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An article posted on an Islamist Web site sparked off wide-spread speculation over the fate of Al Qaida Leader Osama bin Laden on Friday.
According to Reuters reports, an article on www.islam-minbar.net Web site started with a stunning declaration - bin Laden had died.
A posting on an Islamist Web site stirred speculation over the fate of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and prompted a flurry of denials yesterday that the world's most wanted man is dead.
An audiotape purportedly by America's most-wanted insurgent in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, posted Friday on the Internet threatens more attacks against U.S. forces and urges followers to be wary of any American attempts at dialogue.
Insurgents set off at least 17 bombs in Iraq yesterday, killing at least 50 persons, including three US soldiers, in a series of attacks aimed at shaking Iraq's newly formed government.
Two years have passed since President Bush stood atop an aircraft carrier (May 1, 2003) and announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq. Since that ''mission accomplished'' photo-op, more than 1,400 U.S. troops and thousands of Iraqi civilians have died. And just recently, the Pentagon acknowledged that insurgent attacks have again increased to last year's levels of some 400 attacks per week.
A skull with pink and white dentures belongs to an old woman, investigators said. A skeleton nearby was that of a teenage girl, still clutching a brightly colored bag of possessions.
By Al Pessin. The US Defense Department says a statement Thursday by its intelligence chief was not a new assessment indicating an increased nuclear weapons capability by North Korea. The spokesman was attempting to clarify comments made Thursday by the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The United States and Italy acknowledged Friday they could not bridge sharp disagreements over who was at fault in a friendly-fire shooting in Iraq that killed an Italian intelligence agent.
Pfc. Lynndie England will plead guilty to abusing Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison, her lawyer said late Friday, about a year after photos of her sexually humiliating inmates made her the face of a scandal that damaged the credibility of the U.S. military.
Pfc. Lynndie R. England, the 22-year-old woman who became a vivid symbol of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, will plead guilty on Monday to reduced charges, her lawyers said yesterday.
Attorneys for a U.S. Marine accused of murdering two Iraqi detainees argued yesterday to cross-examine a key prosecution witness, saying denying them that chance in a pretrial hearing 'makes this proceeding a sham.'
WND: Scott, Drudge reports that at last night's presidential news conference, "CBS, NBC and Fox cut off President Bush in mid-sentence as NBC rushed to Donald Trump, Fox to Paris Hilton and CBS to 'Survivor.'" And my first question, why does the president recognize for questions those reporters whose networks treat the White House with such despicable contempt?
Former Georgia Sen. Zell Miller, the Democrat who gave a convention keynote speech for President Bush, said Friday he doesn't see another Republican like Bush coming along and there's a chance the Democrats could win the White House in 2008.
A college has been stripped of its status as a Catholic institution because it invited pro-abortion Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., to give its commencement address and receive an honorary degree.
An Australian man accused of trying to strangle his wife has lost a round in his legal battle to keep her on life support. If she dies, he could be charged with murder.
In the latest evidence Iran is seriously planning an unconventional pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S., an Iranian military journal has publicly considered the idea of launching an electromagnetic pulse attack as the key to defeating the world's lone superpower.
President Vladimir Putin, on a historic visit to Israel, defended Russia's planned sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, insisting that they would pose no danger to the Jewish state.
North Korea is able to mount a nuclear warhead on missiles that could hit the United States, a senior US defense official said in a startling assessment of the hardline communist state's military capability.
President George W. Bush used a rare prime-time news conference to promote two embattled domestic priorities and defend his multilateral approach to the North Korean nuclear crisis.
President Bush offered a rosy assessment Thursday of developments in Iraq, but the reality is that Iraqi politicians spent most of the nearly three months since their widely hailed national election settling old scores and maneuvering for sectarian gains. They dithered as insurgents regained their momentum. This week's declaration by Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that insurgents are as able to wreak havoc now as a year ago calls into question the credibility of his other assertion that the United States and the Iraqi people are "winning" this fight. More than 100,000 American troops patrol the nation and more than 100,000 Iraqi security forces have supposedly been trained, yet guerrillas show increasing coordination in their attacks. We'd hate to imagine what "losing" this fight would be like.
The White House learned a painful media lesson Thursday: Do not launch a press conference on the first night of May Sweeps! CBS, NBC and FOX cut off President Bush, mid-sentence, in several time zones, after sacrificing one hour of prime.
Here is a list of the 37-member Cabinet approved in Iraq on Thursday. Seven posts remain undecided.
Iraq's new prime minister said yesterday he submitted a slate of 36 cabinet members, including seven women, a critical step before the National Assembly votes on a new government drawing in main ethnic and religious groups and ending a three-month stalemate.
From the redoubt of his retirement, former secretary of state Colin Powell is beginning to exact revenge. His sterling reputation was soiled, having lost most of the important battles within the administration during the first term. While he lamented that he had been "deceived" into presenting false information before the United Nations to justify the Iraq war, he acted as the good soldier to the end, giving every sign of desiring to fade away.
One day after Iraq's National Assembly approved the country's first democratically elected government, insurgents launched a series of attacks in Iraq on Friday, killing at least 14 Iraqis and wounding 50, officials said.
...But if the U.S. military is getting better intelligence these days in Iraq, it appears that the militants are too. A recent surge in attacks against Iraqi officials and security forces, Shiite civilians and U.S. troops indicates rebels are successfully using informants to plan such assaults.
An Iraqi militant group said in an Internet posting Thursday it shot dead six Sudanese truck drivers it had kidnapped. A video of the shooting was placed on a website purportedly by the group Ansar al-Sunnah Army but it was not possible to confirm the six men, kneeling on the ground with their heads toward the camera, were killed.
Afghan government troops have captured a key Taliban commander after a brief shoot-out during a raid in southeastern Afghanistan, an official said yesterday.
A military jury sentenced a soldier to death Thursday for a deadly grenade and rifle attack on his own comrades during the opening days of the Iraq invasion, a barrage that prosecutors said was triggered by religious extremism.
Marines testifying on behalf of a comrade accused of murdering two Iraqi detainees praised him Thursday as a model leader who showed compassion for Iraqi citizens.
Some called Marine 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano the "preppy marine," a charismatic Gulf War veteran-turned-Wall Street broker who cut his long locks and reenlisted in the Marines after several close friends perished in the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks.
An Army squad leader accused of premeditated murder in the shooting death of an Iraqi civilian requested a military jury trial Tuesday after withdrawing from a pending plea agreement.
The United States military said it was investigating the shooting and wounding of three civilians by coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan. The three were in a civilian minivan traveling behind a military convoy when it ran into an ambush on Tuesday. According to the military, American troops returned fire on insurgents and hit the civilians, caught in the middle. The government news agency Bakhtar said the troops fired on the civilian car, suspecting them of being behind the ambush.
Belgian doctors sent an Iraqi girl home on Thursday after treating her for leg wounds caused by a bomb during the U.S. invasion -- and sent the 51,570 euro ($66,650) bill to the U.S. embassy.
A blood component recently approved by the FDA to help hemophiliacs control bleeding is now helping soldiers survive traumatic injuries that would have been fatal in past wars, according to Army doctors who studied medical techniques and technology used in Iraq.
U.S. colonel wages perception war by fielding complaints, questions on weekly call-in show. One caller wants to know why she can't attend the trials of her family members. The next claims his house was robbed of 3 million dinars after a raid, and he wants it back. A third asks about Western medical attention for a critically ill child.
The red-hot rhetoric over Social Security on liberal talkradio network AIR AMERICA has caught the attention of the Secret Service, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
A liberal radio talk-show host who aired a comedy skit featuring an apparent gunshot warning to President Bush has apologized, and says she's not afraid of being prosecuted over the matter.
The fight against international terrorism remains "formidable" for the United States and its allies, with 651 significant attacks taking 1,900 lives worldwide last year, according to two US government reports released Wednesday.
President Bush will hold a prime-time news conference on Thursday night and will open it by setting out more specifically than he has so far his proposals for shoring up Social Security, the White House announced on Wednesday night.
Iraq's new prime minister said Wednesday he submitted a complete list of 36 Cabinet members, including seven women, a critical step before the National Assembly votes on a new government drawing in the main ethnic and religious groups and ending a three-month stalemate.
An Iraqi legislator was shot and killed by militants who stormed into her house in a middle class neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, underscoring fears that the political impasse has emboldened insurgents to step up deadly attacks in recent weeks, after a lull following the Jan. 30 elections.
The Iraqi platoon slips in darkness down a path from an abandoned rail yard to a cemetery in Haifa, a Baghdad district long notorious for insurgent ambushes
The American who led the hunt for Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction has revealed that the investigation was cut short after he was targeted by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the militant leader in an attack that left two people dead. The head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, has reported that his investigation into the possible transfer of WMD to Syria had been wound up because of the "declining security situation".
Saddam Hussein asked his weapons specialists about a timeline to restart production of deadly chemical weapons and the potential to have a fleet of bomb-laden boats to attack American ships in the Persian Gulf, a CIA report says.
The United States opposed the reappointment of the U.N.'s top nuclear inspector Wednesday because of his views on Iran and prewar Iraq, prompting the atomic watchdog agency to delay its decision to avoid a confrontation with Washington and other members.
Washington still believes six-nation talks are the best way to solve the North Korean nuclear crisis, the top U.S. diplomat on the matter said on Thursday, steering clear of speculation that a deadline was looming for Pyongyang to return to the table.
...The Army has also enacted a number of changes designed to prevent future abuses, including identifying unacceptable interrogation methods, adding layers of oversight and requiring that all reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross be forwarded immediately up the chain of command to senior military officers and civilians at the Pentagon.
The Army is preparing to issue a new interrogations manual that expressly bars the harsh techniques disclosed in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, and incorporates safeguards devised to prevent such misconduct at military prison camps in the future, Army officials said Wednesday.
When soldiers in war are not properly trained and supervised, atrocities are all but inevitable. This is one reason why the military command structure is so important. There was a time, not so long ago, when commanders were expected to be accountable for the behavior of their subordinates.
The pretrial hearing of 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano opened yesterday with testimony from two government witnesses and a continued dispute over the investigating officer chosen by the Marine Corps to recommend whether the charges of premediated murder of two Iraqis should proceed to a court-martial.
A key witness in the case against a Marine officer accused of murdering two Iraqi civilians was abruptly taken off the stand Wednesday on suspicion of violating orders on giving interviews about the case.
Dissatisfied with the results of a joint investigation with the United States, Italy on Wednesday began its own probe into the March 4 killing of one of its intelligence agents by U.S. troops in Baghdad.
A Polish priest at the Vatican was accused Wednesday of collaborating with his country's communist secret police during the 1980s, a time when Pope John Paul II was inspiring his countrymen to resist the Soviet-backed government.
It is possible to read someone?s mind by remotely measuring their brain activity, researchers have shown. The technique can even extract information from subjects that they are not aware of themselves.
The Dawn Patrol, a daily feature of the Mudville Gazette, is a roundup of news stories that we think might be of interest to readers and of use to fellow bloggers. Appearances of stories or editorials in this collection are not to be considered as endorsement of their content by the Greyhawks.
