On the last day of a hearing into the case, Mack's sister, Helen, asked the court to order Guatemala to reform its intelligence department and release classified information to the public.

Earlier this week, the Guatemalan government acknowledged in a letter to the Costa Rica-based international tribunal — the judicial arm of the Organization of American States — that it was responsible for Mack's 1990 slaying.

Mack was stabbed 27 times outside her downtown Guatemala City office on Sept. 11, 1990. The 39-year-old anthropologist allegedly angered the military when she wrote a groundbreaking report blaming state anti-insurgency campaigns for killing Mayan Indians during the country's 1960-1996 civil war.

Guatemalan Foreign Minister Edgar Gutierrez said the government decided to admit wrongdoing after Mack's sister, Helen, filed a criminal complaint with the human rights court charging that the Guatemalan government conspired to kill Myrna Mack and then cover that up.

Later, the Guatemalan government withdrew its representatives from the hearing, saying officials had already acknowledged their responsibility.

In October, Col. Juan Valencia, an assistant director of Guatemala's presidential guard, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for ordering a fellow member of the guard to kill Myrna Mack.

Retired Gen. Edgar Godoy — who once headed the presidential guard — and army Col. Juan Oliva were found innocent.

Noel Beteta, another former guard, is serving a 25-year sentence for Mack's murder. In taped confessions to another prisoner, he said Valencia gave that order. The tapes did not directly link the other two military officials to the killing.

The presidential guard grew from a protection unit into a squad of spies and assassins responsible for some of Guatemala's most high-profile human rights abuses. Governments have promised to abolish the guard, but so far none has been able, or willing, to.

"In all this time, the government has only recognized what I already proved: That Beteta is my sister's murderer," Helen Mack said.

She added that if the court decides to award the Mack family monetary reparations, she would use the money to establish grants in her sister's name.

New draft on Iraq likely in few days: British envoy
The British ambassador to the UN, Jeremy Greenstock, said Wednesday that he expected a new draft resolution "within the next few days". According to the ambassador, the draft will contain a deadline for Iraq to comply with the demands of the United Nations Security Council and to disarm.

"Explicitly or implicitly, yes I do expect that. Time will, I'm afraid, run out as time always does." he told reporters on Wednesday morning after the council heard views from some 60 UN members not in the Security Council on how to proceed with Iraq's disarmament.

He said his government had not yet decided when to present the council with a draft currently under discussion with the United States, but indicated the text could come out soon. "I predict to you that we will move forward for a discussion on the basis of a draft resolution in the fairly near future," he said.

Diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said options for the resolution included a deadline for Saddam to comply with a set of specific measures.

Greenstock did not give detail on the draft, he hinted that the proposal "will lead to a different kind of debate in the Security Council from the one we have had up till now."

"It will be debate on a specific proposition and it will be on a timing that will concentrate people's minds," he said.

Greenstock said the new draft "will be very closely based on Resolution 1441." "No-one is trying to change the criteria of 1441," he noted.

Britons advised to leave Iraq, Kuwait
Britain, the staunchest supporter of the United States in the Iraq crisis, Wednesday told its nationals in Iraq and Kuwait to leave the two countries due to increasing regional tension and the risk of terrorist action.

"We advise you not to make any non-essential travel including holiday travel to Kuwait and, if already in Kuwait, to leave unless you consider your presence there is essential," said the British embassy to Kuwait in an advisory to its nationals.

"We are giving this advice because of the increasing regional tension and of the risk of terrorist action," it said. "We have ordered the departure of dependents of staff in the embassy and authorized the departure of those of our staff who wish to leave," the advisory added.

About 4,000 British nationals are living in Kuwait, which is considered a most likely launch pad for a US-led invasion of neighboring Iraq and the prime target for reprisal from Baghdad incase of war. In London, the British Foreign Office earlier in the day advised its nationals in Iraq to leave the country immediately because of "increasing tension in the region and the risk of terrorist action."

"You should not attempt to visit Iraq. We advise any British nationals already there to leave immediately," the Foreign Office said in an statement released on its website.

"If you are considering going to Iraq, you should be aware that British nationals were used as hostages during the 1990 to 1991 crisis by the Iraqi regime, being held where their safety was at most risk," the statement said.

Britain has been the closest ally of the United States in modern time wars, including the 2001 military strike to uproot the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the anticipated operation to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. About 18,000 British troops have been deployed in the Gulf for a possible US-led military action, with the rest of an announced total of 42,000 troops still on their way to the region.

The British deployment in the Gulf would also include 27 helicopters, 120 Challenger II tanks and some 100 fixed-wing aircraft. Britain has announced that it will send about 26,000 land troops, 8,000 RAF personnel and 8,000 Navy troops to the Gulf for a possible war with Iraq.

Powell to visit Japan, China, Korea
US Secretary of State Colin Powell will visit Japan, China and the Republic of Korea (ROK) from Feb. 21 to 25 for consultations on crises over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's nuclear programs and Iraqi issue, the State Department announced Wednesday.

The principal purpose of the trip is to go to Seoul for the inauguration of Rho Moo Hyun as ROK president on Feb. 25, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said at a regular news briefing.

"This is a very important opportunity to talk with our allies and friends in North Asia about the situation in North Korea, our common goal of making sure that North Korea abandons its nuclear programs, doesn't develop nuclear weapons on the peninsula," Boucher said.

"The stops in Japan and China and South Korea are a very important part of our consultations and moving forward in that regard....now that the International Atomic Energy Agency has reported it to the council," he said.

The spokesman said the trip "is also an opportunity to talk with other governments about the situation in Iraq, and particularly with China," which is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Powell is to leave Washington on Friday and will be in Tokyo on Saturday and Sunday, Beijing on Sunday and Monday and Seoul on Monday and Tuesday before returning to Washington.

Iranian military plane crashes, killing 302 people
An Iranian military plane with 302 people on board, mostly military personnel, crashed near the central city of Kerman Wednesday evening, apparently killing all aboard, the official state news agency Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.

Earlier, the state-run television reported that there are 270 people aboard. The IRNA report said that the victims included 18 crew members. The plane, which was on a domestic route from Zahedan to Kermanin southeastern Iran, crashed about 80 kilometers from its destination, the report said.

The plane was reportedly an Antonov aircraft and most of the passengers on board were military personnel, including some officials of the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guard Corps. The cause of the crash and other details were not immediately available. But reports say the main reason may be the bad weather. The report said that search for the crashed plane and remains of the passengers has already begun.

The television report said the plane lost contact with the control tower at 5:30 p.m. local time (1400 GMT). An earlier report of the television has said that the plane was a passenger plane with at least 250 people on board.

The military corps, which was seen as a defender of Iran's Islamic regime was reportedly on an "important duty" and had visited the impoverished Sistan-Baluchestan Province. The crash was the latest in a series of air disasters in Iran, which involved mostly Russian-made planes.

On Dec. 23 last year, a Ukrainian An-140 aircraft crashed near the central city of Isfahan while preparing to land at an airport, killing all the 46 Ukrainian scientists aboard. A Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154 airliner smashed into snow-covered mountains near Khorramabad, 370 kilometers southwest of Tehran, killing all 119 people aboard, in February 2002.