U.S. warns Sudan of possible action
By GEORGE GEDDA Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press
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WASHINGTON — Sudan must open a path toward ending the Darfur crisis before the end of the year or the international community will take coercive action against the Islamic government, a top U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.
Andrew Natsios, special White House envoy to Sudan, said international patience is running out on Sudan almost four years deep into Darfur's humanitarian disaster.
But he declined to say what options are being considered. "It's not useful to make threats," said Natsios, briefing reporters. British officials have said that creation of a no-fly zone over Darfur is one option being considered.
Natsios said there have been so many threats against the Sudanese government to bring peace to Darfur that it no longer takes them seriously.
"None of the threats have been carried out. I think we should stop making threats," said Natsios, who met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum last week.
Hundreds of thousands of Darfurians have died and an estimated 2.5 million driven from their homes since early 2003.
A 7,000-member African Union force has not brought stability to Darfur. That has prompted proposals for a hybrid mission totaling some 20,000 troops from the African Union and the U.N. Sudan has been unwilling to go along.
To avoid a crisis with the international community, Natsios said, Bashir must allow 60 U.N. troops and civilians stationed in Khartoum to be transported with their equipment to Darfur by the end of the year. Until now, he has forbidden a U.N. military presence in the area.
Another requirement, he said, is Bashir's approval of the combined U.N.-African Union peacekeeping proposal, which would be carried out over three phases. The proposal is spelled out in a letter U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has sent to Bashir. A top aide to Annan will remain in Khartoum until Bashir responds, Natsios said.
Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Natsios and said afterward she expects the Sudanese government to respond positively to the proposal for a hybrid force.
It is "extremely important that a robust security force, a robust peacekeeping force" be created," Rice said.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/4416516.html
UN envoy in talks on Darfur force
About 2.5 million people in Darfur have been made homeless
A United Nations special envoy is in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, for talks on bolstering the African Union (AU) force in war-torn Darfur.
Ahmadou Ould Abdallah will meet President Omar al-Bashir to discuss plans for a joint AU-UN peacekeeping mission to curb the rising violence.
The Sudanese government has so far rejected calls for a joint force.
The UN's refugee chief, meanwhile, is to visit neighbouring Chad for talks on the humanitarian crisis there.
Three years of fighting in Darfur have left at least 200,000 people dead and made another 2.5 million homeless.
There are also fears that the fighting is destabilising Chad, home to hundreds of thousands of refugees and where there has been an upsurge in violence.
'Seeking clarity'
Mr Abdallah, a Mauritanian national who is a UN under secretary general, is on a one-off visit to discuss Sudan's objections to parts of the UN plan.
Q&A: Peacekeeping in Darfur
The UN has proposed that the current weak AU force of 7,000 soldiers be bolstered with more money and equipment supplied by the UN, eventually merging with UN troops into a hybrid force.
But Mr Bashir has so far rejected calls for the involvement of UN peacekeepers.
A spokesman for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Mr Abdallah would seek "as much clarity as possible" on Khartoum's position.
Mr Annan has also named former General Assembly president Jan Eliasson as a interim special representative to Sudan in a bid to ease the deadlock.
UNHCR head Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, is to visit eastern Chad amid growing fears for the safety of refugees along the border with Darfur.
Almost 40 people have been killed in clashes between security forces and armed raiders in the region in recent days, according to the government, which has blamed Arab militias based in Sudan.
The UN has pulled many of its aid workers from the region, and Mr Guterres said that aid agencies were working "in extremely difficult circumstances".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6197581.stm
'Virgin births' for giant lizards
There have been two reported cases of Komodo dragon "virgin births"
The largest lizards in the world are capable of "virgin births".
Scientists report of two cases where female Komodo dragons have produced offspring without male contact.
Tests revealed their eggs had developed without being fertilised by sperm - a process called parthenogenesis, the team wrote in the journal Nature.
One of the reptiles, Flora, a resident of Chester Zoo in the UK, is awaiting her clutch of eight eggs to hatch, with a due-date estimated around Christmas.