Comments caught on tape encouraging battle in Iraq
The question is raised with the disclosure of secretly recorded comments from the kingdom's chief justice encouraging young Saudis to travel to Iraq to wage war against Americans.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said yesterday that U.S. and allied forces in Iraq are winning the war against former Saddam Hussein loyalists, foreign terrorists and criminals.
The recovery of a laptop computer in Iraq by American forces in February has helped in the capture of several associates of the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.
Texas Army National Guardsmen play a deadly game of Russian Roulette every time they go to work because the sandy ground that they patrol is strewn with unexploded ammunition.
Iraq's prime minister-designate Ibrahim Jaafari reportedly handed President Jalal Talabani his proposed cabinet list, after nearly three months of protracted consultations which tested Washington's patience.
Iraq's new Kurdish and Shiite Arab political leaders agreed to a cabinet split Tuesday, giving six posts to the holdout Sunni Arab minority, top politicians involved in the negotiations said.
The CIA's chief weapons inspector said he cannot rule out the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were secretly shipped to Syria before the March 2003 invasion, citing "sufficiently credible" evidence that WMDs may have been moved there.
The new leader of Iraq has sent a letter to Tony Blair thanking him and the British people for freeing his country from Saddam Hussein.
An explosive study released today on New York Times coverage of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict reveals that the Times reported Israeli deaths at rates up to seven to ten times greater than Palestinian deaths.
The U.S. count of major world terrorist attacks more than tripled in 2004, a rise that may revive debate on whether the Bush administration is winning the war on terrorism, congressional aides said on Tuesday.
The millions of brave Iraqis who risked their lives to vote in January didn't expect that nearly three months later, their squabbling politicians would still be struggling to form a government. As a result, precious momentum has been lost, and a briefly improving security situation has again started deteriorating. The Sunni-based insurgency seems to have drawn fresh encouragement from the inability of the victorious Shiite and Kurdish parties to put the future of their country ahead of their narrow political agendas.
Tensions between the United States and Italy surged Tuesday, as Italian politicians and citizens reacted furiously to leaked reports in the Italian news media that a joint investigation into the shooting death of an Italian agent in Baghdad would absolve American soldiers of guilt in the incident.
Military prosecutors ended months of silence on Tuesday as they presented their first witnesses in the case of a marine accused of murder during his platoon's search of a suspected insurgent hideout near Baghdad last year.
Fellow Marines testified Tuesday that an officer who is accused of murder shot two Iraqis in the back and put a sign near the bodies bearing a Marine slogan: "No better friend, no worse enemy."
Going once, going twice, SOLD to the highest bidder: Military-issue items including body armor, combat helmets and gas masks.
President Bush is offering to make closed military bases available for new oil refineries and will ask Congress to provide a "risk insurance" to the nuclear industry against regulatory delays to spur construction of new nuclear power plants, senior administration officials said Tuesday.
Afghanistan's ousted Taliban have denied that an Afghan arrested in the United States and accused of being a top heroin trafficker ever supported them, as a U.S. prosecutor has said.
Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker says his investigation into the scandal-plagued oil-for-food program has not cleared U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan of wrongdoing, despite Mr. Annan's claims to the contrary.
President Vladimir V. Putin made the first official visit to Egypt by a Russian leader in 40 years on Tuesday, focusing on efforts to revive the internationally backed plan for Middle East peace in a meeting with Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak.
A state Senate committee approved a proposal Tuesday to put a serial number on every handgun bullet made or sold in California.
By Byron Spice, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Researchers called an early halt to two large, federally sponsored clinical studies of the drug Herceptin when it proved to be unusually effective at preventing cancer.
US investigators have found that American troops who shot an Italian agent to death at a Baghdad checkpoint March 4 followed proper procedures, an Army official said yesterday. But Italy was disputing two factual issues in the report: the speed of the car and the nature of communications between the Italians and US forces before the shooting. Intelligence officer Nicola Calipari was killed while escorting freed Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena.
A front-page article yesterday about Bush administration pressure on Iraqi political leaders to reach a compromise on a government included an erroneous identification provided inadvertently by a State Department official for an Iraqi who had been telephoned by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He was Massoud Barzani, leader of a main Kurdish political party, not Jalal Talabani, an Iraqi Kurd who is the new president.
Following training, Iraqi soldiers will be capable of protecting the Green Zone
and its surrounding areas without assistance from the U.S. military.
U.S. soldiers assigned to the 6th Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division took the first steps toward the success of their new mission in Iraq April 18 -- training the ?Defenders of the Green Zone.?
More reports on training:
Staff Sergeant Lloyd Pegues (1-30th Infantry, Fort Benning, GA), an instructer at the Iraqi Army Academy, talks about the progress of the Iraqui forces.
Captain Michael Whitney (1-30th Infantry, Fort Benning, GA) went along for the ride as the Iraqi Army to house to house searches.
Coalition forces captured 18 suspected terrorists during a search-and-seizure operation conducted April 22-24 in Babil province, Iraq. Elsewhere, a security detainee died at a U.S. military hospital.
Jordanian rebel Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ? Iraq's most wanted fugitive ? recently eluded capture by American troops, but left behind a treasure trove of information, a senior military official told ABC News
Wrapping up his investigation into Saddam Hussein's purported arsenal, the CIA's top weapons hunter in Iraq said his search for weapons of mass destruction "has been exhausted" without finding any.
Report Finds No Evidence Syria Hid Iraqi Arms
U.S. investigators hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have found no evidence that such material was moved to Syria for safekeeping before the war, according to a final report of the investigation released yesterday.
Insurgents fighting against US forces and the new government in Iraq are making a concerted effort to gain chemical weapons capability and have already used old Iraqi chemical munitions in their attacks, the top US weapons investigator has warned.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told the nation Monday that the collapse of the Soviet empire "was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" and had fostered separatist movements inside Russia.
President Bush on Monday pressed Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah to help curb skyrocketing oil prices that are hurting the budgets of American families and businesses.
Crude oil futures slipped Monday as President Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah met, in part, to discuss possible ways to bring down high oil prices.
The United States' top diplomat in Venezuela on Monday denied claims by President Hugo Chavez that a woman linked to the U.S. military had been arrested while photographing a military installation.
Zacarias Moussaoui?s guilty plea last week in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and his admission that he was training for a separate, post-9/11 attack on the White House, reveal a chilling truth about al Qaeda, the new secretary of homeland security said today.
An Afghan man regarded by the US as one of the world's most wanted heroin traffickers has been arrested, American officials have announced.
..."You are Muslim, aren't you?" he said to the Turkish manager of one fully stocked bar. "You aren't allowed to serve this liquor."
"We are Muslim," manager Cenk Acar said. "But this is business."
An Afghan woman was stoned to death in the northeastern Badakhshan province on the basis of a Fatwa (decree) issued by religious scholars after reportedly finding her guilty of adultery.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is downplaying suggestions the United States might seek United Nations approval for a blockade of North Korea to prevent it from exporting nuclear technology or material. Ms. Rice says the Bush administration remains committed to the Chinese-sponsored six-party talks to persuade Pyongyang to end its nuclear program.
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of four U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
Only one in two Germans below the age of 24 know that the term 'Holocaust' is used to describe the mass murder of Jews by the Nazi regime, the daily newspaper Die Welt reported on Saturday.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has overcome fierce opposition attacks over his support for the Iraq war to hold a strong lead in the run-up to a May 5 general election, two opinion polls showed on Tuesday.
The government is bracing itself for the possibility that the 13 pages of legal advice drawn up by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, in the build-up to the Iraq war will be leaked, as many expect, in the next few days.
Comic books and soldiers have been allies since the earliest days of World War II, when Superman and Captain America sold war bonds, promoted paper drives and battled Nazis at home and abroad.
Now superheroes are going back to the front.
The Bush administration, facing a series of recent provocations from North Korea, is debating a plan to seek a United Nations resolution empowering all nations to intercept shipments in or out of the country that may contain nuclear materials or components, say senior administration officials and diplomats who have been briefed on the proposal.
As politicians tried once again Monday to end a deadlock regarding the formation of Iraq's (search) new transitional government, the death toll from two well-coordinated militant attacks against Iraqi police and civilians rose to 29.
After nearly three months of negotiations, Iraq's major Shiite bloc has decided to form a Cabinet without members of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's Iraqi List party, lawmakers said Sunday.
Worried about a political deadlock in Iraq and a spike in mayhem from an emboldened insurgency, the Bush administration has pressed Iraqi leaders in recent days to end their stalemate over forming a new government, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney personally exhorting top Kurdish and Shiite politicians to come together.
Iraqi insurgents keep finding new ways to conceal and detonate deadly improvised explosive devices, making the Pentagon's countermeasures that much more difficult to develop, confidential military documents say.
A. Aaron Weisburd slogged up to his attic at 5 a.m. to begin another day combing through tips he had received about possible pro-terrorist activity on the Internet.
Venezuela is ending military operations and exchanges with the United States, President Hugo Chᶥz said Sunday, and he ordered out American instructors who he said had been trying to foment unrest in the barracks against him.
...In returning home, the leaders and Marine infantrymen have chosen to break an institutional code of silence and tell their story, one they say was punctuated not only by a lack of armor, but also by a shortage of men and planning that further hampered their efforts in battle, destroyed morale and ruined the careers of some of their fiercest warriors.
Two years ago, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld talked Gen. Peter Schoomaker, into coming out of retirement and leading the Army as its Chief of Staff. Since then, Schoomaker, a former Delta Force commando who's fought all over the world, has been busy creating what both men want: a completely reorganized ground force with smaller more versatile fighting units.
...U.S. forces on Sunday continued to sweep through a rural area north of Baghdad, hunting insurgents suspected of shooting down the helicopter. The attack killed all 11 people on board.
U.S. and Afghan soldiers backed by planes and artillery clashed with suspected insurgents near the border with Pakistan, and four fighters and one Afghan soldier were killed, the U.S. military said yesterday.
Tens of thousands of Australians and New Zealanders took part in a moving dawn service on Turkey's historic Gallipoli Peninsula, where 9O years ago scores of their compatriots died in some of the bitterest fighting of World War I.
The Pentagon Channel, now one year old, supplies info to troops - and, critics say, propaganda.
The anchors and reporters wear uniforms instead of neckties and suits, and the commercials promote the military, not laundry soap and cutlery sets. But otherwise, the Pentagon Channel - which is on the cusp of its first anniversary - looks and sounds a lot like CNN and C-SPAN.
Former President Clinton endorsed British Prime Minister Tony Blair's campaign to be elected for a third straight term during a satellite linkup to a Labour Party rally in London Sunday
A Russian space capsule carrying an American, a Russian and an Italian hurtled safely home to Earth from the international space station on Monday, landing softly on the marshy Central Asian steppes in the early morning darkness.
A meteor shower Sunday night sparked a flurry of frantic phone calls to police departments across New England from people who saw bright lights moving in the sky, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration said.
