 Prime Minister Tony Blair faced a new test of his authority Tuesday as lawmakers held their first full-fledged debate on Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and planned a vote calling for an immediate inquiry into Britain's role in the conflict.Welsh and Scottish nationalists proposed a motion demanding a swift examination of the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, which has been riven by sectarian fighting. The head of the British army has proposed that troops should be pulled out soon.Britain's main opposition party, the Conservatives, said the debate would heap pressure on Blair, although it remained unclear how many would support the motion.Officials with the third-party Liberal Democrats said the results were likely to be close, claiming support had grown for the proposal by the Scottish National Party and the Welsh nationalists, Plaid Cymru....
http://www.usatoday.com
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Editor - 07:52:00 10-31-06
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 Youths Roam Streets in Mexican City Youths Roam Streets in Mexican City As Protesters Pledge to Keep Fighting |
The government said Tuesday it had not gained complete control of this embattled southern Mexican city despite sending hundreds of federal police who saw protesters erect new barricades and refuse to relinquish their hold on the capital after five months of demonstrations. Schools in the capital remained closed and most businesses surrounding Oaxaca City's tense center stayed shuttered as protesters maintained their calls for the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz, whom they accuse of suppressing dissent and rigging the 2004 elections. Mexico's Congress joined those calls Monday, urging Ruiz to step down as a good-faith measure that could help to resolve the conflict that has paralyzed the capital since May. Ruiz rejected the request. Although striking teachers had promised to go back to work Monday, only about 4,000 of the state's 13,000 schools had opened as of Tuesday, none in the capital. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2618307
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Editor - 07:50:00 10-31-06
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| China To Restrict Death Penalties Legislature Says Only Nation's Highest Court Can Order Executions After Jan. 1 |
China's legislature on Tuesday barred all but the nation's highest court from approving death sentences, a move that state media called the country's biggest change to capital punishment in more than 20 years. China is believed to account for most of the world's court-ordered executions, putting to death hundreds of people a year for crimes ranging from murder to such nonviolent offenses as tax evasion. Human rights groups have been protesting what they call miscarriages of justice and the extensive, arbitrary use of capital punishment. The change, which will take effect on Jan. 1, 2007, "is believed to be the most important reform of capital punishment in China in more than two decades," the official Xinhua News Agency said. The Supreme People's Court announced last year it would start reviewing death sentences, ending a 23-year-old practice of allowing provincial courts to have final review. In June, state media said the court had begun hiring dozens of judges for the task...
http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2006/07/28/image1845336g.jpg
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Editor - 07:47:00 10-31-06
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| Iran Offering Cash to Travel Agents for American Tourists |
Iran has said it would offer cash incentives to travel agencies to encourage Western tourists to visit the country, giving a premium for Americans , the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Tuesday.The proposal is Iran's latest bid to reach out to ordinary Americans in an attempt by the Islamic Republic's political leadership to show that its quarrel is with the U.S. administration — not U.S. citizens.It came as the United Nations Security Council deliberates a draft resolution that would impose sanctions on Iran for its disputed nuclear program."Iran's tourism department will pay US$20 per person to those who attract European or American tourists to the country," the agency quoted Mohammed Sharif Malakzadeh, deputy head of the department, as saying.Visitors from other countries would earn travel agents US$10 a tourist, Malakzadeh said....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,226416,00.html
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Editor - 07:44:00 10-31-06
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| Saddam Trial Witness Describes Massacre Witness at Saddam Hussein's trial says he survived massacre by feigning death |
A witness testified at Saddam Hussein's genocide trial Tuesday that he survived a massacre by feigning death when Iraqi soldiers shot at Kurdish detainees lying at their feet.The witness, who testified from behind a curtain to conceal his identity, said he was one of dozens of prisoners who were taken in buses to an execution site in western Iraq in April 1988 during the crackdown by Saddam's regime on the Kurdish population.Saddam and six co-defendants are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for their roles in the Operation Anfal crackdown, which the prosecution says killed some 180,000 Kurds. Saddam and one other defendant are also charged with genocide....
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/31/ap/world/mainD8L3L5R80.shtml
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Editor - 07:41:00 10-31-06
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| Ruling May Affect S. Dakota Abortion Vote Appeals Court Rules Against State Notification And Consent Law |
In a ruling that CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen says could influence South Dakota's vote next Tuesday on whether to ban nearly all abortions, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down the existing notification and consent component of the state's abortion statute. South Dakota can no longer enforce a 2005 law that would require doctors to give additional warnings to women who seek abortions. In a 2-1 ruling, the panel of judges upheld a lower court's ruling that has prevented the state from enforcing the law. Planned Parenthood, which challenged the measure, has demonstrated a likelihood it will win in its argument that the law violates the U.S. Constitution, the panel said. The law, passed by state lawmakers in 2005, would require doctors to tell women that abortions end human lives and may later cause serious psychological problems for women who have abortions. ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/31/national/main2138524.shtml?source=RSSattr=U.S._2138524
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Editor - 07:35:00 10-31-06
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