Kevin Buley, a curator at Chester Zoo and a co-author on the paper, said: "Flora laid her eggs at the end of May and, given the incubation period of between seven and nine months, it is possible they could hatch around Christmas - which for a 'virgin birth' would finish the story off nicely.
"We will be on the look-out for shepherds, wise men and an unusually bright star in the sky over Chester Zoo."
Flora, who has never been kept with a male Komodo dragon, produced 11 eggs earlier this year. Three died off, providing the material needed for genetic tests.
Flora had never been kept with male Komodo dragons
These revealed the offspring were not exact genetic copies (clones) of their mother, but their genetic make-up was derived just from her.
The team concluded they were a result of asexual reproduction, and are waiting for the remaining eight eggs to hatch.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6196225.stm
Physical details of all residents to be held on ID database
HAMISH MACDONELL
SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR
EVERYBODY living in the United Kingdom, including foreigners, will be required to have their biometric details recorded under the government's identity card scheme, it emerged yesterday.
John Reid, the Home Secretary, announced that all UK residents, whether or not they were British citizens, would be forced to have their irises scanned and their fingerprints taken for the national database.
"We are going to look at how we could do it for people who are already here," the Home Secretary said.
Mr Reid also revealed he had ditched plans for a single super-computer to hold the entire database.
For reasons of cost, the government will now spread the load between three existing computer systems.
It is not known how much this will save the government, which still insists identity cards for all can be delivered for about £5.4 billion.
Mr Reid denied there had been a U-turn over the computer system. He said: "We have decided it is lower risk, more efficient and faster to take the infrastructure that already exists."
Liam Byrne, the immigration minister said a consultation paper would be published in the new year.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said ID cards would turn out to be a "financial disaster" for Britain.
He said: "
It is beyond belief that John Reid is still prepared to waste up to £20 billion of taxpayers' money on this expensive white elephant.
"ID cards are at best a distraction from the serious, patient painstaking task of making Britain more secure. At worst, they actually risk making Britain less safe.
"What we have is a designer database targeted solely at those who obey the law. Illegal immigrants will not turn up to apply for visas and submit their biometrics."
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1887262006
Arab neighbours try to head off Palestinian civil war
By Ofira Koopmans Dec 20, 2006, 16:46 GMT
Jerusalem/Gaza City - As internal Palestinian violence continues to spiral out of control despite two ceasefires in as many days, neighbouring Arab states have stepped in, attempting to prevent a plunge into civil war.
While Egypt initiated an emergency meeting between leaders of the rivalling Fatah and Hamas movements at its embassy in Gaza, Jordanian King Abdullah II telephoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and offered to host a conciliation meeting between him and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas.
It remains to be seen whether the latest truce brokered by Egypt will succeed in breaking the cycle of revenge shootings and kidnappings, which began with the murder of the three small children of a Fatah security official 10 days ago - allegedly by Hamas gunmen.
But an end to the street fighting depends largely on whether the nine-month-long political impasse between the two largest factions in the Palestinian autonomous areas is broken.
After months of talks on forming a unity government with a more moderate, common platform with his Fatah that would end a crippling international boycott of the current Hamas-led government, Abbas announced in a dramatic speech Saturday that he would call early presidential and legislative elections as a way out the deadlock.
But he left the door open to a last-minute compromise when he concluded 'I will always remain open to forming a national unity government.'
Abbas knows that his position is weak. Hamas has already announced that it will not accept early elections, which Haniya in a speech late Wednesday slammed as 'unconstitutional.'
'We refuse this call (for early elections),' a defiant Haniya declared in a lengthy address in Gaza, warning it would 'drag us back 10 years.'
Abbas' first obstacle is legal. It is far from clear whether he has the constitutional right to decree early elections and dismantle parliament.
If he issues a presidential decree doing so, Hamas is likely to contest this, whether in the Palestinian constitutional court, in the street, or both.
