sadly, we are losing face around the world because of the bush administration's pushing of the torture envelope. rightly, the rest of the world is asking, 'why should we listen to you?'

China accused the United States on Thursday of using double standards to judge human rights in other countries, adding to a growing list of nations that suggest the government that produced the Abu Ghraib prison abuses has no business commenting on what happens elsewhere.

"Unfortunately, it once again gives us reason to say that double standards are a characteristic of the American approach to such an important theme," the Russian Foreign Ministry declared after reviewing the report. "Characteristically off-screen is the ambiguous record of the United States itself."

Jose Luis Soberanas, president of Mexico's Human Rights Commission, cited U.S. treatment of Mexicans who enter the United States illegally, calling U.S. criticism of Mexico's record "the donkey talking about long ears ... because the United States violates human rights, especially those of our countrymen."

Amnesty International, the human rights organization, noted that the Bush administration had turned over prisoners arrested in the battle against terrorism to the same countries it cites in the report for torturing prisoners. "The State Department's carefully compiled record of countries' abuses may perversely have been transformed into a Yellow Pages for the outsourcing of torture," said William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International.