"British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a practising Christian, says he is ready to meet God and answer for those who died as a result of Britain waging war on Iraq. Blair told former Times editor Peter Stothard on April 2 – the day after US troops shot dead seven Iraqi women and children at a checkpoint – that he was ready to meet his Maker and answer before God for those who have died or have been horribly maimed as a result of my decisions," reported the AFP news service.
"Hundreds of unarmed Iraqi police returned to Baghdad streets yesterday under the supervision of US forces trying to restore order in the chaotic capital. But in a reminder of the mammoth task facing police, looters also made a comeback, making forays into a presidential palace to scavenge whatever was left from earlier bouts of looting," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Returning policemen said they were upset that US forces had not done more themselves to restore order amid the political vacuum left by the overthrow of Saddam's government. Baghdad's new police chief resigned on Saturday in a setback to US efforts to revitalise the force," reported the Reuters news agency.
"With fear mounting of an impending humanitarian disaster and security worsening, the International Committee of the Red Cross demanded yesterday access to Iraqi prisoners held by US-British coalition forces," reported the AFP news service.
"Two US astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut made it safely back to Earth early yesterday after rescue teams lost track of their Russian Soyuz craft in the Kazakh steppe for several nerve-wracking hours," reported the AFP news service.
"Rescue workers pulled a small girl alive from the rubble of a Cairo apartment block which partly collapsed overnight killing at least seven people," reported the Reuters news agency.
"An Israeli government envoy began a visit to the United States yesterday in hopes of persuading the US government to drop its support for a Palestinian state and the road map to Middle East peace," reported the AFP news service.
"Hundreds of thousands of worshippers flocked to central Madrid yesterday for a spectacular open air mass where Pope John Paul II canonised five new Spanish saints," reported the AFP news service.
"French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, faced with a rise in radical Islam in schools, has said his government could act to give teachers formal legal power to expel students who flaunt their religion. The wearing of the traditional Muslim headscarf, in particular, triggers heated debate in France, a secular state with a Roman Catholic majority. A survey last week suggested that over a third of people think Muslim women should be barred from wearing headscarves, not only in state institutions but in any public place," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Rescuers yesterday recovered the last of 83 school children killed when a dormitory collapsed in an earthquake in eastern Turkey, and officials called off the search for survivors," reported the AP news agency.
"Prince William, son of the late Princess Diana and heir to the British throne Prince Charles, wants to move to the United States after he finishes university in Scotland," reported the AFP news service.
"Workers at a pharmaceutical company shut down by Australian authorities last week were forced to sweep up pill-making powder from the factory floor and put it back into production lines," reported the AFP news service.
"Singapore and the United States are to sign tomorrow a landmark free trade agreement expected to bolster Washington's economic and political ties with South-East Asia," reported the AFP news service.
"The SARS virus can survive for hours on common surfaces outside the human body, and up to four days in human waste, according to a Washington Post article yesterday detailing new scientific findings," reported the AFP news service.
"Struggling to track down antiquities looted from Iraqi museums, art experts and law enforcement officials started work Monday on providing police, traders and customs agents with a computerized list of missing treasures. The task of hunting looted goods will be daunting. The work of figuring out what's missing depends in large part on the condition of written inventories from the looted museum," reported the AP news agency.
"President Alvaro Uribe said Monday that a state governor and a former defence minister kidnapped by rebels a year ago have been killed, the daughter of the defense minister said. The killings of Antioquia state Gov. Guillermo Gaviria and former Defence Minister Gilberto Echeverri outraged Colombians," reported the AP news agency.
"Boeing Co. acknowledged Monday that it is being investigated by the Justice Department and the U.S. Air Force to determine whether it improperly used documents of a rival to win a big rocket contract in 1999," reported the AP news agency.
"The Star senior writer Shahanaaz Habib and bombing victim Yasmine Wa’adi arrived to a warm welcome in Kuala Lumpur yesterday in separate journeys from war-torn Baghdad, where their courage made them newsmakers. Shahanaaz, the first Malaysian journalist to enter the Iraqi capital when US-led forces started their invasion, was received by her colleagues at a special home-coming reception at Menara Star. Yasmine, accompanied by her father Wa’adi Makhtoor Hassan, arrived with members of the Joint Media Malaysian Team at the KL International Airport where they were received by well-wishers," reported the JMTM news agency.
"A man who drew the ire of US forces after proclaiming himself in charge of Baghdad and acting accordingly has been released from custody. Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi was released on condition that he not resume his activities and stop asserting authority, retired Lt Gen Jay Garner said at the start of a one-day trip to southern Iraq," reported the AP news agency.