A mother who gave birth to a twin girl after an abortion failed is suing the hospital for ?250,000 to help bring up her daughter.
His Grand Ole Opry debut? Charley Pride remembers it well. "It was 1967, January 1," Pride snaps. "Ernest Tubb brought me on, and I was more nervous than a cat on a hot tin roof." That's how most performers feel about the Opry, the folksy live radio show that's helped define country music for four decades.
As members of the U.S. military watched on television via satellite from Iraq, Dolly Parton invited their boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, onstage at the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday.
Assisted by tips from Iraqi civilians, U.S. soldiers on Saturday arrested six men suspected of shooting down a civilian helicopter carrying 11 people, including six American security contractors, U.S. military officials said.
The U.S. military said on Saturday it had detained six Iraqi men in connection with the shooting down of a commercial helicopter this week in which 11 people were killed, including six Americans.
A television cameraman working for The Associated Press was killed Saturday when gunfire broke out after an explosion in the northern city of Mosul. An AP photographer was wounded in the same incident.
Iraqi Shias have admitted taking part in brutal attacks on members of their own religious community after being recruited as paid hitmen for the Sunni terrorist leader, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi.
Some leading Kurdish political figures are trying to stall the formation of a new Iraqi government in an effort to force out Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shiite chosen two weeks ago as prime minister, Iraqi and Western officials said.
Insurgents gave Romania four days to withdraw its troops from Iraq in order to save the lives of three Romanian journalists kidnapped last month, Al Jazeera television reported on Friday.
Human rights groups expressed dismay yesterday over the Army's findings exonerating U.S. generals of prisoner abuse in Iraq, and renewed requests for an independent probe to examine the culpability of senior military and civilian defense officials.
U.S. troops have detained 24 suspectedTaliban militants in Afghanistan's southeastern province ofKhost, bordering Pakistan, the provincial governor said Monday.
Sally Goodrich, whose son died in the Sept. 11 attacks, kept a grip on her grief as she surveyed the foundations of the Afghan school being built with money she raised in the United States.
A growing number of Afghan women are going into business, capitalizing on new opportunities in a thriving, yet still male-dominated economy three years after the fall of the Islamist government.
Indiana County and its surrounding communities were lucky enough to welcome home a number of their service men and women in the past few months as they returned from service in Iraq.
Marine Corporal Marcus Nucci, a former Claverack resident, no doubt counted himself as lucky as he headed home from Iraq March 1.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas named three new heads for the security forces and forced hundreds of their men into retirement on Saturday, pushing aside top commanders in Yasser Arafat's old guard.
Saudi Arabia's limited 10-week experiment with electoral democracy ended here Saturday in a sweeping victory for slates of Islamic activists marketed as the "Golden List," who used grass-roots organizing, digital technology and endorsements from popular religious leaders to defeat their liberal and tribal rivals, even here in Jiddah, for decades Saudi Arabia's most diverse and business-driven city.
Howard Dean's Democratic National Committee has been studying the electorate, and the party's problem with voters of faith is both worse and better than he feared.
A Bronx hospital has been ordered not to remove a brain-dead boy's respirator following an emergency 10:30 p.m. hearing where the 13-year-old's family alleged hospital personnel had threatened to disconnect him from life support against their wishes.
President Bush yesterday nominated Marine Gen. Peter Pace to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which would make him the first Marine to hold the post.
Two dozen suspected members of a Spanish al-Qaeda cell who are accused of aiding preparations for the 9/11 attacks appeared in court today in Europe's biggest anti-terror trial.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, faulted by some for leadership failures in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, has been cleared by the Army of all allegations of wrongdoing and will not be punished, officials said.
There are more than 155,000 ?trained and equipped? members of the Iraqi security forces, and trends are clearly positive, a senior defense official said during a Pentagon background briefing today.
Children at the Palestine Primary School now play and study on school grounds cleared of rubble and broken glass and have access to a renovated restroom due to the work of local Iraqi contractors and the aid of a U.S. military civil affairs team.
Halliburton Co. is reconsidering whether its contract to rebuild southern Iraq's oil industry is worth all the risks involved.
House and Senate negotiators are expected to act quickly to sort out differences -- from a new U.S. embassy in Iraq to an overhaul of immigration laws -- between their versions of an $81 billion spending bill for combat and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A United Nations human rights monitor has accused American military forces and contractors in Afghanistan of acting above the law "by engaging in arbitrary arrests and detentions and committing abusive practices, including torture." In a report released Thursday, the Afghan police and security forces were also criticized for similar actions.
Elian Gonzalez, the young Cuban castaway whose international custody battle ended in his dramatic seizure from a Miami home five years ago, addressed a crowd of thousands Friday, thanking Cubans and Americans alike for fighting for his return to the island.
Sen. Richard Lugar, the influential Indiana Republican who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has introduced a bill that seeks to change the way the United States, Mexico and Central America cooperate to stem the flow of illegal immigration on the southern border.
President Hugo Chavez's government has unexpectedly ended a military exchange program with the United States, the U.S. Embassy in Caracas announced yesterday.
Saying the Haitian people need food, not bullets, the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste on Friday demanded the resignation of two top U.S. State Department officials he accused of helping to arm Haiti's interim government.
Sponsors of an "academic freedom" bill requiring a fair forum for all political ideas at state universities admitted Thursday that their plan is dead but said it has sparked a long-overdue debate about liberal bias in the classroom.
Workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana, a British study shows.
American women are anxious these days and no wonder: They've been vilified as inadequate mothers, desperate housewives, lackluster academic scientists and -- most rudely -- too fat to be French.
The Dawn Patrol, a daily feature of the Mudville Gazette, is a roundup of news stories that we think might be of interest to readers and of use to fellow bloggers. Appearances of stories or editorials in this collection are not to be considered as endorsement of their content by the Greyhawks.
An Iraqi insurgent group took credit Thursday for shooting down a commercial helicopter north of Baghdad -- killing 11 people, including six US civilians working as guards.
In an Internet video, a man purported to be the sole survivor of a helicopter shot down in Iraq on Thursday was helped to his feet by gunmen who found him lying in the grass. Moments later they killed him in a spray of bullets, shouting "Allahu akbar," or "God is great."
Villagers in an area south of Baghdad where more than 50 bodies were pulled from the Tigris River said yesterday that scores more people kidnapped by insurgents were still missing.
The Iraqi Defense Ministry on Thursday identified 19 bullet-riddled bodies found in a stadium northwest of the capital as fishermen, not soldiers as initially rumored.
Abu Mohammed was chatting with a friend in an auto repair shop in Salman Pak two months ago when masked gunmen surrounded him and stuffed his 260-pound frame in their trunk and sped away. He spent the next 10 days locked in a bathroom with a hood over his head, marking the passage of time by listening to his captors' prayers.
It's difficult to know whether the uptick in attacks on Iraqi and coalition targets in Iraq is a trend or an aberration, said Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita today.
?Every commander we talked to in Iraq ? believes that ? the development of the Iraqi security forces is proceeding in an effective and appropriate fashion,? Di Rita said.
Demonstrating Iraqis? growing desire to be part of the security of local neighborhoods and streets, more than 2,000 citizens showed up for an Iraqi Police recruiting drive April 16 near Camp Taji.
Citing videotaped testimonials from soldiers in Iraq, the Army on Thursday returned fire in a battle with critics of its Stryker troop-carrying vehicle, which some say inadequately protects soldiers.
A military jury Thursday convicted an Army sergeant of premeditated murder and attempted murder in a grenade and rifle attack that killed two of his comrades and wounded 14 others in Kuwait during the opening days of the Iraq war.
Five Muslim-Americans have sued the US Homeland Security Department alleging racial profiling. They say it happened when they were detained and fingerprinted by border agents after returning from a religious conference in Canada.
It was in the summer of 2001 when a top secret message was delivered to Farid Solemani.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice knows what Belarus is, and this is positive news, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko told journalists upon his arrival in Moscow on Friday.
A leftist presidential favorite embroiled in a tooth-and-nail fight with the government accused President Vicente Fox on Thursday of betraying the democracy he brought to Mexico.
The flight instructor who raised questions about a British national who was flying planes at Gwinnett County's Briscoe field ?- questions that eventually resulted in an international terrorist alert -- has been fired.
Republicans are moving the Senate toward a final confrontation with Democrats over the blocking of President Bush's judicial nominations, even as internal polling shows that most Americans don't support their plan to ban judicial filibusters.
President Bush issued a strong new defense today of John R. Bolton, his nominee as ambassador to the United Nations, even as associates of Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state, said that Mr. Powell had expressed reservations about Mr. Bolton in conversations with at least two wavering Republican senators.
House Republicans yesterday called on Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to provide documentation to prove that a Washington lobbyist firm did not pay for a trip she and other Democrats took to Puerto Rico in 2001.
Internet sites that market racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazism to a young audience are spreading like wildfire in cyberspace, according to a new study.
The Dawn Patrol, a daily feature of the Mudville Gazette, is a roundup of news stories that we think might be of interest to readers and of use to fellow bloggers. Appearances of stories or editorials in this collection are not to be considered as endorsement of their content by the Greyhawks.
Sgt. Charles Watkins? wife already knew his gunshot wound wasn?t fatal. So, in the moments he had to use the Internet last week while awaiting transport from the 86th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, he logged onto the Ford Motor Co.?s Web site.
Sgt. Joshua Haycox steered our Humvee forward at a slow march, carefully keeping his distance from the vehicle ahead and scanning the road for bombs as the Army convoy pushed deeper into the chaotic region known to soldiers as the Triangle of Death.
The new Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, said Wednesday that more than 50 bodies had been discovered in the Tigris River and suggested that they were victims of a mass kidnapping south of Baghdad that other Iraqi officials had insisted was a hoax just three days before.
Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi escapes an assassination attempt when a car bomb explodes, hours after authorities report the deaths of 70 people in two mass killings.
The bodies of 19 Iraqi soldiers were found piled in a soccer stadium in western Iraq on Wednesday, a day after they were captured by insurgents, authorities said. It was not clear when or where they had been killed. At the same time, police announced the discovery of 58 corpses, all suspected victims of insurgents, floating in the Tigris River near a village where Shiite Muslim leaders had reported the abduction of civilians by Sunni Muslim extremists.
U.S. and Iraqi security forces say they are gaining ground on insurgents and criminals because more Iraqis are phoning tips to a hotline set up in October.
More than 400 young men and women have volunteered to carry out suicide bombing attacks against Americans in Iraq and targets in Israel, a militant group said yesterday
Zawra Park, the city's original "green zone," was a popular place for family outings and disco dance parties. But the 80-acre downtown expanse adjoining the military parade grounds was neglected under Saddam Hussein. After a stint as a battle-scarred base for Iraqi troops during the U.S. invasion, it became a looted and shuttered memory of calmer days. Now, the park is slowly coming back to life. A woman in a long black abaya watched a little boy scamper one morning by the lake, where rusted paddleboats plied clear waters once thick with algae.
U.S. forces blasted rebel positions with bombs, rockets and artillery, killing at least 12 insurgents, after rockets were fired at a U.S. base in southeastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Thursday.