In his news conference with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair Monday, Abbas nevertheless vowed to go ahead with an early poll if left with no other option.
The only alternative, it seems, is that either he or Haniya back down in their conditions for forming the unity government.
Both men have accused each other of being responsible for the breakdown in talks.
In his address Tuesday, Haniya said the talks failed over Abbas' refusal to allow Hamas to keep the finance and interior ministries - crucial portfolios because they entail control over the treasury and the Palestinian security services respectively.
Abbas insisted on a 'certain figure,' Haniya charged in what was seen as a reference to independent lawmaker Salam Fayyad, who is believed to have been Abbas' choice for finance minister. Fayyad, a former holder of the finance portfolio, has been labelled an 'American agent' by many Hamas supporters because of his pro-Western stance.
But Abbas has charged that the reason for the breakdown was Hamas' continued refusal to accept past interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements and the Arab peace initiative of 2002, which would have meant recognizing Israel and relinquishing the demand that Palestinian refugees or their descendents return to Israel proper.
For a breakthrough to be reached, Abbas will either have to make concessions regarding the distribution of portfolios, or Hamas on its hardline ideology.
But Haniya has already reiterated that accepting a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza in return for a 15-year truce only, and not in return for recognition of Israel, is as far as he is willing to go.
Abbas, for his part, is unlikely to give in to Hamas' demand to keep the finance ministry, fearing this could spoil his efforts to end the international monetary boycott of the new government.
If neither of the two back down, early elections accompanied by more chaos and street violence seem inevitable.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/features/article_1235160.php/Arab_neighbours_try_to_head_off_Palestinian_civil_war
Wed, December 20, 2006
Iraq goes public with hanging of 13 men
By AP
BAGHDAD -- Iraqi authorities hanged 13 men yesterday after they were convicted of murder and kidnapping, lining them up in hoods and green jumpsuits with their hands bound behind their backs.
In a rare move that came amid chaotic violence sweeping the capital, the Iraqi government recorded and distributed graphic television footage of the convicts in the moments before they were put to death. The footage was given to both Iraqi and foreign news media.
The images showed two men standing together on a gallows with nooses around their necks. Several of them stooped and one had his arm around the shoulder of another as the hooded men stood in a row shortly before they were hanged.
Iraqi TV has rarely aired such pictures since President Saddam Hussein's 2003 ouster. Even under Saddam, executions were rarely made public.
Iraq hanged three convicted murderers Sept. 1, 2005 in the first executions since Saddam's ouster. There may have been more executions since but they have not been publicized.
A suicide car bomber slammed into a police checkpoint in Baghdad early today, killing seven people and injuring 27, police said.
Three police officers were among those killed, and seven were among the injured.
The attack by a bomber in a car occurred in the Jadriyah district of the Iraqi capital.
At least a half-dozen other explosions were heard, some of them in the area of the Green Zone, where Iraq's legislature and the U.S. and British embassies are based.
Elsewhere in the Iraqi capital, gunmen in military uniforms robbed government accountants as they left a bank with bags of cash yesterday. It was the second major robbery in Baghdad in eight days.
Assailants in four vehicles drove up to the Zuwiyah Bank and fired automatic weapons in the air, then handcuffed guards and robbed accountants of the equivalent of $815,350 Cdn, police said.
On Dec. 11, gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms stole the equivalent of more than $1 million from a bank truck.
Hours after the accountants were robbed yesterday, guards at another downtown bank fired on a funeral procession, wounding a mourner. Police said the guards thought the coffin was fake and criminals were masquerading as mourners as part of an elaborate robbery attempt. Police intervened and found the mourners to be genuine.
Also yesterday, the U.S. military announced the death of a marine in the insurgent stronghold Anbar province, bringing to 61 the number of U.S. military personnel killed in December. Some 2,950 U.S. troops have been killed since the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Also, Ayham al-Samaraie, a former electricity minister who escaped from police custody inside the Green Zone, remained at large yesterday. The dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen being held on corruption charges walked out of a police station Sunday
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2006/12/20/2894655-sun.html
Gates visits Iraq amid questions over troop increase
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates met with top commanders in Iraq on Wednesday as debate swirled in Baghdad and Washington about whether a "surge" of thousands of additional American troops would help the situation in Iraq.
