RABAT, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Morocco's justice ministry said Saturday it had not received four arrest warrants reportedly issued by Interpol for senior Moroccan officials in connection with the 1965 disappearance of opposition leader Mehdi Ben Barka.

A ministry statement also strongly criticised the conduct of the French probe into the abduction of Ben Barka, a charismatic foe of Morocco's late king Hassan II who has not been seen since he was snatched on a Paris street and is widely believed to be dead.

SINGAPORE, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Anti-junta activists on Saturday urged Southeast Asian leaders to bar member state Myanmar from signing ASEAN's landmark charter until it answers for its violent suppression of protests.

The Free Burma Coalition said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which stages its annual summit here next week, should also suspend Myanmar from the 10-nation bloc if it failed to adopt democratic reforms.

SRINAGAR, India, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Muslims angered by the death of a 22-year-old baker in a shoot-out attacked officers in Indian Kashmir, injuring five policemen, authorities and residents said Saturday.

Army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Anil Kumar Mathur said Reyaz Ahmed Sofi was killed in the crossfire between militants and soldiers around dawn on Saturday in the southern Kashmir district of Anantnag.

But residents said Sofi was killed by soldiers while carrying bread from his family-owned bakery.

GAZA CITY, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - The New York-based Human Rights Watch group has called for the Hamas-run government in Gaza to set up an independent probe into shootings at a rally that killed eight people, calling the violence excessive and indiscriminate.

HRW in a statement on Friday welcomed a pledge by sacked Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya of the Islamist Hamas movement that it had ordered a 'strong and objective' inquiry into the circumstances of Monday's clashes.

VILNIUS, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - A Lithuanian gay rights group has taken Vilnius city council to court for denying permission for a rally in the capital because the planned venue was being refurbished, a newspaper reported Monday.

The Lithuanian Gay League asked a court to force the authorities to allow the gathering, which it wants to hold Thursday on a square in front of the city hall in Vilnius' old town district, the daily Lietuvos Rytas said.

Vilnius is playing host later this week to a conference of European sections of the International Gay and Lesbian Association.

BEIJING, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - China's new Communist Party leadership announced Monday is unlikely to oversee any improvement in human rights, dissidents said.

Prominent Beijing-based dissident Hu Jia said many activists, including himself, were particularly disappointed at the promotion of China's security chief, Zhou Yongkang, into the party's nine-member decision-making body.

'This is the last thing we want to see, the elevation of his power,' Hu told AFP in a telephone interview.

BEIRUT, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Locked up and cut off from her family for nine years, without even a penny for the endless scrubbing and washing up, Siriani knew it was time to flee or 'die'.

Like thousands of Filipinas, Sri Lanka Lankans, Nepalese or Ethiopians, Siriani came to Beirut at the age of 20 as a house maid -- a must-have in the image-conscious country.

HANOI, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - A prominent Vietnamese dissident has said the country's UN Security Council seat could be good news for human rights, but urged the West to keep up the pressure for democratic change.

Pham Hong Son, 38, speaking from house arrest after communist-ruled Vietnam last week won a two-year council seat, warned that the diplomatic milestone could be a mixed blessing for people like him.

KHARTOUM, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - French secretary of state for human rights Rama Yade arrived in Khartoum on Sunday for talks with officials ahead of a visit to the violence-stricken western region of Darfur.

In Khartoum, Yade will discuss the situation in Darfur and the implementation of the shaky north-south peace deal, foreign ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani said on Friday.

LISBON, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - Humanitarian organisation Oxfam denied Saturday a report that it had called for sanctions against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, notably exclusion from a summit of European and African leaders.

'Oxfam was in no way associated with this position,' Oxfam's head of public policy and advocacy Jo Leadbeater told AFP.

Oxfam was included in the call along with human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in a report by Portuguese news agency LUSA cited by Agence France-Presse.