The Associated Press sued the Defense Department on Tuesday to force the government to release transcripts and other documents related to military hearings for Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Sgt. Hasan Akbar's father urged the military Wednesday to investigate the religious and racial harassment his son faced from his platoon before he unleashed a 2003 grenade attack that killed two fellow soldiers.
When a high-level meeting between governments has not gone especially well, the participants sometimes speak afterward of their "frank exchange of views."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday warned Russia against selling arms to Venezuela, and Moscow immediately rebuffed her criticism, saying a $120 million deal it has signed with Caracas violates no laws or treaties.
Yesterday in Moscow, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with President of Russian Federation (RF) Vladimir Putin and Sergei Lavrov, head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Rice made several unprecedented statements. She, in fact, admitted that the US will start to inspect Russian nuclear facilities. The Secretary of State demanded Putin resignation in 2008. She also hinted that Byelorussia is to expect ?Orange Revolution? and Russia ?a bright future.? Her Russian counterparts pretended stubbornly that they didn?t hear anything.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried out her rusty Russian in a Moscow radio interview Wednesday, only to get caught out by a question on whether she might run for president. "Da (Yes)," Rice answered in Russian, before realizing her misunderstanding and hastily adding "Nyet" (No) -- seven times.
Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, said Wednesday the United States was hypocritical over nuclear armaments and not prepared to disarm its own weapons.
In a case that could raise new questions about the conditions of Russian soldiers, four conscripts were found hanged in a forest near Saratov, in the south. Official statements compounded the mystery, including one suggesting a group suicide. Later, the authorities said the soldiers might have been witnesses to a crime committed by others. But Anatoly Gorshkov, a regional prosecutor, said on national television that investigators had found no signs of self-defense or a fight. Russia's largely conscripted military has been sullied by allegations of extensive hazing, abuse, brutality and professional incompetence. The men were due to be discharged in a month, which would have put them past the typical period for hazing. C. J. Chivers (NYT)
Lawmakers voted to oust President Lucio Gutierrez Wednesday morning after a week of protests and appointed the vice president to replace him. But enraged mobs continued to take to the streets, burning government buildings and beating employees and politicians who tried to flee.
"I am very concerned. I would have thought his advanced age and his health which is not very stable would have been reason enough for the cardinals to pick someone else," said a visibly moved in an interview on German television after the election of his 78-year-old brother.
When he was a cardinal in 1991, Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, suffered a brain hemorrhage "which laid him down for a while, but he recovered from it," said CNN Vatican analyst John Allen on Wednesday.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday got a stern warning from Bay Area immigrant advocates over his comments that he wanted the California border closed.
A man spit tobacco juice into the face of Jane Fonda after waiting in line to have her sign her new memoir. Capt. Rich Lockhart of the Kansas City Police Department said Michael A. Smith, 54, was arrested Tuesday night on a municipal charge of disorderly conduct.
Eat your way to the bottom of almost any bag of popcorn and there they are: the rock-hard, jaw-rattling unpopped kernels known as old maids. The nuisance kernels have kept many a dentist busy, but their days could be numbered: Scientists say they now know why some popcorn kernels resist popping into puffy white globes.
Recurrent intelligence reports say al Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi has obtained a nuclear device or is preparing a radiological explosive -- or dirty bomb -- for an attack, according to U.S. officials, who also say analysts are unable to gauge the reliability of the information's sources.
Locals in Bangor, Maine, are on a mission to greet every military plane, at any time, in any weather. Their tally so far: 200,000 troops.
Former ABC News reporter/anchor Sam Donaldson is ready to say the last rites for network news because it will soon lose its dominant position as Americans' primary source of news. "I think it's dead. Sorry," he said during a breakfast panel Tuesday at the National Association of Broadcasters' convention in Las Vegas. "The monster anchors are through."
The in-your-face right-wing partisanship that marks Fox News Channel's news broadcasts is having two dangerous effects.
The Senate broke through a logjam of conflicting immigration proposals that had bogged down passage of an $80 billion emergency supplemental military spending bill, clearing the way on Tuesday for a vote on the measure within the next two weeks.
In the second week of December 2003, U.S. Special Forces captured an Iraqi man named Fawzi Rashid, a top insurgent leader in Baghdad. Rashid was carrying a letter from Saddam Hussein, U.S. News has learned, that was less than a week old. It would prove to be the key break in the 10-month manhunt for the Iraqi dictator.
The United States opposed an idea floated by Iraq's new president that could end up extending a proposed amnesty to insurgents who killed US troops.
The United States issued its strongest attack to date on Monday on a U.N. plea that rich countries likeAmerica meet a fixed global target every year for the development aid they give poor countries.
Coalition forces in Iraq are welcoming the deployment of 450 more Australian military personnel. ?These are great soldiers,? said a U.S. official in Baghdad, Iraq. The new Australian contingent will bring the number of ?Aussies? in country up to 1,370, officials at the Australian embassy here said.
Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday pledged to work to unify all Christians, reach out to other religions and continue implementing reforms from the Second Vatican Council as he outlined his goals and made clear his pontificate would closely follow the trajectory of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.
A prophecy by a 12th-century Catholic saint that predicted characteristics of the last 112 popes appears to have been strengthened by the election of the new pontiff today.
A homosexual advocacy group expressed "concern" that Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, "does not present a hopeful vision of the future or inspire optimism for affirming language, policies or outreach."
Ora Mae Magouirk, the 81-year-old Georgia widow at the center of an intense family dispute over her medical treatment and right to live, is growing stronger every day, despite having been denied food and water for nearly two weeks before being airlifted to the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center in Birmingham for treatment of an aortic dissection.
Local historian Bill Stanley believes Samuel Huntington was the first president of the United States and he is seeking money to create a presidential library in Norwich.
...This is the first war in which American GIs and military families can communicate freely and in real time via e-mail and cellphone, while gathering endless amounts of information about the situation in Iraq via the Internet - some of it trustworthy, much of it unreliable.
There is no longer any doubt that women can serve in combat.
On the outskirts of Salman Pak a little southeast of Baghdad on March 20, a convoy of 30 tractor-trailers driven by third-country nationals was attacked by a force of 40 to 50
The largest political bloc in Iraq's new government called for the execution of Saddam Hussein if the ousted president is convicted of war crimes and said Monday that President Jalal Talabani should resign if he's not prepared to sign the death warrant.
As the sun peeked over the mountains early on the morning of April 15, three CH-47 Chinook helicopters packed with U.S. and Afghan soldiers sped toward their target in Wardak province.
Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime has started a pirate radio station that pumps out broadsides against the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, officials and reports said yesterday.
...The attack on this remote Marine outpost abutting the Syrian border caused only minor injuries, but it signaled a dramatic change in the methods of the insurgents, who have staged mostly guerrilla-style hit-and-run attacks against the U.S. military for two years.
Iraqi forces regained control of a lawless town near Baghdad, but failed to find any hostages, putting paid to reports that Sunni gunmen had seized scores of Shiite residents and were threatening to kill them.
A high-ranking adviser in the Iraqi Defense Ministry was assassinated late Monday night by gunmen at his house in Baghdad, Iraqi officials said. The official, Maj. Gen. Adnan Qaragholi, was killed just after 11 p.m. when 10 gunmen forced their way into his house in the Doura neighborhood in southern Baghdad and shot him to death, Interior Ministry officials said.
Iraqi Interior Ministry officials said a senior official was assassinated in his home on Monday, adding they had misidentified the official earlier.
Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person in the United States charged in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has told the government he plans to plead guilty, The Washington Post reported in its Tuesday editions.
The U.S. military has assembled the world's most formidable hacker posse: a super-secret, multimillion-dollar weapons program that may be ready to launch bloodless cyberwar against enemy networks -- from electric grids to telephone nets.
...Now, thanks to the ingenuity and cooperation of a small group of military officers and civilian equipment specialists, the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab at Quantico has developed a novel form of body armor ? Kevlar shorts ? to save troops from death or maiming injuries.
Despite the tremendous advances in military hardware and technology on display in the global war on terror, there are still some capabilities only humans can provide. That was the thinking behind a new initiative to improve foreign language and cultural expertise at the Defense Department.
Members of the presidential commission that examined U.S. intelligence failures told White House officials that they would resign en masse if President Bush did not ensure the nation's spy agencies cooperated with their inquiry -- and had to repeat the threat more than once.
The liberal Air America Radio, just past its first birthday, has probably enjoyed more free publicity than any enterprise in recent history. But don't believe the hype: Air America's left-wing answer to conservative talk radio is failing, just as previous efforts to find liberal Rush Limbaughs have failed.
In an attempt to lessen the impact of so-called conservative talk radio, a New York congresswoman is leading an effort to re-establish the "Fairness Doctrine" for radio and television broadcasters in the United States.
The Dawn Patrol, a daily feature of the Mudville Gazette, is a roundup of news stories that we think might be of interest to readers and of use to fellow bloggers. Appearances of stories or editorials in this collection are not to be considered as endorsement of their content by the Greyhawks.
Marla Ruzicka, of Lakeport, Calif., died Saturday in a car bombing in Iraq, where she had been on and off since the March 2003 invasion began, conducting door-to-door surveys to determine the number of civilian casualties, friends and family said.
The Army chief of staff has raised the stakes in the debate over women in combat with an assertion that women are only barred from serving in support units assigned to infantry when such units are actually in combat.
Iraq's top two leaders called for jump-starting the nation's court system and revamping security forces to end the bloody insurgency and open the way for U.S. troops to come home.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff encouraged newspaper editors today to tell America the full story of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. ?It?s particularly important today ? because the American people need to know the full story,? said Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers
Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. troops had the town of Madain surrounded Sunday after reports of Sunni militant kidnappings of as many as 100 Shiite residents, but there were growing indications the incident had been grossly exaggerated, perhaps an outgrowth of a tribal dispute or political maneuvering.
Iraq's interim government said Sunday that it had dispatched several battalions of security forces to a small village in central Iraq in response to reports of Sunni Muslims capturing and holding large numbers of Shiite hostages.
Iraqi troops backed by U.S. forces mounted fresh raids in a town near Baghdad on Sunday, but failed to find any of the Shi'ite hostages reported to have been threatened with death by Sunni guerrillas.
...One of these hits?from an FBI database of terror suspects known as TIPOFF?smacked investigators right between the eyes. The two Saudis, the database reported, were brothers and pilots who had attended the same Arizona flight school as 9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour.
The South Korean government said it has verified that North Korea has shut down its nuclear power plant, a signal that the communist nation may be planning to increase its supply of weapons-grade plutonium.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wants to tie Russia closer to the West with trade incentives and only tempered criticism of its eroding democracy during a two-day trip to Moscow this week.
Representing 52 countries, the 115 crimson-robed "princes" of a church stung by priest sex-abuse scandals and an exodus of the faithful were to celebrate a midmorning Mass at St. Peter's Basilica (search) before sequestering themselves in the Sistine Chapel in the late afternoon.
I'll be in conclave this week handing out goodie bags and running for pope. Wish me well!