Gates held talks with Gens. John Abizaid, top U.S. commander in the Middle East, and George Casey, the top general in Iraq.
He was accompanied by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"We discussed the obvious things," Gates told reporters after talks with the generals, according to The Associated Press. "We discussed the possibility of a surge and the potential for what it might accomplish." (Watch Gates on the ground in Iraq )
At a news conference Wednesday in Washington, President Bush said that he has not yet decided whether to send more troops to Iraq, and that he was listening to commanders, to people in and out of government, and to members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group "about coming up with a strategy that helps achieve our objective." (Full story)
"I will tell you we're looking at all options," Bush said. "And one of those options, of course, is increasing more troops. But, in order to do so, there must be a specific mission that can be accomplished with more troops. And that's precisely what our commanders have said."
While leaving the "surge" question open, the president said he thought the overall size of the Army and Marine Corps should be increased.
Bush said the success of Iraqi extremists "hurt our efforts to help the Iraqis rebuild their country, it set back reconciliation, it kept Iraq's unity government and our coalition from establishing security and stability throughout the country."
"We can be smarter about how we deploy our manpower and resources," Bush said. "We can ask more of our Iraqi partners, and we will." (Watch Bush's remarks on whether the U.S. is winning in Iraq )
A shuffle of top American generals in Iraq is likely to accompany the shift in U.S. policy that Bush is considering, the AP reported. (Full story)
The new defense secretary had said he intended to travel to Iraq soon after taking office. He was sworn in Monday to succeed Donald Rumsfeld. (Watch what challenges Gates faces in Iraq )
Gates also was scheduled to meet Thursday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/12/20/iraq.main/
By GEORGE GEDDA Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press
TOOLS
Email Get section feed
Print Subscribe NOW
WASHINGTON — Sudan must open a path toward ending the Darfur crisis before the end of the year or the international community will take coercive action against the Islamic government, a top U.S. diplomat said Wednesday.
Andrew Natsios, special White House envoy to Sudan, said international patience is running out on Sudan almost four years deep into Darfur's humanitarian disaster.
But he declined to say what options are being considered. "It's not useful to make threats," said Natsios, briefing reporters. British officials have said that creation of a no-fly zone over Darfur is one option being considered.
Natsios said there have been so many threats against the Sudanese government to bring peace to Darfur that it no longer takes them seriously.
"None of the threats have been carried out. I think we should stop making threats," said Natsios, who met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum last week.
Hundreds of thousands of Darfurians have died and an estimated 2.5 million driven from their homes since early 2003.
A 7,000-member African Union force has not brought stability to Darfur. That has prompted proposals for a hybrid mission totaling some 20,000 troops from the African Union and the U.N. Sudan has been unwilling to go along.
To avoid a crisis with the international community, Natsios said, Bashir must allow 60 U.N. troops and civilians stationed in Khartoum to be transported with their equipment to Darfur by the end of the year. Until now, he has forbidden a U.N. military presence in the area.
Another requirement, he said, is Bashir's approval of the combined U.N.-African Union peacekeeping proposal, which would be carried out over three phases. The proposal is spelled out in a letter U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has sent to Bashir. A top aide to Annan will remain in Khartoum until Bashir responds, Natsios said.
Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Natsios and said afterward she expects the Sudanese government to respond positively to the proposal for a hybrid force.
It is "extremely important that a robust security force, a robust peacekeeping force" be created," Rice said.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/4416516.html
UN envoy in talks on Darfur force
About 2.5 million people in Darfur have been made homeless
A United Nations special envoy is in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, for talks on bolstering the African Union (AU) force in war-torn Darfur.
