 Saddam Hussein, who is on trial for mass murder and genocide, has issued an extraordinary message from his prison cell, urging warring Iraqis to set aside their differences, drive the multinational forces from Iraq, and then forgive those "who shed the blood of your sons and brothers". In a three-page open letter dictated to his lawyers on Saturday and made public yesterday, the former Iraqi dictator said resistance against the US-led occupation forces was "a right and a duty" and that "victory is certain". But he said: "Do not forget that your goal is to liberate your country from the invaders and their followers and is not a settling of accounts outside this goal." Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, tens of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives as a result of attacks by multinational forces and growing insurgent and sectarian violence, which is pushing the country towards all-out civil war. In his message, Saddam wrote: ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk
censor News |
Editor - 12:04:00 10-16-06
|
 INTERVIEW WITH ASIA SECURITY EXPERT ON NORTH KOREA: |
North Korea's apparent test of a nuclear weapon has changed the security situation in Asia. SPIEGEL spoke with Yan Xuetong, Professor for International Studies at Peking's Qinghua University, about what went wrong. SPIEGEL: Officially relations between China and North Korea are described as "as close as lips and teeth." Has the nuclear weapons test put an end to that? Yan: China and North Korea are no longer close allies. SPIEGEL: How is the relationship now? Yan: Not normal. China's relationship to North Korea is even worse than its relationship with Kenya or other African states. SPIEGEL: China's attempts to prevent Kim Jong Il from building the bomb have been in vain. What went wrong?Yan: The Americans committed a grave mistake when they levied sanctions against North Korea and when they excluded the country from the international banking system. They also refused to rule out an attack on North Korea and did not grant Pyongyang a security guarantee. ...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,442835,00.html
full News |
Editor - 11:20:00 10-16-06
|
| Leftist Outsider, Billionaire Populist Headed to Runoff in Ecuador Election |
QUITO, Ecuador A Bible-toting banana magnate who favors close ties with the U.S. defied expectations by narrowly outpolling an admirer of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in the first round of Ecuador's presidential election. Alvaro Noboa, Ecuador's wealthiest man, will head to a Nov. 26 runoff vote against leftist outsider Rafael Correa after neither won an outright victory in Sunday's election. With slightly more than 70 percent of ballots counted, Noboa received 26.7 percent of the vote, compared with 22.5 percent for Correa, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. The winner needed 50 percent, or at least 40 percent and a 10-point lead over the rest of the field, to avoid a runoff. Although a runoff had been expected, the result was unexpected because Correa had led recent polls. E-Vote, the Brazilian company contracted by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to provide a quick count, stopped operations after reaching 70.2 percent of the vote in the pre-dawn hours ...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2573128
full News |
Editor - 11:17:00 10-16-06
|
| Top US inquiry to call for Iraq policy change |
US policy in Iraq is not working and George Bush should consider radical changes, according to a top-level panel backed by the president.With the White House coming under increasing pressure over the carnage in Iraq, the recommendations from the bipartisan 10-member panel, led by former secretary of state James Baker, could provide political cover for Mr Bush, should he decide to change course.Two options under consideration would involve withdrawing American troops in phases, and bringing Iraq's neighbours, Iran and Syria, into a joint effort to stop the fighting, the Los Angeles Times reported today.In a press conference last week, Mr Bush reiterated his position that the US would not leave Iraq "until the job was done"....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1923778,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12
full News |
Editor - 10:47:00 10-16-06
|
| Middle America goes sour over Iraq |
The sprawling state of Pennsylvania is the kind of place George Bush's Republican party has to win if they are to keep control of Congress when Americans go to the polls next month. It's a middle ground between north-eastern urban centres like New York and the declining industrial heartland of the Midwest, a place where small towns really do have churches, libraries and sweet shops on their main squares. "This is Middle America," says Barbara M Neill, a retired music teacher who now writes for the Laurel Mountain Post, a community newspaper in south-western Pennsylvania. Although the region has traditionally voted for Democrats, locals "have traditional values and beliefs", and they support - and join - the military, Mrs Neill says. "This is a patriotic area of the country," she adds. But people here are confused about an issue that was once assumed to be a guaranteed vote-winner for the Republicans, she says - the war in Iraq. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6041658.stm
full News |
Editor - 10:13:00 10-16-06
|
| Car bombs kill 30 in Iraq as Bush reassures PM |
Car bombs killed at least 30 people in Iraq on Monday, including two near simultaneous blasts in a mixed area in Baghdad shortly before Muslims gathered at sunset to break their fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. The fresh violence came as Bush assured Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that Washington had not set any deadline for the Iraqi government to get control of sectarian violence threatening to plunge Iraq into civil war. U.S. commanders have warned that Sunni insurgent groups such as al Qaeda battling the U.S.-backed Shi'ite-led government would launch attacks during Ramadan. On Sunday, 10 people were killed in restive Kirkuk in multiple car bombs. Iraq has been gripped by sectarian violence between Muslim Shi'ites and Sunnis since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in February. Thousands have been killed and more than 300,000 have been forced to flee their homes....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061016/ts_nm/iraq_dc
full News |
Editor - 10:08:00 10-16-06
|
|
| post The Good, The Bad and The Ugly |
|
|