She is leading in the polls for her party's White House nod in 2008. Republican Newt Gingrich ranks her as a formidable presidential candidate.
It must have been the first conference in the history of Abraham Lincoln scholarship to call the Great Emancipator "a terrifically sexual guy."
Addressing the nation's top Lincoln scholars on Sunday, two historians defended a new book that claims Lincoln was gay and called for more research into his sexuality.
The jungle territory that hides lurking rebel forces makes it look like a shoot-em-up adventure, but in this video game -- from the U.N.'s food aid agency -- the aim is to feed the masses rather than blow them away.
Sara Rahmani, businesswoman, picks a brown burqa-style dress from the rack, and holding it in front of her face, shows with a broad smile how she refashioned it for post-Taliban Afghanistan.
President Bush reported adjusted gross income of $784,219 for last year, on which he paid $207,307 in federal taxes - about $20,000 less than the previous year, according to the president's return released Friday by the White House.
The Dawn Patrol, a daily feature of the Mudville Gazette, is a roundup of news stories that we think might be of interest to readers and of use to fellow bloggers. Appearances of stories or editorials in this collection are not to be considered as endorsement of their content by the Greyhawks.
Hundreds of Iraqi forces took up positions around a town near Baghdad Sunday in preparation for an operation to rescue Shi'ite hostages whom Sunni insurgents have threatened to kill, Reuters witnesses said.
The Manhattan Marine accused of executing two unarmed Iraqis admits he was "sending a message" by unloading two clips into the captured men ? but says he fired only after the detainees made him feel his life was in danger, New York magazine will report tomorrow.
Patrick Haab, the Army reservist arrested on suspicion of holding seven undocumented immigrants at gunpoint at an Arizona rest stop, said he is overwhelmed and encouraged by an outpouring of legal, financial and moral support.
Equipment plundered from dozens of sites in Saddam Hussein's vast complex for manufacturing weapons is beginning to surface in open markets in Iraq's major cities and at border crossings.
America?s senior military commander in Afghanistan predicted Saturday the near-total collapse of the Taliban insurgency within a year, but he cautioned that militants remain a danger and could stage a ?high-visibility attack? in coming months.
A leader of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban movement has rejected as baseless reports that he held reconciliation talks with President Hamid Karzai's government.
...Meanwhile, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai denied a report by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press that the government was negotiating with Taliban officials in Zabul.
...The stakes in the debate over Islam and democracy are huge, and will shape the fate of President Bush's strategy in the global war on terrorism. The debate is taking place amid a remarkable series of political shifts across the Islamic world, from successful elections in Afghanistan and Iraq to regime-shaking street protests in Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan, to more cautious democratic experiments in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian territories.
About 20,000 anti-Japanese protesters ? some shouting "kill the Japanese" ? rampaged through Shanghai on Saturday, stoning Japan's consulate and smashing cars and shops in protest over Tokyo's bid for a permanent U.N. Security Council seat and perceived whitewashing of wartime atrocities.
European Union foreign ministers yesterday insisted they still wanted to lift the bloc's arms embargo on China - but admitted it could take more than a year to accomplish.
Labour is heading for a third General Election victory, according to a clutch of recently-published polls.
But the projected margin of Tony Blair's victory varied as pollsters put his lead over the Tories at anywhere between one and 10%.
Cardinals destroyed Pope John Paul II's ring and lead seal Saturday to formally end his reign, while the Vatican expressed confidence that jamming devices and other unprecedented precautions would keep the name of the new pope secret until it is announced to the world from a balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square.
Surfer and shark-attack survivor Bethany Hamilton gives an autograph to a boy at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, on Thursday. Bethany Hamilton has a good reason to be afraid to go into the water. She lost her arm and nearly her life at age 13 after a tiger shark attacked her off the shores of Kauai, Hawaii. But instead of clinging to the safety of land, she continues dive into the water and surf.
...Now, there is an organization to help the Godfreys and other families get their children through the hardships of deployment. In January, Linda Davidson and Gail Kruzel founded the nonprofit group Our Military Kids in McLean, with a pilot program for the Winchester-based 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment of the Virginia National Guard.
California Democrats lashed out at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during their annual convention Saturday, vowing to block his administration's agenda in an extraordinary reversal of good will toward the celebrity governor.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Friday that his party would wield the Terri Schiavo case against Republicans in the 2006 and 2008 elections, but for now needed to stay focused battling President Bush on Social Security.
A magnitude-5.1 earthquake struck in Southern California on Saturday and could be felt dozens of miles away in downtown Los Angeles, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
A strong earthquake rocked parts of Indonesia's Sumatra Island, where many residents fled their homes to higher ground fearing another tsunami, the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said Sunday.
A NASA robotic spacecraft located a Pentagon satellite in space without help from human controllers, but the mission ended early when the computer-driven craft detected a fuel problem, the mission manager said on Saturday.
The Dawn Patrol, a daily feature of the Mudville Gazette, is a roundup of news stories that we think might be of interest to readers and of use to fellow bloggers. Appearances of stories or editorials in this collection are not to be considered as endorsement of their content by the Greyhawks.
The army is starting to have problems recruiting. This past February, the army came up short about 2,000 recruits in its active, reserve and national guard forces. There was only a shortfall of six percent in the active force, but the army reserve was only able to recruit 90 percent of the people it wanted, and the National Guard got only 75 percent.
At least 36 House Democrats, including most of the minority members of the Armed Services Committee, offered legislation Thursday to boost the size of the active military force by 36,000 troops.
The bill would boost the Army by 20,000, including 6,000 Special Forces troops, the Marines by 12,000, and the Navy and Air Force by 2,000 each. All would be in special operations, Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., said at a briefing.
While just about all the proponents maintain they want to achieve the increase by offering recruits bigger financial incentives or through appeals to patriotism, lurking in the background is a possibility that for now remains anathema to all but a few. The military draft, which coughed up its last conscript in 1973, could make a comeback if recruiting doesn't pick up and if America's commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan turn into long-term occupations or if the Bush administration's tough-minded foreign policy means military action in places like Iran or North Korea.
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But Phillip Carter, a retired Army captain who is now a lawyer, writer and commentator on military affairs, said there may be little choice but to reinstate conscription. "The all-volunteer model can't produce the numbers that might be needed,'' he said.
Clarification: An April 4 story on proposals to increase the size of the military may have left a misimpression of the views held by, and the military title of, Phillip Carter, a lawyer, writer and commentator. Carter is a former Army captain who has proposed reinstatement of a draft, but one in which those drafted would have the option of choosing national service, homeland security jobs or the military in noncombat roles requiring only modest levels of training and availability for peace-keeping and other nation- building missions.
(Note from Greyhawk: Phillip Carter is also a MilBlogger - see here)
Maj. Mark Solomon stood before spouses of deployed Fort Carson soldiers Thursday morning and brought up a subject no one likes to talk about but everyone needs to know about. After recent hoaxes on and off post, Solomon wanted soldiers? families briefed on the Army?s by-the-book death notification procedure.
Thirteen cargo handlers at San Francisco International Airport were charged Friday with stealing $200,000 worth of computers, cameras and other goods from mail bound for U.S. soldiers stationed in Japan, authorities said.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who earlier angered the United States and Britain by calling the Iraq war 'illegal,' has upset both nations again -- this time accusing them of allowing Saddam Hussein to enrich himself selling oil outside the U.N.-run oil-for-food program.
Mr. Annan set off the latest dispute on Thursday by asserting that Saddam made more money smuggling oil to Jordan and Turkey -- under the noses of the United States and Britain -- than he skimmed from the 1996-2003 U.N.-run oil-for-food program.
Two mass graves that appear to contain the remains of as many as 7,000 people killed by Saddam Hussein's government have been discovered in southern Iraq, an Iraqi government minister said Friday
Almost a third of the members of Iraq's new parliament are women, one of the highest proportions in the world, but that doesn't mean full Western-style rights are at hand. Many of the women are conservatives who want Islamic law to enforce the veil and all that goes with it.
Recovering Iraqi oil production could go some way towards meeting an expected spike in world oil demand later this year, assuming that security improves and output can be ramped up, a senior Iraqi oil marketing official said yesterday.
A federal judge has sided with the Justice Department in one of the many lawsuits brought on behalf of prisoners asking the courts to prohibit any sudden transfers of detainees from Guantᮡmo Bay, Cuba, to other countries. The judge, Reggie B. Walton of Federal District Court, ruled that there was no need for a prohibition, saying that he accepted assertions by government lawyers in a case involving a handful of detainees that there were no plans for sudden transfers. Several judges have ordered the government to notify the lawyers of other detainees before transfers occur. The lawyers say their clients could face torture if sent to other countries.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pledged yesterday to nudge even the closest US allies toward democracy, reversing what she called a 60-year trend of supporting authoritarian regimes for the sake of regional stability.
Saudi Arabia has agreed in principle to acquire up to 96 Rafale combat aircraft from France's Dassault Aviation for some Euros 6bn, Les Echos, the FT's French sister newspaper, has learnt.
The Spanish government has denied selling dangerous radioactive or chemical substances to Venezuela in 2004, saying it supplied tear gas canisters and other crowd control materials.
U.S. troops stationed in South Korea were forced this year to scrap a contingency plan for the collapse of Kim Jong Il's regime in North Korea because of objections by Seoul, the South Korean government said Friday.
The United States is running out of options in the North Korean nuclear standoff as it has failed to bring real pressure on the reclusive communist nation to return to the bargaining table, according to American experts.
United States Forces Korea announced yesterday it will deactivate an aviation brigade and move out one Apache attack helicopter battalion as part of efforts to transform its troops into an easily deployable force to any regional emergencies.
A NASA robotic spacecraft equipped with navigational computers and sensors was launched into orbit to rendezvous with a Pentagon satellite without the help of astronauts or human controllers. If the $110 million mission is successful, it could lay the groundwork for future projects such as robotic delivery of cargo to space shuttles, and automated docking and repair between spacecraft in orbit.
The DART spacecraft short for Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology was mounted and launched from a Stargazer L-1011 aircraft at 10:25 a.m. PDT. The mission originated from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
In a house on Chicago?s southeast side, a Mexican family is going through a heartbreak like the tragedy that befell the American Terri Schiavo?s family and deeply affected both those who defend the right to life and partisans of euthanasia. But no voices had been raised so far in this case because very few knew about the situation concerning the 39-year-old Latin woman whose husband decided to disconnect the tube that had been feeding her during her three and a half years in a vegetative state.
An Afghan toddler taken to the United States for surgery to fix a life-threatening heart ailment died Friday, two days after returning home to a muddy refugee camp, breaking the hearts of his family and U.S. soldiers who arranged his unlikely trip.
The Dawn Patrol, a daily feature of the Mudville Gazette, is a roundup of news stories that we think might be of interest to readers and of use to fellow bloggers. Appearances of stories or editorials in this collection are not to be considered as endorsement of their content by the Greyhawks.
Investigators have discovered several mass graves in southern Iraq that are believed to contain the bodies of people killed by Saddam Hussein's government, including one estimated to hold 5,000 bodies, Iraqi officials say.