Ahmadou Ould Abdallah will meet President Omar al-Bashir to discuss plans for a joint AU-UN peacekeeping mission to curb the rising violence.
The Sudanese government has so far rejected calls for a joint force.
The UN's refugee chief, meanwhile, is to visit neighbouring Chad for talks on the humanitarian crisis there.
Three years of fighting in Darfur have left at least 200,000 people dead and made another 2.5 million homeless.
There are also fears that the fighting is destabilising Chad, home to hundreds of thousands of refugees and where there has been an upsurge in violence.
'Seeking clarity'
Mr Abdallah, a Mauritanian national who is a UN under secretary general, is on a one-off visit to discuss Sudan's objections to parts of the UN plan.
Q&A: Peacekeeping in Darfur
The UN has proposed that the current weak AU force of 7,000 soldiers be bolstered with more money and equipment supplied by the UN, eventually merging with UN troops into a hybrid force.
But Mr Bashir has so far rejected calls for the involvement of UN peacekeepers.
A spokesman for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Mr Abdallah would seek "as much clarity as possible" on Khartoum's position.
Mr Annan has also named former General Assembly president Jan Eliasson as a interim special representative to Sudan in a bid to ease the deadlock.
UNHCR head Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, is to visit eastern Chad amid growing fears for the safety of refugees along the border with Darfur.
Almost 40 people have been killed in clashes between security forces and armed raiders in the region in recent days, according to the government, which has blamed Arab militias based in Sudan.
The UN has pulled many of its aid workers from the region, and Mr Guterres said that aid agencies were working "in extremely difficult circumstances".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6197581.stm
'Virgin births' for giant lizards
There have been two reported cases of Komodo dragon "virgin births"
The largest lizards in the world are capable of "virgin births".
Scientists report of two cases where female Komodo dragons have produced offspring without male contact.
Tests revealed their eggs had developed without being fertilised by sperm - a process called parthenogenesis, the team wrote in the journal Nature.
One of the reptiles, Flora, a resident of Chester Zoo in the UK, is awaiting her clutch of eight eggs to hatch, with a due-date estimated around Christmas.
Kevin Buley, a curator at Chester Zoo and a co-author on the paper, said: "Flora laid her eggs at the end of May and, given the incubation period of between seven and nine months, it is possible they could hatch around Christmas - which for a 'virgin birth' would finish the story off nicely.
"We will be on the look-out for shepherds, wise men and an unusually bright star in the sky over Chester Zoo."
Flora, who has never been kept with a male Komodo dragon, produced 11 eggs earlier this year. Three died off, providing the material needed for genetic tests.
Flora had never been kept with male Komodo dragons
These revealed the offspring were not exact genetic copies (clones) of their mother, but their genetic make-up was derived just from her.
The team concluded they were a result of asexual reproduction, and are waiting for the remaining eight eggs to hatch.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6196225.stm
Physical details of all residents to be held on ID database
HAMISH MACDONELL
SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR
EVERYBODY living in the United Kingdom, including foreigners, will be required to have their biometric details recorded under the government's identity card scheme, it emerged yesterday.
John Reid, the Home Secretary, announced that all UK residents, whether or not they were British citizens, would be forced to have their irises scanned and their fingerprints taken for the national database.
"We are going to look at how we could do it for people who are already here," the Home Secretary said.
Mr Reid also revealed he had ditched plans for a single super-computer to hold the entire database.
For reasons of cost, the government will now spread the load between three existing computer systems.
It is not known how much this will save the government, which still insists identity cards for all can be delivered for about £5.4 billion.
Mr Reid denied there had been a U-turn over the computer system. He said: "We have decided it is lower risk, more efficient and faster to take the infrastructure that already exists."
Liam Byrne, the immigration minister said a consultation paper would be published in the new year.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said ID cards would turn out to be a "financial disaster" for Britain.
He said: "
It is beyond belief that John Reid is still prepared to waste up to £20 billion of taxpayers' money on this expensive white elephant.
