"A US warship seized two tonnes of hashish from a small boat near the mouth of the Gulf this week in what was believed to be an al-Qaeda smuggling operation," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Arabic television al-Jazeera on Friday aired an audio tape purportedly from al-Qaeda's second in command Ayman al-Zawahri, saying his group was chasing Americans everywhere, including the United States. The warning came as a US intelligence official said US authorities were studying a terror threat to New York City and were very concerned by the volume of threats to US interests at home and overseas," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Convinced that peace talks with the Palestinians are doomed to fail, the plan, laid out on Thursday in a keynote speech, shows that Sharon is determined to engineer for Israel the most favourable outcome soon. But if they are carried out, his unilateral measures could strain already tested relations with the United States and spark uproar among Jewish settlers who stand to have their communities dismantled as a result," reported the AFP news service.
"Amid severe gasoline shortages, US soldiers arrested 20 people and seized 28 fuel trucks and nine propane trucks suspected of illegally dispensing fuel in a black market operation here, the military said on Friday. The operation occurred on Thursday, the same day that the Oil Ministry announced a rationing scheme to try to alleviate gasoline shortages in Iraq, which holds the world's second-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia," reported the AP news agency.
"American troops mistakenly shot and killed three Iraqi police officers and wounded two others overnight, thinking they were bandits," reported the AP news agency.
"The Iraqi man who gave up Saddam Hussein to US forces last weekend was his top aide through eight months on the lam, a senior US military intelligence officer told reporters. Major Stan Murphy, the head of an intelligence unit in Tikrit, ruled out the possibility the informant, who is currently in detention, would receive any of the US$25mil bounty on Saddam's head," reported the AFP news service.
"Lebanese Mohammed Jaber said he went to Iraq on a pilgrimage to Muslim holy sites, he ended up being tortured with loud rap music by US troops suspicious he might be a foreign fighter against their occupation. But Jaber said he kept one secret from his captors, fearing the treatment could get worse. Rights watchdog Amnesty International has said it has heard complaints of torture and degrading treatment including prolonged sleep deprivation from detainees held by US troops. Jaber said he and his friends were first held for six days handcuffed and hooded. They were not fed or allowed to sleep," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Libya said on Friday it would abandon its weapons of mass destruction programmes and allow unconditional inspections, drawing praise from Washington and London for its move towards rejoining the international community," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The U.S. government raised the national threat level to orange Sunday, indicating a high risk of terrorist attack, and said threat indicators are perhaps greater now than at any point since the Sept. 11 attacks with strikes possible during the holidays. Americans were promised extensive and considerable protections around the country and told to stick to their travel plans despite intelligence indicating the al-Qaida terrorist network is seeking again to use planes as weapons and exploit suspected weakness in U.S. aviation security," reported the AP news agency.
"Saddam Hussein was captured by US troops only after he had been taken prisoner by Kurdish forces, drugged and abandoned ready for American soldiers to recover him. A British tabloid newspaper, the Sunday Express, said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi president's capture on Dec 13 near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq, exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete. An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East told the Express: Saddam was not captured as a result of any American or British intelligence. We knew that someone would eventually take their revenge, it was just a matter of time," reported the AFP news service.
"US President George W. Bush told an Israeli journalist that we must get rid of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot daily said yesterday. Bush's comments came in a brief exchange with the paper's correspondent during a Christmas party in Washington, several hours after a keynote speech by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Thursday in which he outlined plans for unilateral disengagement from peace negotiations with the Palestinians," reported the news Agencies.
"Princess Diana was pregnant when she died in a Paris car crash in 1997 with her lover Dodi Fayed at her side, a London newspaper said yesterday, quoting a senior police source in France. However, the source dismissed suggestions that Diana, who divorced Prince Charles a year before her death, was the victim of a murder plot – a theory clung to by Fayed's father, Harrods department store tycoon Mohammed Al Fayed," reported the AFP news service.
"Libya's decision to renounce mass destruction weapons was praised as a victory for diplomacy on Saturday, and Britain looked forward to the Bush administration lifting sanctions against the North African state Washington has accused of sponsoring terrorism," reported the AP news agency.
"Major U.S. airports and seaports are preparing to begin using fingerprints and photographs to keep track of when foreigners enter the country and when they leave. The program, to be up and running on Jan. 5 at all 115 airports that handle international flights, will let Customs officials instantly check an immigrant or visitor's criminal background," reported the AP news agency.
"The United States has raised its nationwide terrorism alert from elevated to high, saying the threat of a year-end holiday attack by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network is as great as before the Sept 11 strikes," reported the AFP news service.
"Several hundred people have been detained in Iraq in a sweep against insurgents using intelligence following the capture of Saddam Hussein, Gen Richard Myers, head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Sunday. Myers said in media interviews the US military believed some of the detainees were leaders of the insurgency against US-led forces in Iraq," reported the AFP news service.
"Saddam Hussein spat at American soldiers moments after his capture and was promptly punched by one of them, said US government sources. Gen Richard Myers added that Saddam was not co-operating with US interrogators," reported the Daily Telegraph.
