News from other countries.
1st February, 2006
Terror kidnap plot suspects held  Detectives are questioning nine men over what senior security sources believe was a plot to kidnap a Muslim member of the armed forces
Germany Upbeat About Economy Despite Tax Hike The expected global economic slowdown and a sharp rise in sales tax will have only a limited impact on the German economy this year when unemployment is expected to fall to a record low, the government said Wednesday.
I was poisoned by Russians, human rights judge says  · Legal chief fell violently ill after trip to Moscow  · Kremlin dismisses claims but had attacked court
The demagogic cliches of right and left can only make things worse   Beyond boo-words like multiculturalism, the reality is that young British Muslims are deeply alienated
Powerful yet weak - a US dilemma Thinktank reports on messy 'nonpolar' world and urges new psychological warfare
Police hand over Litvinenko file  Scotland Yard has handed a file on the investigation into the death of the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko to the Crown Prosecution Service.
US troops will stay in Iraq, and the war will get worse  Bush and Baker agree that the country is much too important to American interests to be left to its own devices
PM to testify before Winograd panel probing Lebanon war  Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is scheduled to testify Thursday before the Winograd Committee investigating the second Lebanon war.
Iraqis abandon their homes in Middle East's new refugee exodus  Iraq is experiencing the biggest exodus in the Middle East since Palestinians were forced to flee in 1948 upon the creation of Israel.
The Big Question: Does the US intend to attack Iran, or is it only sabre-rattling?  President Bush and other US officials have upped the anti-Iranian rhetoric alarmingly recently. The new verbal onslaught began with Mr Bush's address to the nation on 10 January this year, when he rejected the Iraq Study Group plan for Iraq, and specifically its recommendation to talk to Iran. He ratcheted up the language further in his State of the Union address last week, accusing Iran of sponsoring terrorism.
Biden launches presidential bid - then walks into race row over Obama 'slur'  Joe Biden, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has formally entered the 2008 Presidential contest - only to find himself forced to explain away clumsy remarks he made about his colleague Barack Obama, one of his main rivals for his party's nomination.
31st January, 2006
Terror police 'found 9/11 speech'  A speech by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was found at a London flat used by the alleged 21 July plotters to make rucksack bombs, a court has heard.
Development Aid Promises Often Go Unfufilled   In 2000, G8 nations, including Germany, pledged to devote more money to combat misery in the world's poorest countries. But thus far they haven't made much progress reaching their targets.
Europeans fear US attack on Iran as nuclear row intensifies  · Transatlantic rift emerges over how to handle crisis  · America builds up its naval forces in the Gulf
Bush administration accused of doctoring scientists' reports on climate change  · Inconvenient conclusions censored, hearing told  · Researchers warned not to talk about global warming
The neocons have learned nothing from five years of catastrophe Their zealous advocacy of the invasion of Iraq may have been a disaster, but now they want to do it all over again - in Iran
PM approves eastward move of section of separation barrier  Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has approved the moving of the separation barrier at least five kilometers eastward from the Green Line in the area of Modi'in Ilit, in order to take in the settlements of Nili and Na'aleh, according to security sources and a brief submitted by the state to the High Court of Justice.
US 'victory' against cult leader was 'massacre'  There are growing suspicions in Iraq that the official story of the battle outside Najaf between a messianic Iraqi cult and the Iraqi security forces supported by the US, in which 263 people were killed and 210 wounded, is a fabrication. The heavy casualties may be evidence of an unpremeditated massacre.

THE ROAD FROM PROTEST TO PROFESSIONALISM  It started as a protest movement, but now anti-globalization activists are struggling to redefine themselves. The new message from the World Social Forum in Nairobi is that business plans are needed to help make the world a better place.
Obama wants troops out in a year  Likely presidential contender Senator Barack Obama called today for the removal of all US combat forces from Iraq by March 2008, in answer to what he called President George W Bush's "failed policy of escalation"
Bizarre army lay in wait for Shiite pilgrims   A cult grew under Iraqi authorities' noses, write Louise Roug and Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf.
We have been getting it wrong in Iraq, says new US commander  President George W Bush faced fierce new criticism over his policy in Iraq yesterday as both military strategists and his new commander in the Middle East delivered negative assessments of America's prospects of quelling violence in the war-torn country.
30th January, 2006
EU Rejects German Car Industry Position on Emissions   The European Commission on Monday rejected a warning from Germany's powerful car industry that imposing mandatory curbs on car exhaust emissions could destroy thousands of jobs in Europe.
Expert: Most Alpine Glaciers Gone in 30 Years Rising temperatures will cause a rapid melting of Europe's glaciers and have most of them disappear within three decades, according to an expert.
Only the US hawks can save the Iranian president now   Ahmadinejad is failing to deliver for the poor and losing support, but he could yet survive because of the international threat
The big Afghanistan push comes to shove   Overshadowed by President George Bush's controversial, last-chance bid to salvage American honour in Iraq, the US is mounting a parallel military and reconstruction "surge" in Afghanistan ahead of an anticipated Taliban spring offensive. But Washington is also encountering some familiar Iraq-style obstacles: reluctant allies, meddlesome neighbours, a weak central government and the realisation that time is not on its side.
US must abandon Iraqi cities or face nightmare scenario, say experts  The US must draw up plans to deal with an all-out Iraqi civil war that would kill hundreds of thousands, create millions of refugees, and could spill over into a regional catastrophe, disrupting oil supplies and setting up a direct confrontation between Washington and Iran.
Cameron attacks 'hate' of Muslim extremists  Muslim extremists in Britain are the "mirror image" of the racist British National Party and are trying to prevent different races living peacefully together, David Cameron has warned.

"We Probably Gave Powell the Wrong Speech"  The former chief of the CIA's Europe division, Tyler Drumheller, discusses the United States foreign intelligence service's cooperation with Germany, the covert kidnapping of suspected terrorists and a Bush adminstration that ignored CIA advice and used whatever information it could find to justify an invasion of Iraq.
Don't be fooled by Bush's defection: his cures are another form of denial   The president's avowed conversion on climate change is illusory. He is just drumming up new business for his chums
Cheney heads to Australia to say thanks  US Vice-President Dick Cheney will travel to Australia next month to thank the nation and Australian troops for their efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan
A wife is for life: Pope gets tough on marriage  Pope Benedict has warned Vatican judges to get tough on couples who ask the Catholic Church to annul their marriages