"ID cards are at best a distraction from the serious, patient painstaking task of making Britain more secure. At worst, they actually risk making Britain less safe.
"What we have is a designer database targeted solely at those who obey the law. Illegal immigrants will not turn up to apply for visas and submit their biometrics."
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1887262006
Arab neighbours try to head off Palestinian civil war
By Ofira Koopmans Dec 20, 2006, 16:46 GMT
Jerusalem/Gaza City - As internal Palestinian violence continues to spiral out of control despite two ceasefires in as many days, neighbouring Arab states have stepped in, attempting to prevent a plunge into civil war.
While Egypt initiated an emergency meeting between leaders of the rivalling Fatah and Hamas movements at its embassy in Gaza, Jordanian King Abdullah II telephoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and offered to host a conciliation meeting between him and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas.
It remains to be seen whether the latest truce brokered by Egypt will succeed in breaking the cycle of revenge shootings and kidnappings, which began with the murder of the three small children of a Fatah security official 10 days ago - allegedly by Hamas gunmen.
But an end to the street fighting depends largely on whether the nine-month-long political impasse between the two largest factions in the Palestinian autonomous areas is broken.
After months of talks on forming a unity government with a more moderate, common platform with his Fatah that would end a crippling international boycott of the current Hamas-led government, Abbas announced in a dramatic speech Saturday that he would call early presidential and legislative elections as a way out the deadlock.
But he left the door open to a last-minute compromise when he concluded 'I will always remain open to forming a national unity government.'
Abbas knows that his position is weak. Hamas has already announced that it will not accept early elections, which Haniya in a speech late Wednesday slammed as 'unconstitutional.'
'We refuse this call (for early elections),' a defiant Haniya declared in a lengthy address in Gaza, warning it would 'drag us back 10 years.'
Abbas' first obstacle is legal. It is far from clear whether he has the constitutional right to decree early elections and dismantle parliament.
If he issues a presidential decree doing so, Hamas is likely to contest this, whether in the Palestinian constitutional court, in the street, or both.
In his news conference with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair Monday, Abbas nevertheless vowed to go ahead with an early poll if left with no other option.
The only alternative, it seems, is that either he or Haniya back down in their conditions for forming the unity government.
Both men have accused each other of being responsible for the breakdown in talks.
In his address Tuesday, Haniya said the talks failed over Abbas' refusal to allow Hamas to keep the finance and interior ministries - crucial portfolios because they entail control over the treasury and the Palestinian security services respectively.
Abbas insisted on a 'certain figure,' Haniya charged in what was seen as a reference to independent lawmaker Salam Fayyad, who is believed to have been Abbas' choice for finance minister. Fayyad, a former holder of the finance portfolio, has been labelled an 'American agent' by many Hamas supporters because of his pro-Western stance.
But Abbas has charged that the reason for the breakdown was Hamas' continued refusal to accept past interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements and the Arab peace initiative of 2002, which would have meant recognizing Israel and relinquishing the demand that Palestinian refugees or their descendents return to Israel proper.
For a breakthrough to be reached, Abbas will either have to make concessions regarding the distribution of portfolios, or Hamas on its hardline ideology.
But Haniya has already reiterated that accepting a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza in return for a 15-year truce only, and not in return for recognition of Israel, is as far as he is willing to go.
Abbas, for his part, is unlikely to give in to Hamas' demand to keep the finance ministry, fearing this could spoil his efforts to end the international monetary boycott of the new government.
If neither of the two back down, early elections accompanied by more chaos and street violence seem inevitable.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/features/article_1235160.php/Arab_neighbours_try_to_head_off_Palestinian_civil_war
Wed, December 20, 2006
Iraq goes public with hanging of 13 men
By AP
BAGHDAD -- Iraqi authorities hanged 13 men yesterday after they were convicted of murder and kidnapping, lining them up in hoods and green jumpsuits with their hands bound behind their backs.
