A prominent Iraqi Sunni leader said Friday that the insurgency in Iraq could end if the U.S. showed determination to stop the influence of pro-Iranian Shiite militias there. "The Americans must act seriously and abolish those militias, confiscate their weapons, arrest their criminals and at the same time stop the Iranian influence which is penetrating all of Iraq, including the government," said Sheik Majeed al-Gaood, a prominent tribal leader in Anbar province, the heartland of the Sunni insurgency. Al-Gaood is a leading member of a Sunni family that plays a major role in tribal politics in Anbar. He is believed to have close ties with factions of former dictator Saddam Hussein's disbanded Baath Party. Al-Gaood has previously said a truce with the United States was possible if the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq were "dismissed" and new elections held. He said he was committed to the unity of Iraq and wanted sectarian violence to end. ...
http://abcnews.go.com
censor News |
Editor - 23:37:00 03-23-07
|
 How mosquitoes find their targets |
The mechanism mosquitoes use to zero in on their targets has been discovered by scientists in New York. It is already known that the insects are very sensitive to carbon dioxide in exhaled breath. Now a team led by Rockefeller University has found that they sense the gas using protein receptors in the structure extending from their jaws. Writing in Nature, they say the discovery could aid the fight against insect-born diseases, such as malaria. The Rockefeller team first examined fruit flies. They discovered two protein receptors, Gr21a and Gr63a, which enable the fly to sense carbon dioxide with its antennae. The researchers worked on fly nerve cells that did not normally respond to carbon dioxide. They found that, if the Gr21a and Gr63a receptors were both switched on, the cells became excited by the gas. They also showed that when Gr63a was mutated, the mutant flies no longer responded to the high levels of carbon dioxide that wild type flies avoid....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6486057.stm
full News |
Editor - 21:55:00 03-23-07
|
| NATO forces shoot Afghan child, run over another |
A distraught Afghan father buried his 12-year-old son Friday after the boy was shot in the head by NATO troops in the latest in a series of civilian deaths involving international forces. The NATO force admitted to the shooting late Thursday but said its soldiers had fired in self-defence after a civilian van had ignored verbal warnings to not approach a security cordon around a broken-down armoured vehicle. Confirming the killing, the Afghan interior ministry said the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops opened fire on a vehicle "which apparently tried to overtake the troops or may be the car was too close to the troops." But the boy's father, named only Zemarai, denied trying to overtake the convoy while driving seven of his relatives home after visiting family. He also said he had been several hundreds metres (yards) away and was not aware of warning shots, which troops are required to fire before taking aim....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070323/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrestnato
full News |
Editor - 21:51:00 03-23-07
|
| White House 'thwarted attempts by Defence Secretary to close Guantanamo' |
The US Defence Secretary has tried repeatedly to close America's controversial prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but has been thwarted by the White House, according to reports today. The New York Times reported that Robert Gates, who succeeded Donald Rumsfeld as Defence Secretary last December, has complained several times to the Bush Administration since January that the camp has attracted so much criticism abroad that any legal proceedings conducted there have lost their legitimacy. But his requests for its closure, and the transfer of trials of terror suspects to mainland America, have been refused in turn by the US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush himself, the newspaper said. Mr Gates, a former head of the CIA, has tried to strike a more moderate, less combative tone since succeeding Mr Rumsfeld last year and among his attempted reforms, the Times reported today, has been an effort to ...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1559041.ece
full News |
Editor - 21:49:00 03-23-07
|
| Shia factions clash as British troops pull out |
Gunmen took to the streets of Basra yesterday and shooting erupted between rival Shia factions two days after the British Army vacated a base in the centre of the oil-rich city.Fighters from the Mahdi Army, the militia of the fundamentalist cleric Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, attacked the headquarters of the Fadhila party, which runs the city government, witnesses said. The shooting sparked heavy clashes in which the Fadhila governor’s house was torched.“Clashes took place between followers of Fadhila and the Sadr office,” Brigadier-General Ali Hammadi, the head of the Basra security committee, said.“We made contact with both sides to calm the situation, but unfortunately it got worse when a group of the Mahdi Army attacked the Fadhila headquarters, firing rocket-propelled grenades and rifles that set fire in two cars, in addition to causing some minor damage to the building.”...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1555535.ece
full News |
Editor - 21:45:00 03-23-07
|
| Friday: 5 GIs, 74 Iraqis Killed; 48 Iraqis Wounded |
At least 74 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 48 Iraqis were wounded. Several notable events also took place. An assassination attempt on Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zobaie killed nine people and injured the deputy prime minister. The US military reported on the deaths of five U.S. servicemembers, and Iran captured 15 British servicemen who were patrolling Iraqi waters. The U.S. military reported on the deaths of five servicemen: A Marine died during combat operations in Anbar province yesterday, while a bomb blast killed an American soldier in Baghdad. A soldier was shot dead in Balad on Wednesday, and a roadside bomb killed a servicemember on Tuesday. Another GI serving in Iraq died of injuries received in an accident on Wednesday.U.S. troops chasing gunmen accidentally killed a father and his two sons and injured their mother in Hibhib. Meanwhile, British troops in Basra killed a civilian and wounded two others during security operations there. ...
http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=10716
full News |
Editor - 21:43:00 03-23-07
|
|
| post The Good, The Bad and The Ugly |
|
|