"US Central Command in Qatar announced on Sunday it had released 325 more Iraqi prisoners of war, adding that it still held around 3,200 others," reported the AP news agency.
"US forces have detained a top female scientist involved in Iraq's weapons programmes, Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash," reported the AFP news service.
"US insistence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction is based on dubious intelligence from a shadowy Pentagon committee that now dominates US foreign policy, according to The New Yorker magazine," reported the AFP news service.
"The United States said yesterday Iraq should have an interim national leadership in place by the middle of this month, as Iraq's third-largest city held the country's first vote since Saddam Hussein's ouster. Speaking to reporters in Baghdad, Garner said he expected up to nine Iraqis to form an interim leadership group that would be a point of contact for the Americans," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The United Nations nuclear watchdog agency said yesterday it had asked the United States to let it send a mission to Iraq to investigate reports of widespread looting at the country's nuclear facilities," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Any failure by Damascus to use its influence constructively in regards to post-Saddam Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process will result in consequences, US Secretary of State Colin Powell warned on Sunday," reported the AFP news service.
"An Israeli court sentenced a Palestinian militia leader yesterday to 14 terms of life in prison, plus 50 years, for orchestrating several shooting attacks on Israelis in the past 31 months of fighting," reported the AP news agency.
"An Israeli policeman responding to neighbours' complaints about a rowdy hen party received an unexpected welcome at the door when revellers mistook him for a stripper and began to take off his clothes and stroke him," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Violent lyrics in songs increase aggression-related thoughts and emotions and could indirectly create a more hostile social environment, a study released on Sunday by a US psychology association found. The Washington DC-based American Psychological Association released the study, resulting from five experiments involving over 500 college students, in the May issue of the Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The violent songs increased feelings of hostility without provocation or threat, according to the study. It said the effect was not the result of differences in musical style, specific performing artiste or arousal properties of the songs. The group said the study contradicts a popular notion that listening to angry, violent music actually serves as a positive catharsis for people," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The United States is shifting the focus of its North Korea policy from preventing the production of nuclear material to blocking the export of such material," reported the AFP news service.
"Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi defended himself yesterday against corruption charges that could threaten his hold on power and took a swipe at EU Commission chief Romano Prodi for his role in the landmark case. The billionaire prime minister, who says he is the victim of a politically motivated witch-hunt by Milan judges, told a court in the city he acted in the state's best interest in the 1985 privatisation deal that led to the graft charges," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Pakistan is ready to get rid of its nuclear arsenal if uneasy neighbour India also does, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday," reported the AP news agency.
"US Attorney-General John Ashcroft pledged yesterday to hunt down the organised gangs he said carried out the pillaging of museums and libraries during the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq," reported the AFP news service.
"President George W. Bush named L. Paul Bremer, a former ambassador and head of the State Department's counterterrorism office, to become civilian administrator in Iraq and oversee the country's transition to democratic rule," reported the AP news agency.
"Some 150 Iraqi Prisoners of War (POWs) were released yesterday, most of them soldiers eager to get home to their families and a new life without Saddam Hussein," reported the AFP news service.
"US troops in Iraq say finding Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction is not yet a top priority despite mounting pressure on Washington to justify the war with hard evidence. Officers with the 4th Infantry Division in northern Iraq said security and force protection were still their main focus as ground troops fanned out and as work on a new government began in Baghdad," reported the AFP news service.
"A son of Saddam Hussein and a close adviser carried off nearly US$1bil in cash from Iraq's central bank hours before the US-led war on the country began," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Passengers on a flight from Miami to Cancun were allowed to take off more than their seat belts once they hit cruising altitude. The nudists' flight was a first for a travel agency that caters to tourists who like to bare it all," reported the AP news agency.
"With the capture of Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, a US-trained microbiologist dubbedMrs Anthrax, the US military now holds 18 of 55 top Iraqi officials on its most-wanted list," reported the news Agencies.
"Australia plans to build a memorial to the hundreds of thousands of horses, donkeys, dogs and pigeons and other animals which died fighting their country's wars," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Marijuana-scented mobile phone covers were removed from a trade fair in Australia yesterday after protests from politicians," reported the AFP news service.
"A Colombian provincial governor, a former defence minister and eight soldiers held hostage by Marxist rebels were killed in a failed rescue attempt on Monday," reported the Reuters news agency.
"A sailor tearfully admitted to fatally beating his Singapore-born wife with an iron skillet and stabbing his mother-in-law to death at the couple's home last year," reported the AP news agency.
"Prince Edward's wife Sophie expects to give birth to her first child in December," reported the AP news agency.
"A Japanese professional wrestler who was elected to a local assembly last month reported for his first day of work yesterday wearing a mask that has sparked a dispute over his right to keep his face covered on the job," reported the AP news agency.