In a rare move that came amid chaotic violence sweeping the capital, the Iraqi government recorded and distributed graphic television footage of the convicts in the moments before they were put to death. The footage was given to both Iraqi and foreign news media.
The images showed two men standing together on a gallows with nooses around their necks. Several of them stooped and one had his arm around the shoulder of another as the hooded men stood in a row shortly before they were hanged.
Iraqi TV has rarely aired such pictures since President Saddam Hussein's 2003 ouster. Even under Saddam, executions were rarely made public.
Iraq hanged three convicted murderers Sept. 1, 2005 in the first executions since Saddam's ouster. There may have been more executions since but they have not been publicized.
A suicide car bomber slammed into a police checkpoint in Baghdad early today, killing seven people and injuring 27, police said.
Three police officers were among those killed, and seven were among the injured.
The attack by a bomber in a car occurred in the Jadriyah district of the Iraqi capital.
At least a half-dozen other explosions were heard, some of them in the area of the Green Zone, where Iraq's legislature and the U.S. and British embassies are based.
Elsewhere in the Iraqi capital, gunmen in military uniforms robbed government accountants as they left a bank with bags of cash yesterday. It was the second major robbery in Baghdad in eight days.
Assailants in four vehicles drove up to the Zuwiyah Bank and fired automatic weapons in the air, then handcuffed guards and robbed accountants of the equivalent of $815,350 Cdn, police said.
On Dec. 11, gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms stole the equivalent of more than $1 million from a bank truck.
Hours after the accountants were robbed yesterday, guards at another downtown bank fired on a funeral procession, wounding a mourner. Police said the guards thought the coffin was fake and criminals were masquerading as mourners as part of an elaborate robbery attempt. Police intervened and found the mourners to be genuine.
Also yesterday, the U.S. military announced the death of a marine in the insurgent stronghold Anbar province, bringing to 61 the number of U.S. military personnel killed in December. Some 2,950 U.S. troops have been killed since the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Also, Ayham al-Samaraie, a former electricity minister who escaped from police custody inside the Green Zone, remained at large yesterday. The dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen being held on corruption charges walked out of a police station Sunday
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/World/2006/12/20/2894655-sun.html
Gates visits Iraq amid questions over troop increase
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates met with top commanders in Iraq on Wednesday as debate swirled in Baghdad and Washington about whether a "surge" of thousands of additional American troops would help the situation in Iraq.
Gates held talks with Gens. John Abizaid, top U.S. commander in the Middle East, and George Casey, the top general in Iraq.
He was accompanied by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"We discussed the obvious things," Gates told reporters after talks with the generals, according to The Associated Press. "We discussed the possibility of a surge and the potential for what it might accomplish." (Watch Gates on the ground in Iraq )
At a news conference Wednesday in Washington, President Bush said that he has not yet decided whether to send more troops to Iraq, and that he was listening to commanders, to people in and out of government, and to members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group "about coming up with a strategy that helps achieve our objective." (Full story)
"I will tell you we're looking at all options," Bush said. "And one of those options, of course, is increasing more troops. But, in order to do so, there must be a specific mission that can be accomplished with more troops. And that's precisely what our commanders have said."
While leaving the "surge" question open, the president said he thought the overall size of the Army and Marine Corps should be increased.
Bush said the success of Iraqi extremists "hurt our efforts to help the Iraqis rebuild their country, it set back reconciliation, it kept Iraq's unity government and our coalition from establishing security and stability throughout the country."
"We can be smarter about how we deploy our manpower and resources," Bush said. "We can ask more of our Iraqi partners, and we will." (Watch Bush's remarks on whether the U.S. is winning in Iraq )
A shuffle of top American generals in Iraq is likely to accompany the shift in U.S. policy that Bush is considering, the AP reported. (Full story)
The new defense secretary had said he intended to travel to Iraq soon after taking office. He was sworn in Monday to succeed Donald Rumsfeld. (Watch what challenges Gates faces in Iraq )
Gates also was scheduled to meet Thursday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/12/20/iraq.main/
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