DISPATCH FROM DOWN UNDER
Iraq gets first Kurdish President
Iraq's first elected government in half a century finally took shape today when a former rebel leader took oath as its first Kurdish president and immediately named a top religious Shi'ite as his prime minister. more
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Iraq/Iraq-gets-first-Kurdish-President/2005/04/08/1112815676214.html
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Report: New York City teens held after FBI says they planned suicide bombing
Posted: 04/07/2005 07:00:32
NEW YORK (AP) -- Two 16-year-old girls from New York City have been arrested on immigration charges after federal authorities said they planned to become suicide bombers, according to a published report.
The teenagers were arrested March 24 and were being held in a detention center in Leesport, Pa., The New York Times reported Thursday, citing a government document provided by a federal agent.
According to the document, the FBI found that the girls posed "an imminent threat to the security of the United States based upon evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers," the Times said.
The evidence was not described in the document.
http://http://www.abc15.com/news/morenews/index.asp?did=17648
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Charles and Camilla 'share strong sexual pull'
Prince Charles and his bride-to-be Camilla Parker Bowles share a "very strong sexual pull", a close friend said yesterday. more
This is frikin news who the hell wants to know:
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The Bush syndrome: Dead wrong and proud of it
By Max J. Castro
“Dead wrong.” That’s what the president’s own hand-picked committee on intelligence gathering said last week about the information concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration used to bamboozle Americans and attempt to browbeat the world into backing war.
“Dead wrong.” That’s what Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr. of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta – a conservative judge appointed by the president’s own father – just about said last week in a scathing opinion in which he castigated Congress and President Bush for attempting to usurp the authority of the judiciary in the case of Terri Schiavo.
http://progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Max_Castro&otherweek=1112850000
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Counsel to GOP Senator Wrote Memo On Schiavo
Martinez Aide Who Cited Upside For
Party Resigns
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff WriterThursday, April 7, 2005; Page A01
The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night.
http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32554-2005Apr6.html
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EDITORIAL
The Judges Made Them Do It
Published: April 6, 2005
It was appalling when the House majority leader threatened political retribution against judges who did not toe his extremist political line. But when a second important Republican stands up and excuses murderous violence against judges as an understandable reaction to their decisions, then it is time to get really scared.
It happened on Monday, in a moment that was horrifying even by the rock-bottom standards of the campaign that Republican zealots are conducting against the nation's judiciary. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, rose in the chamber and dared to argue that recent courthouse violence might be explained by distress about judges who "are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public." The frustration "builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in" violence, said Mr. Cornyn, a former member of the Texas Supreme Court who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which supposedly protects the Constitution and its guarantee of an independent judiciary.
Listeners could only cringe at the events behind Mr. Cornyn's fulminating: an Atlanta judge was murdered in his courtroom by a career criminal who wanted only to shoot his way out of a trial, and a Chicago judge's mother and husband were executed by a deranged man who was furious that she had dismissed a wild lawsuit. It was sickening that an elected official would publicly offer these sociopaths as examples of any democratic value, let alone as holders of legitimate concerns about the judiciary.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/06/opinion/06wed1.html?
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CIA Leak Probe Done, Minus Some Testimony
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:47 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal prosecutor investigating the leak of an undercover CIA officer's name says his work is complete except for one large omission: hearing from two reporters who are fighting a court order to answer questions under oath.
Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said the refusal of Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of The New York Times to divulge their sources has stalled his probe.
Neither Cooper nor Miller wrote the original story that revealed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Her name was first published in a 2003 column by Robert Novak, who cited two unidentified senior Bush administration officials as his sources.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Leak.html
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Insurgent attack on Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad wounds 20 U.S. soldiers
BAGHDAD (AP) - Dozens of insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades and detonated two car bombs Saturday while attacking the Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad, wounding 20 American service members and 12 prisoners, the U.S. military said.
The attack, carried out by 40 to 60 militants, began as darkness fell on the city, 1st Lieut. Adam Rondeau said. Soldiers and marines stationed at the detention facility responded, and the resulting clash lasted about 40 minutes, Rondeau said.
"This was obviously a very well-organized attack and a very big attack," he said.
It was not immediately clear whether any of the insurgents carrying out the attack suffered casualties or were arrested
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/04/02/980426-ap.html
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U.S. military helicopter crashes in Afghanistan; 16 killed, 2 missing
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
KABUL (AP) - A U.S. military helicopter crashed in bad weather in southeast Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing 16 people, including four American crew members in the deadliest military crash since the U.S.-led invasion began in 2001.
An Afghan police official said all the dead appeared to be American. The U.S. military said 16 people were killed, up from nine reported previously, but provided no details of the passengers' identity. Two other people were listed as missing.
A U.S. spokeswoman suggested severe weather brought down the CH-47 Chinook near Ghazni city, 125 kilometres southwest of the capital, Kabul, as it returned from a mission in the insurgent-plagued south.