The three-story hospital in downtown Fallujah sits empty and abandoned, but with funds allocated through the Commanders Emergency Response Program and a private donor, this is about to change.
An Iranian army colonel who many years ago converted to Christianity has been summoned to appear before a Tehran court on charges of apostasy, that is publicly rejecting the faith in which one has been raised. Hamid Pourmand, 47, is the first Iranian for more than ten years to be tried for this crime, which carries the death penalty. Now retired, Pourmand is a pastor with the protestant Assembly of God faith in the city of Bushehr, the site of Iran's main nuclear reactor.
Secretary General Kofi Annan said yesterday the United States and Britain are partly to blame for Iraq making billions of dollars in illicit money from smuggling oil.
Reluctance by Italian investigators to accept the U.S. version of the killing of an Italian security agent by American troops in Iraq last month is holding up the conclusion of a joint inquiry into the shooting, Italian newspapers said Thursday.
Also Thursday, the U.S. State Department said the investigation was ongoing and denied an NBC report that the U.S.-Italian commission had completed a preliminary report clearing the Americans of any wrongdoing in the killing.
President Bush said Thursday that the public should know as much as possible about government decision-making, but national security and personal privacy ? including his ? need to be protected.
US law enforcement officials captured more than 10,000 fugitives around the country in a week-long drive to round up some of the most violent criminals who had previously evaded justice.
The military has completed an investigation into former NFL star Pat Tillman's death in Afghanistan that aimed to address concerns raised about whether the Army held back information, but its findings won't be made public.
Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinal safety who in 2004 was the first NFL player to be killed in military action in 34 years, will be profiled on Friday, April 22, on ESPN at noon ET and on ESPN Classic at 8 and 11 p.m. ET.
When Perry Edinger decided to honor Pat Tillman, one of the most famed athletes to wear Arizona State's maroon and gold, he expected plenty of support - and got it.
An Army sergeant charged in a deadly grenade attack on his comrades wrote in his diary that his fellow soldiers were mistreating him, and that once he was sent to Iraq, "I am going to try and kill as many of them as possible," a jury was told Thursday.
From the floor of the House yesterday, a congressman urged President Bush to personally attend to the case of Lt. Ilario Pantano, the U.S. Marine charged with pre-meditated murder of two Iraqis.
It appears there will be a happy ending to the story of Ora Mae Magouirk, the 81-year-old Georgia widow whose family has been at loggerheads over her medical care, visitation privileges and whether she should be "allowed to die" but now is reaching agreements on key issues.
The Dawn Patrol, a daily feature of the Mudville Gazette, is a roundup of news stories that we think might be of interest to readers and of use to fellow bloggers. Appearances of stories or editorials in this collection are not to be considered as endorsement of their content by the Greyhawks.
Soldiers of the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division and 32nd Iraqi Army Brigade launched their largest air and ground assault Tuesday in two towns north of Baqouba, the capital of Iraq's Diyala province
Iraqi forces do some things better than the American troops who train them. They talk with regular Iraqis better. They are sharper at spotting suspicious characters. They understand cultural complexities.
Midlevel leaders of the insurgency in Iraq are attempting to give themselves up in return for deals that would allow them to join the political system, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.
A pair of car bombs exploded near government offices in the Iraqi capital on Thursday, killing 18 and wounding three dozen, and insurgent attacks against the nation's nascent security forces left at least eight others dead countrywide, officials said.
The Indiana man shown with gun-toting captors in a videotape Wednesday is a 47-year-old businessman who went to Iraq to provide drinking water to its people.
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Looking pale and frightened, a U.S. contractor who was kidnapped two days earlier appeared in a videotape released Wednesday, calling for the U.S. military to withdraw from Iraq and save his life.
KABUL, Afghanistan, April 13 -- President Hamid Karzai said Wednesday that he was seeking a long-term security arrangement with the United States, but he declined to say whether it would include the establishment of permanent U.S. military bases in Afghanistan.
THE arrests in Manchester of Kamel Bourgass and others were a crucial part of an enormous investigation into al-Qaida's European strike force.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appeared to rule out a unilateral military strike by Israel against Iran's nuclear facilities, saying Wednesday that any response to fears that Tehran is seeking to develop atomic weapons must be an international effort that his country would not lead.
The Bush administration yesterday questioned Israel's urgent warning on the advancement of Iran's nuclear-weapons program, saying the Islamic republic is not likely to have a nuclear bomb for at least five years.
The European Parliament has given the thumbs-up to Bulgaria and Romania to join the European bloc in 2007, but with conditions. The countries still have to institute wide-ranging reforms to satisfy EU accession criteria.
North Korea is unlikely to collapse any time soon and such an event should not be encouraged, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said on a trip to Germany.
The attorney for Marine Corps 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano yesterday waived his client's right to a pretrial hearing on murder charges and demanded a speedy court-martial to force the government to prove its case.
The Dawn Patrol, a daily feature of the Mudville Gazette, is a roundup of news stories that we think might be of interest to readers and of use to fellow bloggers. Appearances of stories or editorials in this collection are not to be considered as endorsement of their content by the Greyhawks.
Senate Democrats are threatening to bog down the emergency war-spending bill with a broad debate on immigration if Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist doesn't win a guarantee from House Republicans to drop driver's license limits from their chamber's version.
American troops battled arms smugglers and fighters near the Iraqi town of Qaim along the Syrian border yesterday, killing an unknown number of foreign insurgents, the U.S. military said. The local hospital reported at least nine people killed in clashes in the same area.
U.S. troops and warplanes reinforced Afghan forces that were ambushed on a high mountain pass in a firefight in which about 12 militants were killed and two U.S. soldiers were wounded, officials said yesterday. Elsewhere, farmers fought a gunbattle with counternarcotics police in the south, and authorities said they arrested three men suspected of trying to abduct an American in Kabul, the capital.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited U.S. soldiers Wednesday on a morale boosting mission mixed with official talks on the future U.S. role in Afghanistan.
A key figure in the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse scandal has given Army investigators a lengthy sworn statement accusing others of misconduct at the Iraq prison. The statement from Pvt. Charles Graner, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., comes as the Army may file more charges in the case against personnel who supervised military police officers such as Pvt. Graner. He had first refused to talk, but later agreed under a grant of immunity.
Venezuelan army reservists are training civilians, apparently to defend their country against a presumed U.S. invasion. But critics say President Hugo Chᶥz is building a private army.
JERUSALEM - Ariel Sharon?s military attache presented aerial photos of Iranian nuclear installations during the Israeli prime minister?s summit with US President George W. Bush, Israeli public radio reported on Tuesday.
Former President Bill Clinton unleashed an attack against a gay Republican strategist who plans to work against the re-election of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, suggesting that, to work on behalf of the Republican Party, the man may be "blinded by self-loathing."
Sure it's early, but Hillary Rodham Clinton is already the favored Democrat to run for president in 2008 for the Democratic Party. And while most of Hillary Clinton's New York numbers have been very good, a Marist poll may put some pause in the Senator's predicted run for the White House.
Up to 25,000 villagers have been evacuated from the slopes of a rumbling volcano on Indonesia's Sumatra Island, though scientists on Wednesday said the mountain was calming down.
Four girls who had been taken hostage at knife point by an Iranian man were rescued by police in Ennepetal, western Germany, on Tuesday, local media reported.
Chinese immigrant workers marched through the streets of downtown San Francisco on Tuesday, shouting slogans and waving signs to protest the loss of garment jobs they say are being shipped to China.
The National Geographic Society launches a massive project today to trace the migratory history of humans. The five-year effort will involve the collection and analysis of DNA from more than 100,000 people worldwide.
A previously unpublished poem by Tennessee Williams, described as having been "written out of absolute, complete despair," has been discovered in his blue test booklet from a college course in 1937.
The Dawn Patrol, a daily feature of the Mudville Gazette, is a roundup of news stories that we think might be of interest to readers and of use to fellow bloggers. Appearances of stories or editorials in this collection are not to be considered as endorsement of their content by the Greyhawks.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon brushed off a warning from President Bush not to allow further West Bank settlement growth, indicating Israel would continue to solidify its hold on areas it considers of strategic importance.
For the first time in a quarter-century of estrangement from Iran, the Bush administration is openly preparing to spend government funds in that country to promote democracy.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned Iraq's new leaders Tuesday against political purges or favoritism that could lead to charges of corruption and sap confidence in the yet-to-be formed government.
Poland has said it will pull its troops out of Iraq when the UN mandate for the stabilisation mission expires at the end of this year. Poland has 1,700 soldiers in Iraq, and leads a multinational security force south of Baghdad.
Australia opened the door on Tuesday to signing a Southeast Asian peace pact so it can join a summit of East Asian nations, a move that would mark a breakthrough in its long bid for acceptance in the region.
Turkey is attempting to mend ties with the United States that were strained badly over the war in Iraq, and is willing to let U.S. planes operate from its Incirlik Air Base for some missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, diplomats say.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, said Monday the war against Colombian rebels is being won and that pressure must be maintained until final victory.
Miguel Angel Moratinos, Spain's foreign minister, on Monday defended his country's decision to sell military planes and boats to Venezuela, insisting the equipment was essential for fighting the drug trade and won't upset the region's military balance.
Karl von Wogau, Chairman of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Security and Defence, today urged the EU's plenary session gathered in Strasbourg to ascertain whether or not the sale of weapons by Spain to Venezuela violates the Code of Conduct on Arms Exports of the European Union. During the opening of the plenary session of the European Parliament at its seat in the French city, the German member of the EU parliament warned that the exportation of arms to Venezuela may very well go against the Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, agreed to by countries of the EU and in force since 1998.
Hundreds of Iraqi troops and commandos backed by American soldiers swept through central and southern Baghdad early Monday morning, capturing at least 65 suspected insurgents in one of the largest raids in the capital since the fall of Saddam Hussein, military officials said.
An American contractor was kidnapped Monday in the vicinity of the Iraqi capital, according to U.S. officials, who said the identities of the man and his employer were being withheld at the request of the victim's family.
Insurgents claiming links to al Qaeda tried to overrun a U.S. Marine base near the Syrian border Monday using gunmen, suicide car bombs and a firetruck loaded with explosives, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
U.S. and Afghan forces killed 12 Taliban insurgents in southeastern Afghanistan, Paktia province Police Chief Hai Gul Sulaimankhel said. The insurgents had tried to assassinate Kheyal Baaz Khan Sherzai, the former military commander of neighboring Khost province, as he traveled on a main road near Gardez, said Khost's governor, Mirajuddin Patan.
Sgt. Hasan Akbar, center, is led from the Staff Judge Advocate Building at Fort Bragg, NC Monday, April 11, 2005, after the first day of his military trial. Akbar, a soldier with the 101st Airborne Division
An Army sergeant charged with killing two American officers in a grenade attack on his own camp in Kuwait was mentally ill and acted not out of premeditation but desperation, his lawyer said Monday.
U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe is among three Republicans supporting legislation to repeal the military's ban on openly gay soldiers.