"The planned release of more than a dozen terrorist suspects out of 660 held at the Pentagon's prison in Cuba is too little and too late," reported the AP news agency.
"President George W. Bush prodded U.N. Security Council nations Wednesday to lift sanctions against Iraq, saying no country should use sanctions to hold back the hopes of the Iraqi people," reported the AP news agency.
"Saudi authorities have foiled plans by suspected terrorists to carry out attacks in the kingdom and seized a large cache of weapons and explosives," reported the AP news agency.
"Confirming what many cancer specialists have long believed, British researchers have shown that high-dose chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant together are far more effective against the bone cancer multiple myeloma than standard chemo," reported the AP news agency.
"Iraqi political leaders were preparing yesterday for their first talks with US officials on forming a post-Saddam Hussein government since a new US overseer was named to run the war-battered nation," reported the AFP news service.
"The United States raised the possibility it had uncovered long-sought evidence of a weapons of mass destruction programme in Iraq, as President George W. Bush appointed a new top civilian administrator for the war-ravaged country. A defence official said here that a tractor-trailer seized by US forces last month in northern Iraq appears to be part of a mobile lab for making chemical and biological weapons," reported the AFP news service.
"An Australian newspaper said yesterday it had been handed an audiotape in Baghdad of a message, possibly from ousted leader Saddam Hussein, calling on the Iraqi people to wage a secret war against US forces," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Coalition forces yesterday reported that a once leading Baath Party and militia commander for central Iraq was in custody as the hunt for the most wanted Iraqis steps up. The US Central Command (Centcom) provided no detail on how Ghazi Hammud al-Ubaydi fell into their hands, but it was a fresh success and pushed to at least 19 the number of Iraqis in detention out of a target list of 55," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Hollywood on Tuesday launched a drive to bring a limbless Iraqi orphan who became the symbol of civilian suffering in the US-led war to the United States for medical treatment," reported the AFP news service.
"Veteran Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia decried what he called the flamboyant showmanship displayed by the president aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln," reported the AFP news service.
"Al-Qaeda is preparing a new attack in the United States on the scale of Sept 11 after adopting a new operational structure which is impenetrable to US intelligence. The purported message from al-Qaeda scoffed at recent press reports that US agents are hot on the trail of its leader Osama bin Laden, whose whereabouts have been a mystery," reported the AFP news service.
"Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has demanded that as a condition for movement in peace talks, the Palestinians drop a cornerstone of their policy, right of return of refugees and their descendants to Israel and Palestinians charged that Israel is trying to sabotage a new Mideast peace plan," reported the AP news agency.
"Vice-President Dick Cheney has agreed to be President George W. Bush's running mate in 2004, saying past health problems won't prevent him from being on the next presidential ticket. Cheney said he did not know when Bush would formally announce his candidacy," reported the Reuters news agency.
"A South African man died trying to cut off his own head with a butcher's bandsaw in a major supermarket," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Plans to erect a statue of South Africa's anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela in central London have been rejected by a panel vetting the project. In a letter obtained by the Guardian newspaper, the committee said the decision was made on aesthetic grounds, leaving aside the vast global popularity of Mandela who spent more than 27 years in apartheid jails," reported the Reuters news agency.
"North Korea threatened during talks in Beijing to export nuclear arms and to add to its arsenal," reported the Reuters news agency.
"South African and Danish scientists have carried out Africa's first animal cloning, a calf born last month at a research institute in South Africa," reported the AFP news service.
"Britain's governing Labour Party announced on Tuesday it had suspended member of parliament (MP) George Galloway from holding office after he allegedly urged Arab nations to fight the British army because of its involvement in the war against Iraq," reported the AFP news service.
"A famous portrait by French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, “Dans les Roses,” depicting the young wife of Leon Clapisson was sold for US$23.5mil at Sotheby's late Tuesday," reported the AFP news service.
"Millions of migrant workers have ignored government warnings against returning from SARS-affected areas to their rural homes, as Premier Wen Jiabao warned yesterday of a serious outbreak in the Chinese hinterland," reported the AFP news service.
"Sluggish retail sales gave investors more incentive to cash in profits from Wall Street's recent rally Thursday and send stocks lower for a second consecutive session," reported the AP news agency.
"New Zealanders were bluntly warned Friday to brace for the shock of cold showers and other rationing measures if they don't radically cut their power use within two weeks," reported the AP news agency.
"Twelve North Koreans who sought asylum at the South Korean Embassy in Beijing arrived in Seoul on Friday, flying through Manila," reported the AP news agency.