"Indications are it was bad weather and that there were no survivors," Lieut. Cindy Moore said
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/WarOnTerrorism/2005/04/06/984774-ap.html
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Secret U.S. court approved record number of terror warrants last year
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. government requested and won approval for a record number of special warrants last year for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies, 75 per cent more than in 2000, the administration disclosed Friday.
Assistant attorney general William Moschella revealed the figure in an annual report to Congress. Last year's total of 1,754 approved warrants was only slightly higher than the 1,724 approved in 2003. But the number has climbed markedly since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as authorities have moved aggressively against terror suspects. In 2000, there were 1,003 warrants approved under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Since passage of the Patriot Act, the FBI can use such warrants in investigations that aren't mostly focused on foreign intelligence.
Operating with permission from a secretive U.S. court that meets regularly at the U.S. Justice Deaprtment headquarters, the FBI has used such warrants to break into homes, offices, hotel rooms and automobiles, install hidden cameras, search luggage and eavesdrop on telephone conversations. Agents also have pried into safe-deposit boxes, watched from afar with video cameras and binoculars and intercepted e-mails.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/WarOnTerrorism/2005/04/01/979542-ap.html
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US troops wound journalist
From correspondents in WashingtonApril 06, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
US forces today shot and wounded a television cameraman working for the American CBS network in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, after mistaking him for an armed insurgent.A US military statement said troops also shot and killed an insurgent who was waving an AK-47 assault rifle and inciting a crowd of civilians at the site of a suicide bombing in eastern Mosul.
"During the engagement an individual that appeared to have a weapon who was standing near the insurgent was shot and injured," the statement from the Multinational Brigade-Northwest said.
"This individual turned out to be a reporter who was pointing a video camera."
The CBS network identified the wounded man as Abdul Amir Younis Hussein, an Iraqi freelance reporter/cameraman employed by CBS News.
Mr Hussein, who is from Mosul, was taken to a US military hospital and treated for what the military said were minor wounds. He is expected to make a full recovery.
"Regretfully the reporter was injured during the complex and volatile situation. The incident is under further investigation," the military statement said.
The troops involved were from the 1st Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division based in Mosul.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12770109-38201,00.html
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Shia named as Iraq prime minister
Iraqi Shia leader Ibrahim Jaafari has been named prime minister of the country's new interim government.
He was appointed shortly after Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani was sworn in as Iraq's new interim president.
Outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has resigned, but will continue his work until Mr Jaafari names his government.
The transitional government's main task will be to oversee the drafting of a permanent Iraqi constitution and to pave the way for elections in December.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4420971.stm
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Iraq's first elected government in half a century finally took shape today when a former rebel leader took oath as its first Kurdish president and immediately named a top religious Shi'ite as his prime minister. more
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Iraq/Iraq-gets-first-Kurdish-President/2005/04/08/1112815676214.html
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Report: New York City teens held after FBI says they planned suicide bombing
Posted: 04/07/2005 07:00:32
NEW YORK (AP) -- Two 16-year-old girls from New York City have been arrested on immigration charges after federal authorities said they planned to become suicide bombers, according to a published report.
The teenagers were arrested March 24 and were being held in a detention center in Leesport, Pa., The New York Times reported Thursday, citing a government document provided by a federal agent.
According to the document, the FBI found that the girls posed "an imminent threat to the security of the United States based upon evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers," the Times said.
The evidence was not described in the document.
http://http://www.abc15.com/news/morenews/index.asp?did=17648
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Charles and Camilla 'share strong sexual pull'
Prince Charles and his bride-to-be Camilla Parker Bowles share a "very strong sexual pull", a close friend said yesterday. more
This is frikin news who the hell wants to know:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The Bush syndrome: Dead wrong and proud of it
By Max J. Castro
“Dead wrong.” That’s what the president’s own hand-picked committee on intelligence gathering said last week about the information concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration used to bamboozle Americans and attempt to browbeat the world into backing war.
“Dead wrong.” That’s what Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr. of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta – a conservative judge appointed by the president’s own father – just about said last week in a scathing opinion in which he castigated Congress and President Bush for attempting to usurp the authority of the judiciary in the case of Terri Schiavo.
http://progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Max_Castro&otherweek=1112850000
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Counsel to GOP Senator Wrote Memo On Schiavo
Martinez Aide Who Cited Upside For
Party Resigns
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff WriterThursday, April 7, 2005; Page A01
The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night.
http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32554-2005Apr6.html
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
EDITORIAL
The Judges Made Them Do It
Published: April 6, 2005
It was appalling when the House majority leader threatened political retribution against judges who did not toe his extremist political line. But when a second important Republican stands up and excuses murderous violence against judges as an understandable reaction to their decisions, then it is time to get really scared.
It happened on Monday, in a moment that was horrifying even by the rock-bottom standards of the campaign that Republican zealots are conducting against the nation's judiciary. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, rose in the chamber and dared to argue that recent courthouse violence might be explained by distress about judges who "are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public." The frustration "builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in" violence, said Mr. Cornyn, a former member of the Texas Supreme Court who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which supposedly protects the Constitution and its guarantee of an independent judiciary.