A reminder: The Dawn Patrol, a daily feature of the Mudville Gazette, is a roundup of news stories that we think might be of interest to readers and of use to fellow bloggers. Appearances of stories or editorials in this collection are not to be considered as endorsement of their content by the Greyhawks.
The next pope won't have it easy. He'll have to confront the spread of Islam and Protestant evangelism, balance calls for social activism with demands to focus on traditional doctrine, and battle secularism in Europe and sex scandals in America. But his biggest challenge was manufactured in the Vatican itself: He'll have to escape the shadow of one of the most beloved popes in history.
They've plotted and deceived, they've been warlike, corrupt and power-hungry and they've sired children they shamelessly promoted: the history of popes, as cardinals mull who will succeed John Paul II, is decidedly murky.
Iraq's new president called Sunday for extending amnesty to Iraqi insurgents who had killed combatants, possibly including US and Iraqi troops, as part of a drive that he said could help end attacks within months.
Jalal Talabani told CNN two years should be enough time for Iraqi forces to rebuild and secure control of the country as well as take over the job currently being performed by some 140,000 U.S. troops.
President Bush's decision to send the State Department's No. 2 official on a round of Sudan-related diplomacy this week has cheered many people who feared the country would be relegated to the U.S. policy back burner.
Iran will not abandon uranium enrichment, despite its negotiations with the European Union on its nuclear program, a senior official said on Sunday.
Greenfield resident sits in jail, accused of attempting to sell Iraq the names of U.S. intelligence agents.
<...>
One of 19 children born into a destitute family in Lebanon more than 50 years ago, the man federal authorities identify as Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban says he escaped a bleak future because of a wealthy Lebanese widow named Ahlam. She picked him out from his many siblings, including a twin brother, adopted him in secrecy and raised him in a life of privilege and safety.
An intense earthquake measuring6.0 on the Richter scale jolted the sea near Sumatra of Indonesia at 1:30 am (Hong Kong time) Monday. According to the Hong Kong Observatory, the epicenter was initially determined to be 1.6 south latitude and 99.7 east longitude, about 100 kilometers southwest of Padang.
We're not any less annoyed by spam. We're just more accepting of it. So says a study released Sunday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Jeff Gannon, the former White House reporter for Talon News, a conservative online news outlet, has once again roiled the Washington journalism establishment.
Protesters in Beijing demanded a boycott of Japanese goods.
As Japan's ambassador called on the Chinese government to take stronger measures to protect Japanese citizens in China, thousands of Chinese citizens took to the streets in another protest to call for a boycott of Japanese products and to shout anti-Japanese slogans.
Some say Rome is too rigid. They want more local input.
When the 115 cardinal-electors of the Catholic Church gather in conclave April 18, they will be choosing more than a pope.
They will be choosing a Catholic Church for the 21st century.
Prime Minister Tony Blair is heading for an historic third victory in Britain's May election, polls showed on Sunday as he gave a rare joint interview with his finance minister Gordon Brown to underline party unity.
Embassy and police sources on Sunday said the diplomat, Malik Mohammad, had failed to return from prayers at a mosque near his home on Saturday.
Egyptian authorities are investigating whether a suicide bomber carried out an attack that killed three people, including an American tourist, in a packed Cairo market, officials said Saturday.
North Korea says it won't even discuss dismantling its nuclear weapons until Washington has normalized relations, a U.S. scholar who visited the North said Saturday. "The chance to negotiate is gone," he said.
China has substantially beefed up its military in the past few years and will soon have the capacity to block US forces from defending Taiwan, according to Pentagon officials preparing a classified report. The report will warn that China has successfully copied other nations' technology to build modern armed forces.
A federal appeals court Friday overturned an inmate's conviction for writing a crude, rambling letter endorsing President Bush's death at the hands of terrorists ? two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon left for the United States Sunday, expecting overwhelming support from President George W. Bush before embarking on one of the most fundamental concessions in Israeli history - the evacuation of about 9,000 Jewish settlers from their homes. Sharon meets with Bush this week at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, a venue reserved for a select few world leaders.
The Bush administration is developing a plan to give the government access to possibly hundreds of millions of international banking records in an effort to trace and deter terrorist financing, even as many bankers say they already feel besieged by government antiterrorism rules that they consider overly burdensome.
Spain is about to pass a law forcing men to do housework.
The draft approved by the Spanish parliament's justice commission says men must "share domestic responsibilities and the care and attention" of children and elderly family members, the London Guardian reported.
Chanting "No! No to terrorism!" and "No! No to America," thousands of supporters of a radical Shiite cleric who once led uprisings against U.S. troops called Saturday for American forces to withdraw from Iraq, staging a massive protest at the same square where two years ago to the day protesters pulled down a towering statue of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein
<...>
The supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militiamen signed truces last year with U.S.-led forces, filled Firdous Square and spilled into nearby avenues, waving Iraqi flags and burning effigies of U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Saddam.
Two years ago today, Fardous square in central Baghdad was filled with crowds who cheered US forces as they tore down the statue of Saddam Hussein. It was an event that for most Iraqis has come to mark the change between the old order and the new.
I don't think I need to tell you how close is the 9th of April to my heart. And now, after two years happiness is still the same for me; one person among millions who were freed on that great day.
The 9th of April had turned one of the darkest pages in our history and opened the door wide before the people and their dreams, just as when the idol was knocked down, fear and oppression were knocked down as well.
No day matches you, my brightest day. We will keep reaping your fruits while the entire neighborhood follow your light and wait for other days like you to sweep away the remaining rotten idols.
New Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said yesterday that lawmakers will meet a mid-August deadline for writing a constitution despite weeks of delay in forming a government.
The new constitution is meant to be ready by Aug. 15, although lawmakers are allowed to request a six-month delay. If the process becomes deadlocked, it could benefit insurgents trying to overthrow the U.S.-backed government.
Anticipating progress toward curbing insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army may cut in half the yearlong tours of duty in the two nations that have strained an already stretched service, a senior Army general said Thursday.
Valerie N. Chapman on Friday smashed a ceremonial bottle of champagne on a rail of a Navy cargo ship being named in honor of her husband, ''a battlefield airman'' who died three years ago fighting in Afghanistan.
Parris Island recruit Bret Moran died of myocarditis, a rare viral infection in his heart, which prevented his heart from working properly and ultimately caused him not to wake up during the 54-hour Crucible on Nov. 18, according to a Marine Corps investigation released Thursday.
Israel's president said he shook hands and chatted briefly with the leaders of the Jewish state's great enemies, Syria and Iran, during Pope John Paul II's funeral on Friday, but he cautioned against reading too much into the gestures.
By Parisa Hafezi. TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) - Iran's President Mohammad Khatamistrongly denied that he shook hands with Israeli PresidentMoshe Katsav at Pope John Paul's funeral, the official IRNAnews agency said on Saturday.
Acting on a tip that a Serbian plane was carrying a bomb, Italian authorities on high alert for Pope John Paul II's funeral Friday scrambled F-16 fighter jets to force down one plane, while police stopped another on the ground from taking off, the Air Force said.
A senior air defense official on Thursday called for legislation that would enable the military to shoot down hijacked passenger planes -- part of efforts to toughen the response to the terrorist threat in Russia.
Turkey, which seeks a temporary seat on the UN Security Council before 2010, has criticized UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's plans to reform the overall organization, including the powerful Security Council and General Assembly.
ATLANTA - A man trained as a pilot at an Atlanta-area airport three years ago raised an international terror alert this week. He was found in the United Kingdom on Friday, the FBI said
The fate of Ora Mae Magouirk rests in the hands of three cardiologists, whose court-assigned task is to decide whether the 81-year-old widow should be transported from the hospice in LaGrange, Ga., where she has been a patient since March 22, to the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center for treatment of an aorta dissection.
Nine years ago, researchers believe they found Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard the pirate's flagship. Now, some Archaeologists at East Carolina University are not so sure.
Iraqis have been waiting for weeks, but nearly everyone missed the big event yesterday: the naming of the man who will lead the country's first democratically elected government in a half-century.
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - Kyrgyz lawmakers failed Thursday to vote on the resignation of President Askar Akayev, saying they first want to cancel the special privileges he would be entitled to as this ex-Soviet republic's first president.
CHINA received its final shipment of food aid yesterday, a historic moment as the most rapidly developing country marked the end of 25 years as a recipient of United Nations help.
The Bush administration's controversial choice for United Nations ambassador, John Bolton, will face tough questioning before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week, and at least two Democrats say they will oppose his nomination.
The office of Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) is investigating whether an aide who resigned this week distributed a memo about the Terri Schiavo case to other Senate offices, and whether any other aides in the senator's office had seen it, his staff said yesterday.
By Alistair Bell. MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's most popular politician, a controversial leftist mayor, faces jail time in the coming days in a legal case that has rocked the nation and undermined a young democracy.
An Army sergeant who was wounded in Iraq wants a chance to remain in the military as an openly gay soldier, a desire that's bringing him into conflict with the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Second Lt. Ilario Pantano, the platoon commander charged with pre-meditated murder in the killing of two suspected terrorists in Iraq, is getting the support of a North Carolina congressman.
If Congress passes an energy bill, Americans may see more daylight-saving time.
Lawmakers crafting energy legislation approved an amendment Wednesday to extend daylight-saving time by two months, having it start on the last Sunday in March and end on the last Sunday in November.
By Philip Chien. The seven persons scheduled to lift off on the next space shuttle mission say they are ready for the flight and are aware of the risks they are taking.
81-year-old neither terminally ill, comatose, nor in vegetative state
In a situation recalling the recent death of Terri Schiavo in Florida, an 81-year-old widow, denied nourishment and fluids for nearly two weeks, is clinging to life in a hospice in LaGrange, Ga., while her immediate family fights desperately to save her life before she dies of starvation and dehydration.
Two months after elections, Iraq's new government finally began to take shape Wednesday as lawmakers elected as president a Kurdish leader who promised to represent all ethnic and religious groups. Ousted dictator Saddam Hussein watched the session, broadcast across the country, from his prison cell.
Born in 1933, Jalal Talabani joined the Kurdish activist movements at the age of 13. He then ran up through the ranks of the Kurdistan Democratic Pary until he became the leader of the Kurdish Peshmerga Forces in the begining of 1960s.
It's not like me to watch political discussions as I always find them boring not to mention all the hypocrisy they usually include. And when the discussion is held with people like the Sadirists participating like they are really politicians as the case is in the interim National Iraqi Assembly, my feelings of boredom and resentment are even bigger.
However,...
This morning marked another turning point in the history of Iraq when the elected Iraqi National Assembly publicly elected and approved the new president of Iraq and his new deputies.
I personally welcome the decision of choosing Mr. Talbani for this position because this step proves again that Iraqis are willing and working hard to bridge the gap between the different components of the Iraqi nation and to overcome the differences and disputes among them.
