during Sierra Leone's conflict.

City Under Siege
PAKISTAN A general strike brought Karachi to a standstill. It was called by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, a six-party religious alliance, to protest sectarian violence. Days earlier, a suicide bombing at a Shi'ite mosque in the city killed 23, shortly after the assassination of prominent Sunni cleric Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai.

Less Than Total Recall
VENEZUELA President Hugo Chávez declared himself ready to face a recall vote after the National Electoral Council confirmed that opponents had gathered more than the 2.4 million signatures required for the ballot. But officials have yet to agree on a date: should Chávez be recalled before Aug. 19, new elections will be held. A recall after that date would hand power to Chávez's deputy until 2006.

Lost Leader
U.S. A district court in California convicted former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko of 29 counts of money laundering and extortion. Lazarenko, who served as Prime Minister from 1996 to 1997, faces up to five years in jail. He says he'll appeal the decision.