"Libya is ready to follow Iran's lead and sign a protocol allowing surprise UN inspections of its nuclear sites, Libyan Prime Minister Shukri Mohammed Ghanim said yesterday on BBC radio," reported the AFP news service.
"Thousands of people, mainly Muslim women shouting The veil, my choice, marched through this capital on Sunday against presidential proposals to ban Islamic headscarves from public schools and maybe at work, too. The protest, a cry of anguish from a rarely heard section of French society, was the first here against President Jacques Chirac's announcement last Wednesday that headscarves and other conspicuous religious symbols, including Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses, should be banned from schools to protect France's secular foundations," reported the AP news agency.
"Less than a week after French President Jacques Chirac announced plans to ban religious symbols from public schools, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said in comments published on Sunday that headscarves have no place among public school teachers. Unlike Chirac, however, Schroeder said he could not prevent Muslim schoolgirls from covering their heads in the classroom," reported the AP news agency.
"Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher collapsed after being assaulted by a crowd of Palestinians as he was entering the al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City yesterday, witnesses said. Witnesses earlier said it appeared Maher had been physically beaten but later said he was accosted and jostled and possibly struck one or two times, causing him to fall to the ground," reported the Reuters news agency.
"More aftershocks rattled the area yesterday following a magnitude-6.5 earthquake that jolted the central California coast, killing two people, injuring dozens and wrecking a landmark clock tower," reported the AP news agency.
"California's largest earthquake in four years struck on Monday, causing Planet Earth to ring like a bell and mountains to grow 30 cm taller, geologists said on Monday. The magnitude 6.5 quake hit near the coastal city of San Simeon almost exactly half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles, setting high-rise buildings swaying in both cities," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Russia is ready to write off more than half of the US$8bil that Baghdad owes Moscow, its largest creditor, President Vladimir Putin told a visiting Iraqi delegation. At a Kremlin meeting, Putin also told the delegation that Russian companies are ready to invest up to US$4bil in Iraq as Russia looked to revive oil and other contracts ruptured or left unimplemented in the last years of Saddam Hussein's regime," reported the AP news agency.
"Last week, Putin told James A. Baker III, the US envoy on Iraqi debt, that Moscow was prepared to begin negotiations on debt forgiveness but only taking into account the economic interests of Russia and Russian companies in Iraq Another council member, Jalal Talabani, told a news conference that Putin held out the prospect of further help and support if there are Russian contracts," reported the AP news agency.
"US forces arrested eight rebel suspects in a stronghold of anti-American resistance northwest of Baghdad, the military said yesterday, as troops tightened security against possible attacks over the Christmas holidays," reported the AP news agency.
"Foreigners entering US airports and seaports – except those from Western Europe and a handful of other countries – will soon have their fingerprints scanned and their photographs snapped as part of a new programme designed to enhance border security. The programme, called US-VISIT, or US Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology, will check an estimated 24 million foreigners each year, though some will be repeat visitors," reported the AP news agency.
"Members of Israel's elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, known for daring operations like the 1976 Entebbe hostage rescue, sent shock waves through Israel by announcing they would no longer serve in the West Bank and Gaza. The 13 reservists sent a letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday declaring they could not “continue to stand silent” on Israeli military activities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which they said deprived millions of Palestinians of human rights," reported the AP news agency.
"Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher played down an assault on him by Palestinian Muslims at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque when he returned to Cairo late on Monday and said Egypt would continue to push for peace. Maher said shortly after his arrival that he did not want the incident to detract from his trip in which met top Israeli officials," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Israeli troops and tanks swept into a Gaza Strip refugee camp yesterday, killing five Palestinians in a big raid just hours after a militant ambush cost Israel its first two dead soldiers in a month of relative calm," reported the Reuters news agency.
"South Korea plans to send 3,000 troops, possibly including special operations forces and combat-ready marines, to the northern Iraqi oil town of Kirkuk as early as April to help US forces rebuild the war-torn nation, the military said yesterday. The dispatch makes South Korea the biggest contributor to coalition forces in Iraq, behind the United States and Britain. US President George W. Bush praised the mission in a personal phone call overnight to South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun," reported the AP news agency.
"Investigations into possible nuclear technology transfers from Pakistan to Iran showed that certain individuals might have been motivated by personal ambition or greed, the Pakistani government said yesterday. Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan told a news briefing that Pakistan was determined to get to the bottom of allegations that technology may have been transferred from Pakistan to Iran," reported the Reuters news agency.
"A powerful earthquake struck the ancient Silk Road city of Bam in south-eastern Iran yesterday, killing more than 4,000 people and wounding at least 30,000," reported the news Agencies.
"Guerillas killed four US soldiers in a mortar attack north of here, the US military said yesterday, as rockets shook the Iraqi capital in the biggest insurgent attacks since the capture of Saddam Hussein. Insurgents also wounded two Polish soldiers in an ambush in southern Iraq, the latest in a string of attacks on the forces of countries which have answered Washington's call for troops to help it secure the country it invaded to topple Saddam."
