Mrs G's Dawn patrol

• Indonesian VP: Quake May Kill Up to 2,000

  Indonesians are struggling to assess the damage from a powerful earthquake that struck overnight, killing as many as 2,000 people and leaving hundreds homeless.

• Lebanon Pro-Syrian PM Expected to Resign This Week

  Lebanon's pro-Syrian prime minister is expected to step down this week after failing to persuade opposition figures to join a government to lead the country to May elections, political sources said on Tuesday.

• Key Oil, Food Probe Focuses on Annan and His Son

  UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to be faulted on Tuesday in a key report for ignoring a possible conflict of interest involving his son, but not accused of any personal wrongdoing. <...> Annan, himself, appeared calm. Asked if he were depressed as some news reports suggested, Annan laughed and told Reuters, "With all the activities and things we are doing and the pace I am keeping, do you think I have time for that?"

• Rice Reaffirms U.S. Commitment to Promoting Human Rights

  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to promoting human rights worldwide at the March 28 release of the report Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2004 ? 2005. Rice said that freedom, democracy and human rights are ?non-negotiable,? universal principles that the international community has an obligation to protect. ?As this year's report describes in detail, we are working tirelessly to support democracy and human rights in every country where these principles are not completely fulfilled, ? she said.

  • Grisly tapes reveal hasty trials, public executions

    Two gruesome videos showing cursory trials and public executions in North Korea are sparking calls among opposition South Korean lawmakers and activists for Seoul to take a stronger stand on human rights violations.

• From Revolt to Democracy

  IT'S NOT YET CLEAR how the latest revolution in the former Soviet Union will end. As in Georgia and Ukraine, a rebellion was touched off in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan last week by popular outrage over an unfair election. But the revolt succeeded so quickly -- after almost 15 years in power, President Askar Akayev was toppled in five days -- that it left even opposition leaders breathless and confused. For a time over the weekend two rival parliaments were meeting in the Kyrgyz capital and newly installed ministers, including one recently freed from prison, were issuing contradictory directives. Mr. Akayev, meanwhile, apparently had taken refuge in Russia and refused to resign. It won't be easy to sort out this political mess: Kyrgyzstan's leaders will need lots of help to do it democratically.

• Nepal arrests anti-king activists

  ....King Gyanendra dismissed Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba's government on February 1, when he said in a nationally televized address that successive governments run by political parties had failed to counter the Maoist rebels.

• Anthrax dumped near Saddam palace

  An Iraqi scientist has told U.S. interrogators that her team destroyed Iraq's stock of anthrax in 1991 by dumping it practically at the gates of one of Saddam's main palaces, but never told U.N. inspectors for fear of angering the dictator.

  • IraqiArmy Raid Nets 3 Tons of TNT, 121 Terrorism Suspects

    A 3-ton cache of TNT and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition are off the streets of Iraq following an Iraqi army raid near Jurf al-Sakher on March 25, Iraqi military officials reported.

    A press statement from Iraq?s Defense Ministry said 121 suspects were detained in the raid, conducted by the Iraqi army?s 8th Division, based in Karbala. Besides the TNT, Iraqi soldiers seized 624 rifles, 250,000 light ammunition rounds, 22,000 medium rounds, 193 rocket-propelled-grenade launchers, 300 RPG rockets, 27 82 mm mortar tubes, and 155 82 mm mortar rounds.

  
  

  • Soldiers Kill Seven Terrorists, Seize Weapons in Iraq
    

    U.S. soldiers have killed seven terrorists and seized weapons caches in Iraq, military officials in Baghdad reported today.
    Task Force Liberty soldiers defeated a terrorist attack near Baqubah at about midnight today, killing three of the attackers. No coalition forces were injured in the attack, officials said, but they provided no further details.

  
  

  • Sunni Leader Vows Support For Insurgents
    (New York Times)...Robert F. Worth
    For several weeks, Iraq's most powerful politicians and foreign diplomats have been streaming like anxious pilgrims to western Baghdad, to the vast blue and gold dome of the Mother of All Battles mosque, which was commissioned by Saddam Hussein. They are there to visit Sheik Harith al-Dari, a 64-year-old cleric and tribal leader who has become a leading spokesman for Iraq's disaffected Sunni Arabs.
    

• In a Twist, a Second Youth Is Accused in School Attack
  

  Federal authorities in Minnesota have arrested a youth in connection with the school shootings last Monday on the Red Lake Indian reservation, raising the prospect that what seemed to be the work of a troubled loner who killed himself and nine others was actually part of a broader plot.