Congratulations to the Iraqi people. Jalal Talabani has become the first Kurdish president in Iraq's history (unless I missed some history lessons during school). I predicted Talabani to become the president since after the parliamentary elections. I actually wanted him to be the president
More than a month passed and we didn?t have our elected government yet, but guess what, we don?t care, actually?..we are waiting for the announcement of the new Prime Minister name very anxiously, but between Mr. Alawy or Mr. Jaffary we are happy for any one of them to be the next P M, both of them are more than excellent choice for the position. And its not me only saying that, all the Iraqis who are taking a role in rebuilding the country had started reactivating their business for the coming period and I am posting this article from Dubai doing some business for the company I work to preparing ourselves for the coming opportunities and by coincidence I met other Iraqi friends from other companies here doing the same.
He pulled off & left the car to fetch a mechanic. As he walked tens of meters away from the car, it exploded. He returned back to the scene, shouting & wailing, declaring that the car was his. He was jailed by the Americans and, later, transferred to an Iraqi police station. And I'm ready to take you to meet him so you can hear the full story."
Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria, one of the top contenders to become pope next week, is best known for his interfaith experience with Muslims and his meteoric rise from a poor African village to the halls of the Vatican.
Iraq's parliament was set to name a president and two vice presidents on Wednesday after weeks of haggling, in a major step toward forming a new government more than two months after historic elections.
- Bush Selects Khalilzad as Iraq Ambassador
Citing his ?proven record of building consensus and achieving results in very tough situations,? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced today that Zalmay Khalilzad is President Bush?s choice as the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq.
The clash between Saudi security forces and militants has entered its third day, with a gun battle still continuing in the northern town of Al-Ras.
A senior Iraqi police official was kidnapped on a Baghdad street early Tuesday and at least 11 other Iraqis, including a cleric, a translator and a councilman, were killed or wounded in continuing violence around the country. U.S. military officials reported the deaths of four U.S. service members.
A group of Arab intellectuals have called for rapid progress toward democracy in the Arab world and contended that the United States and Israel have impeded such progress, in a report issued here Tuesday.
A United Nations-sponsored report on the Arab world called for greater political freedom, warning that the region could face "chaotic upheavals" if Arab governments refuse to curtail corruption and yield some of their absolute power.
The Israeli government is considering a plan that would prohibit Palestinians from working within Israel's borders, according to two senior Israeli officials
New Mexico official hopes to expand citizen volunteer project to 2nd state. In its second day of operations, the civilian volunteer Minuteman Project claimed to have aided the Border Patrol in the apprehension of 141 illegal aliens along the Arizona border and deterred many more from attempting to cross from Mexico.
Google announced that users would be able to archive their video clips in a few days. Larry Page, co-founder of Google Inc, the world leading search engine , announced on Monday in a conference in San Francisco`s Moscone Center that the company is beta testing a `video blogging` application.
- Google Feature Incorporates Satellite Maps
Online search engine leader Google has unveiled a new feature that will enable its users to zoom in on homes and businesses using satellite images, an advance that may raise privacy concerns as well as intensify the competitive pressures on its rivals.
Peter Jennings says lung cancer won't force him to follow Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw out of the anchor chair, yet.
Activist inspired by actor's stand on Schiavo, says his charisma needed. Inspired by Mel Gibson's strong stand against the dehydration death of Terri Schiavo, an Oregon businessman has begun a campaign to see the "Passion" director run for president as a Republican in 2008, saying he's the only potential candidate who has the star power and charisma needed to keep Democrat Hillary Clinton out of the White House.
Actor Richard Gere has embarked on another Mideast peace mission, touring the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday and endorsing an end to violence.
The Dawn Patrol, a daily feature of the Mudville Gazette, is a roundup of news stories that we think might be of interest to readers and of use to fellow bloggers. Appearances of stories or editorials in this collection are not to be considered as endorsement of their content by the Greyhawks.
DUBAI (AFP) - Two suspected leaders of the Al-Qaeda network in Saudi Arabia have been killed in clashes with security forces that have been raging for two days, Al-Arabiya television reported from the Saudi capital.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi forces battled dozens of insurgents in a remote area east of Baghdad and three soldiers, two American and one Iraqi, were killed in the fighting, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Prisoners at Iraq's largest detention facility protested the transfer of several detainees deemed "unruly" by authorities, throwing rocks and setting tents on fire in a disturbance that injured four guards and 12 detainees, the military said Monday. <...> Friday's protest at Camp Bucca ? which holds about 6,000 prisoners, nearly two-thirds of all those in Iraq ? caused only minor injuries before being brought under control, authorities said.
A suicide bomber driving a tractor blew himself up Monday near the gates of Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad, wounding five Iraqi civilians in the second attack on the prison in 48 hours, officials said.
BAGHDAD, April 4 -- Insurgent groups led by foreigners and Iraqis asserted Monday that guerrilla leader Abu Musab Zarqawi's organization was responsible for a major assault on Abu Ghraib prison Saturday that U.S. officers called one of the most sophisticated attacks of the insurgency.
Iraq's hottest new television program is a reality show. But the players are not there by choice. And they don't win big bucks, a new spouse or a dream job.
The Pentagon is judging success or failure in Iraq by more than daily casualty and attack statistics.
...Lt Gen Sir John Kiszely, who is also the American-led coalition's second-in-charge, said consultations for a hand-over to Iraqi military units could begin "within the next few weeks".
...Tomorrow, the National Assembly is expected to nominate the president and two vice presidents, who then will nominate a prime minister. Once the candidate is approved by a majority vote in the National Assembly, he can proceed to form a Cabinet.
The newly elected speaker of Iraq's Transitional National Assembly accepted a congratulatory call from President Bush on Monday and went to work on the political bridge-building necessary to form a government.
Spain's decision to sell arms to Venezuela and Colombia is putting new strains on U.S.-Spanish relations, jeopardizing a budding rapprochement between Madrid and Washington after last year's falling-out over Iraq.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami appealed yesterday to the United States to drop its opposition to his country's nuclear activities - programs Washington says are directed at making weapons.On an official visit to Austria, Khatami also expressed regret at the loss of American lives in Iraq but suggested that the violence there was unleashed by the U.S. invasion. Iranian-American relations are frigid: President Bush has listed the Islamic republic, along with North Korea and prewar Iraq, as forming an "axis of evil," and Tehran regularly accuses the Bush administration of unwarranted hostility. Khatami's appeal for U.S. acceptance of Iran's program and his comments about the American deaths were, thus, in stark contrast to Iran's usual harsh anti-American rhetoric.
"We urge the Europeans as well as the Americans to support us ... in being able to cover our electricity [needs] with the atom," said Khatami, whose comments in Farsi were translated into German.
As world leaders hailed Pope John Paul as a force for peace, Catholic reformers critical of his traditionalist stand on Church dogmas took issue with his 26-year papacy, which ended with his death on Saturday.
- Cardinals Begin Imposing List of Tasks
The College of Cardinals convened Monday ahead of a secret vote later this month to elect a new pope, with the red-capped prelates planning Pope John Paul II's funeral and arranging the destruction of his papal ring.
Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev, who was ousted last month by protesters who took over the White House government building, has resigned effective Tuesday, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.
Lawmakers broke days of rancorous stalemate Sunday and appointed a Sunni Muslim as their parliament speaker, cutting through ethnic and sectarian barriers that have held up selection of a new government for more than two months since the country's first free elections in 50 years.
Some 50 insurgents were wounded and at least one was killed during last week's attack on Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Monday. It refused to say whether any militants were taken into custody.
This afternoon, President Bush will award Smith the nation's highest award for bravery. In preparation for the ceremony, the White House asked Smith's wife, Birgit, to decide who should accept the Medal of Honor. She responded without hesitation."David."
Man of the house
David is 11 years old, a fifth-grader at Sunray Elementary School in Holiday. His mother brought him and his older sister, Jessica, to Pasco County after Smith's death.
- 'Ordinary Woman' Wounded In Iraq Awarded Defense Of Freedom Medal
An Army & Air Force Exchange Service employee, Sarah Latona, has been awarded the Defense of Freedom Medal, the civilian equivalent of the military's Purple Heart. It's the first such award in the exchange service's 109-year history.
Fatma peeked out the window of her Mosul home and saw masked men lobbing mortars at a nearby Iraqi army base for the third time. She decided it would be the last.
The Bush administration's anger at those who use the United Nations as a platform to broadcast anti-American rhetoric boiled over last week when a U.N. "rapporteur" -- who had not visited Iraq -- blamed the U.S. military for growing malnutrition among Iraqi children.
Legal setbacks for Terri Schiavo?s parents continue even after the brain-damaged woman?s death.
The Pinellas County Medical Examiner?s Office denied the parents? request to have independent medical experts observe her autopsy.
As many as 20 teenagers may have known ahead of time about plans for the shooting spree that resulted in the deaths of 10 people on the Indian reservation here March 21, tribal and federal officials said Friday.
Two high risk flaws in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Outlook have been reported by security vulnerability specialists eEye Digital Security. The security holes could let an attacker take over a system with 'minimal user interaction', the company said in two security alerts posted on its web site.
Pople John Paul II is seriously ill and has received the last rites as he battles a high fever, but the 84 year old pontiff's condition appears to have stablised, according to the latest Vatican news reports.
- UPDATE: Vatican: Pope Has Suffered Heart Failure
The Vatican said Friday that Pope John Paul II's condition was very serious, hours after he suffered heart failure.
- UPDATE II Vatican Denies Reports of Pope in Coma
Pope John Paul II suffered heart failure during treatment for a urinary tract infection and was in "very serious" condition on Friday, the Vatican said. It denied an Italian news report that the pope was in a coma.
An American was also taken when three Romanian journalists were abducted Monday in Iraq, the US State Department said Wednesday.
North Korea is waiting for the United States to apologize for calling it an "outpost of tyranny" before the communist state will return to nuclear talks, a senior official said, as the North announced Friday it will convene a rubber-stamp parliament expected to endorse its boycott of the talks.
Election officials at a polling station in Seke, 49 kilometers (30 miles) east of Harare inspect a ballot box at the end of voting Thursday, March, 31, 2005
A certain amount of panic will take hold of Russia today, when the country begins its annual military draft.
Dramatic changes are needed in a US intelligence community that still knows "disturbingly little" about grave threats to the nation and was "dead wrong" on Iraq, a presidential commission said Thursday.
President Bush nominated Navy Secretary Gordon England as deputy defense secretary Friday, elevating the former aerospace executive into his top echelon of advisers responsible for wartime military strategy.
Former Clinton National Security Advisor Samuel Berger has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of removing classified documents from the National Archives.
Legislation authorizing embryonic stem cell research passed in the Massachusetts House of Representatives on Thursday by a margin large enough to override an expected veto by Gov
Walter McCarty, an 82-year-old retired Marine sergeant, says he is looking for adventure on the most porous part of the American border with Mexico. So, on Thursday, he signed up for the Minuteman Project, a volunteer patrol in search of furtive immigrants making the desert crossing into the United States. <...> "People are going to set up their lawn chairs, put on some sunscreen and start looking for suspicious activity," Mr. Simcox said in an interview. "We're doing the job President Bush refuses to do."
