 US President George W Bush is likely to boost troop levels in Iraq next year, an administration official has said. Up to 25,000 more troops could be deployed to try to help end the violence, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The comments come a day after prominent Republican John McCain called for up to 30,000 more troops to be sent to Iraq. Mr Bush had been due to announce a new strategy on Iraq next week, but has delayed his speech until January. He is holding a flurry of meetings with top US and Iraqi officials and experts on how to change his policy. In Iraq, the country's biggest humanitarian organisation has accused US troops of attacking its offices and vehicles. The Iraqi Red Crescent's vice-president said attacks by US-led forces were the biggest problem it faced. The US military said it was checking the allegations. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk
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Editor - 09:13:00 12-16-06
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 New push for Iraq reconciliation |
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has called on former members of Saddam Hussein's army to return - in a move to win over disaffected Sunnis. He added that those who preferred not to join the new Iraqi army would receive their pensions. He made the statement at the start of talks between members of both Shia and Sunni moderate groups, aimed at curbing rampant sectarian violence. The escalating conflict is killing about 100 Iraqis on average every day. The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says the need for the talks is burningly obvious, with neighbourhoods splitting along sectarian lines. The 300 delegates invited to attend include exiled members of former leader Saddam Hussein's Baath party. Sunni insurgents and radical Shias are not taking part. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6185243.stm
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Editor - 09:07:00 12-16-06
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| Legal flap brewing over ownership of noose used in Illinois' last public hanging |
Folks in this hardscrabble town still cling to the legend of Charlie Birger, the bootlegging gangster who moments before meeting his maker on the gallows flippantly remarked how lovely the world was.Nearly eight decades later, the noose used in Illinois' last public hanging has taken on an ugly life of its own.Rebecca Cocke, granddaughter of the sheriff who supervised the 1928 execution, says the rope is a family heirloom her mother lent to the downtown jail museum 10 years ago. With her mother now suffering from Alzheimer's disease, Cocke — her legal guardian — is suing to get the rope back.Not so fast, says the local preservation society chief.Robert Rea wants a judge to determine whether Cocke, granddaughter of former Sheriff Jim Pritchard, is the rightful heir to the prized piece of rope, or whether it belongs to the county because Pritchard was on its payroll....
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-16-noose_x.htm?csp=34
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Editor - 09:05:00 12-16-06
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| Congress away but regulations keep on coming |
Congress comes & goes, but new fed regulations just keep on coming. Members of Congress have gone home, but bureaucrats are still concocting new regulations to govern American life. The La Graciosa thistle will get new critical habitat in California's San Luis Obispo County. So will bighorn sheep in the Sierra Nevada. Cabbage growers in North Carolina, California & Texas could get better crop insurance. There's more, lots more: rules revising a quarantine on Florida citrus, rules applying California's strict aerosol paint standards nationwide, rules on laxatives, on squid fishing, on charter buses. Welcome to the administrative state. Among politicians, it induces schizophrenia. They write the laws that require rules, then denounce the civil servants who do the work. "The framers of the Constitution feared one thing above all else," Oklahoma Republican Sen. James M. Inhofe declared at the start of the just-concluded 109th Congress, ...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20061216-120040-6935r.htm
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Editor - 09:00:00 12-16-06
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| ePassports 'at risk' from cloning |
The ePassport is one of the many measures pursued by the United States and governments internationally after the horror of 11 September. It will, we are promised, keep the unwanted and dangerous outside our borders, while streamlining entry for those welcome to come and visit. But as the implementation of the scheme gets underway it is becoming clear that there could be serious problems with it. With the old passport, we knew where we stood. If you lost it you knew you had lost it, but with the new, machine readable passports the story is very different. When you take a digital photo the image is, in effect, a code, which means that however many prints you make they are all exactly the same. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/6182207.stm
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Editor - 08:50:00 12-16-06
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| Blair urges West to back Abbas |
Prime Minister Tony Blair urged governments across the world to support Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after he called for early elections to break a deadlock with his Hamas rivals.Blair, on a peace drive in the Middle East, said he believed Abbas was serious in saying he plans to organize new elections and that it was the duty of world leaders to back him. "This is the moment for the international community to come behind him, to help build his authority and his capability, to deliver improvements in the living standards of Palestinian people but also in the progress that we all want to see on resolving the Israel-Palestinian issue," Blair said. "Hamas at the present time is not prepared to be constructive," he told reporters after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. Hamas won the last parliamentary elections in January but the United States and Europe have refused to deal with the Islamist movement because it will not recognize Israel. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2731509
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Editor - 08:45:00 12-16-06
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