From the Telegraph on-line. The Chinese leaders here are laughing up there sleeves. With Bush telling them to respect human rights and not arbitarily lock up people they suspect he is looking a complete prat,,,if he did not look like a complete prat before.

What is rendition?
(Filed: 05/12/2005)

• "Rendition" is bureaucratese for the CIA's practice of kidnapping terrorist suspects and sending them to secret detention centres out of the public eye and reach of the US justice system.

• It was authorised under President Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s to counter the threat of Islamist terrorism and overcome CIA difficulties in obtaining a conviction against suspects.

• It was expanded hugely under President George W Bush, who gave the CIA sweeping new powers after the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

• Since then the staff of the Counter-Terrorist Centre, the CIA branch which oversees renditions, is reported to have quadrupled to more than 1,000 people.

• More than 100 more people have disappeared or been "rendered" in the last few years, in addition to the detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay.

• The most common destinations are Egypt and Jordan, which are known to have tortured prisoners.

The US insists that it does not send people to countries which employ torture.