Listeners could only cringe at the events behind Mr. Cornyn's fulminating: an Atlanta judge was murdered in his courtroom by a career criminal who wanted only to shoot his way out of a trial, and a Chicago judge's mother and husband were executed by a deranged man who was furious that she had dismissed a wild lawsuit. It was sickening that an elected official would publicly offer these sociopaths as examples of any democratic value, let alone as holders of legitimate concerns about the judiciary.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/06/opinion/06wed1.html?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CIA Leak Probe Done, Minus Some Testimony
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:47 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal prosecutor investigating the leak of an undercover CIA officer's name says his work is complete except for one large omission: hearing from two reporters who are fighting a court order to answer questions under oath.
Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said the refusal of Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of The New York Times to divulge their sources has stalled his probe.
Neither Cooper nor Miller wrote the original story that revealed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Her name was first published in a 2003 column by Robert Novak, who cited two unidentified senior Bush administration officials as his sources.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Leak.html
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Insurgent attack on Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad wounds 20 U.S. soldiers
BAGHDAD (AP) - Dozens of insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades and detonated two car bombs Saturday while attacking the Abu Ghraib prison in western Baghdad, wounding 20 American service members and 12 prisoners, the U.S. military said.
The attack, carried out by 40 to 60 militants, began as darkness fell on the city, 1st Lieut. Adam Rondeau said. Soldiers and marines stationed at the detention facility responded, and the resulting clash lasted about 40 minutes, Rondeau said.
"This was obviously a very well-organized attack and a very big attack," he said.
It was not immediately clear whether any of the insurgents carrying out the attack suffered casualties or were arrested
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/04/02/980426-ap.html
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
U.S. military helicopter crashes in Afghanistan; 16 killed, 2 missing
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
KABUL (AP) - A U.S. military helicopter crashed in bad weather in southeast Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing 16 people, including four American crew members in the deadliest military crash since the U.S.-led invasion began in 2001.
An Afghan police official said all the dead appeared to be American. The U.S. military said 16 people were killed, up from nine reported previously, but provided no details of the passengers' identity. Two other people were listed as missing.
A U.S. spokeswoman suggested severe weather brought down the CH-47 Chinook near Ghazni city, 125 kilometres southwest of the capital, Kabul, as it returned from a mission in the insurgent-plagued south.
"Indications are it was bad weather and that there were no survivors," Lieut. Cindy Moore said
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/WarOnTerrorism/2005/04/06/984774-ap.html
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Secret U.S. court approved record number of terror warrants last year
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. government requested and won approval for a record number of special warrants last year for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies, 75 per cent more than in 2000, the administration disclosed Friday.
Assistant attorney general William Moschella revealed the figure in an annual report to Congress. Last year's total of 1,754 approved warrants was only slightly higher than the 1,724 approved in 2003. But the number has climbed markedly since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as authorities have moved aggressively against terror suspects. In 2000, there were 1,003 warrants approved under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Since passage of the Patriot Act, the FBI can use such warrants in investigations that aren't mostly focused on foreign intelligence.
Operating with permission from a secretive U.S. court that meets regularly at the U.S. Justice Deaprtment headquarters, the FBI has used such warrants to break into homes, offices, hotel rooms and automobiles, install hidden cameras, search luggage and eavesdrop on telephone conversations. Agents also have pried into safe-deposit boxes, watched from afar with video cameras and binoculars and intercepted e-mails.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/WarOnTerrorism/2005/04/01/979542-ap.html
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
US troops wound journalist
From correspondents in WashingtonApril 06, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
US forces today shot and wounded a television cameraman working for the American CBS network in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, after mistaking him for an armed insurgent.A US military statement said troops also shot and killed an insurgent who was waving an AK-47 assault rifle and inciting a crowd of civilians at the site of a suicide bombing in eastern Mosul.
"During the engagement an individual that appeared to have a weapon who was standing near the insurgent was shot and injured," the statement from the Multinational Brigade-Northwest said.
"This individual turned out to be a reporter who was pointing a video camera."
The CBS network identified the wounded man as Abdul Amir Younis Hussein, an Iraqi freelance reporter/cameraman employed by CBS News.
Mr Hussein, who is from Mosul, was taken to a US military hospital and treated for what the military said were minor wounds. He is expected to make a full recovery.
"Regretfully the reporter was injured during the complex and volatile situation. The incident is under further investigation," the military statement said.
The troops involved were from the 1st Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division based in Mosul.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12770109-38201,00.html
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shia named as Iraq prime minister
Iraqi Shia leader Ibrahim Jaafari has been named prime minister of the country's new interim government.
He was appointed shortly after Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani was sworn in as Iraq's new interim president.
Outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has resigned, but will continue his work until Mr Jaafari names his government.
The transitional government's main task will be to oversee the drafting of a permanent Iraqi constitution and to pave the way for elections in December.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4420971.stm
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posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 1:51 PM
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