"A special Iraqi tribunal could try Saddam Hussein and members of his former regime for crimes against his people, a top US law official said yesterday as Iraq's legal system resumed work with the opening of two courts in Baghdad," reported the Reuters news agency.
"After suspending its own embargoes against Iraq, the United States hopes to introduce a Security Council resolution by today that will lift decade-old UN sanctions and allow Iraq oil exports to resume. But diplomats said that while the resolution called for a UN co-ordinator in Iraq, the job was ill-defined and appeared to leave nearly all power in the hands of the United States and its allies," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Tens of thousands of antiquities that went missing from museums during the Iraq war have been found," reported the dpa news agency.
"In post-war Iraq, false rumours and perceptions worlds apart fill the communications void between Iraqis and Americans – already divided by cultural, language and religious barriers," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The outgoing head of the US civilian administration, Jay Garner, conceded this week that his office had done an extremely poor job communicating with the Iraqi people despite successes repairing power grids, distributing food and restoring water supplies," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The British queen's embattled representative in Australia denied yesterday he had raped a woman in the 1960s, further fuelling the biggest controversy to hit the vice-regal office in three decades," reported the Reuters news agency.
"A US judge said on Wednesday that families of two victims killed in the Sept 11 attacks on America were able to show a tenuous link between Iraq and Osama bin Laden in the deadly strikes and awarded the plaintiffs more than US$100mil in damages," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The vice-president of Fiji was charged yesterday with involvement in the nationalist coup that toppled the South Pacific nation's democratic government three years ago," reported the AP news agency.
"Pete Townshend, lead guitarist with The Who, has been placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for five years after being cautioned yesterday for viewing images of child abuse on the Internet," reported the Daily Telegraph.
"It does not pay much but, if you like the outdoor life, don't mind a bit of hardship and can get by without workmates, it's a job in a million. The situation vacant is in outback Australia and is for someone to help maintain the dingo fence. Its purpose is to keep the wild dogs that roam in the rugged country of the north and west out of the sheep farms in Australia's lusher south west corner," reported the dpa news agency.
"Angering both sides of the abortion debate, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that a foetus is a body part, akin to teeth, skin and hair that are eventually shed. The ruling unanimously upheld the conviction of a man who tried to induce a miscarriage by slipping his girlfriend labour-inducing drugs," reported the AP news agency.
"A passenger train sliced through a coach full of mainly elderly German holidaymakers in Hungary yesterday morning, killing 32 of them and their driver," reported the Reuters news agency.
"South Korea ordered its military on heightened alert, warning of North Korean provocations, while an official said yesterday that Washington has given the South evidence showing that the communist North might be reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods. Reprocessing the rods would be a key step towards producing nuclear weapons," reported the AP news agency.
"China said yesterday its embassy in Baghdad was severely damaged” during the Iraq war, but did not specify to what extent," reported the AFP news service.
"Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterday turned down Pakistan's proposal for a nuclear-free South Asia and said the Iraq war and political changes in Kashmir prompted the two rival neighbours towards amity," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Looking to build on the Iraq war victory, President George W. Bush yesterday would call for a free trade area between the United States and countries of the Middle East within a decade. Top aides said Bush was to make the announcement in a commencement address at the University of South Carolina in Columbia," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Prosecutors yesterday charged a Moroccan friend of Sept 11 suicide pilot Mohamed Atta as an accessory to murder in the plot and a member of a terrorist organisation, the second suspected helper of the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell to be charged in Germany," reported the AP news agency.
"Iraqi opposition leaders laying out plans for a new democratic government are insisting that officials from Saddam Hussein's Baath party be banned from political life," reported the AFP news service.
"Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said yesterday that Germany and the United States were more united than divided as he tried to mend ties soured by his vocal opposition to the US-led war in Iraq," reported the Reuters news agency.
"A Saudi author plans to write a biography of former Iraqi information minister Mohammed Said al-Sahaf, who gained cult status during the war for his unfaltering, and often entertaining belief in an Iraqi victory. He was also credited with enriching the Arabic vocabulary. The antiquated words he used in his daily press briefings to describe US soldiers are now enjoying a renaissance," reported the dpa news agency.
"Although Iraq has the world's second-largest proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia, residents of this chaotic capital are spending long, sweaty hours in the hammering sun every day in a frustrating – and often futile – search for fuel. Damage to the power grid caused by coalition bombing has hobbled the Kirkuk oil field in northern Iraq from which Daura receives most of its crude, as well as some of the pumping stations that get the oil to the refinery," reported the AP news agency.
"The United States and Britain introduced a resolution yesterday that would end 12 years of UN sanctions against Iraq and give them control of the country's oil revenues for at least a year," reported the Reuters news agency.
