"David Kay stepped down as leader of US hunt for banned weapons in Iraq on Friday and said he did not believe the country had any large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons. His conclusion could embarrass President George W. Bush abroad and offer ammunition to his election-year Democratic rivals at home," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The United Nations' top nuclear watchdog said on Saturday he was not surprised at Kay's conclusion. We said before the war, that there was no evidence of this, so this is really not a surprise, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said on the sidelines of the Davos World Economic Forum annual meeting," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Iraqi insurgents struck yesterday in the volatile Sunni Triangle, killing five US soldiers in separate bombings west of Baghdad and narrowly missing an American convoy with a blast that killed four Iraqis and wounded about 40 other people north of the capital. The bloody attacks occurred as UN security experts began to study the possible return of UN international staff to play a key role in Iraq's transformation to democracy," reported the AP news agency.
"A car bomb exploded yesterday in the heart of this volatile Iraqi town, killing at least two Iraqis, in what US officials said was a bid to derail voting in local council elections. US officers said 40 people were wounded in the explosion, including seven American soldiers," reported the Reuters news agency.
"A leading pro-US Iraqi Governing Council member called on Friday for direct elections before a sovereignty handover, raising pressure on Washington to yield to the demands of the Shi'ite majority. The preferred US system of indirect elections through caucuses in each of Iraq's 18 provinces was a sure fire way to have instability because it could produce weak leaders who were not representative of the Iraqi people, Chalabi added," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The call from Ahmad Chalabi, who has close ties to the Bush administration, contradicted the US view that there was not enough time before June 30 to organise such a poll and echoed Iraqi protesters' demands for a one-man-one-vote election," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Halliburton, the oil services company formerly run by US vice-president Dick Cheney, was embroiled in new accusations on Friday of corruption after it sacked two workers over allegations that they took kickbacks for awarding sub-contracts in Iraq. The revelation is likely to intensify the scrutiny of Halliburton, which has reaped huge contracts to rebuild Iraq and provide logistical support for the army," reported the AP news agency.
"US Special Forces troops have captured a leading figure in Ansar al-Islam, a guerilla group operating in Iraq that the United States says has ties to al-Qaeda, US officials said on Friday. Husam al-Yemeni was taken into custody during an operation last week near the town of Fallujah, said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity," reported the Reuters news agency.
"US Vice-President Dick Cheney, seeking to erase the image of the United States as a lone cowboy, called yesterday for increased world co-operation and effective international institutions to help wage its war on terrorism. Cheney, a main architect of the controversial US doctrine of pre-emptive military strikes, reiterated Washington's readiness to use force if necessary but stressed in a speech the value of collective action," reported the AFP news service.
"Acting swiftly to ensure Libya's pledge to give up nuclear weapons is implemented, the Bush administration may bring to the United States as early as next week centrifuges and nuclear material at the heart of Tripoli's programme," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards called on Saturday for an independent commission to investigate whether President George W. Bush's administration misled Congress in making its case for war with Iraq and demanded an end to war profiteering. The senator from North Carolina was responding to remarks by former chief US arms hunter David Kay, who said after stepping down on Friday that he had concluded there were no stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons to be found," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Iraqis, rattled by daily carnage since Saddam Hussein's fall, fear a sectarian civil war would be the biggest threat to their country, an opinion poll released by the US-led administration on Saturday showed," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The US-led coalition said on Saturday it would be very difficult to hold the direct elections demanded by Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim hierarchy before a planned June 30 deadline for the transfer of sovereignty. We Americans feel strongly about direct elections ... the only issue is timing, said Dan Senor, the senior advisor to US civilian administrator Paul Bremer," reported the AFP news service.
"A US congressional delegation flew here yesterday aboard a US Navy plane, saying it was the first US military plane to land in Tripoli since Col Muammar Gaddafi took power in 1969," reported the AP news agency.
Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said yesterday a prisoner exchange with Israel would take place on Thursday in line with a German-mediated deal between the two bitter enemies," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Prime Minister John Howard branded feminist author Germaine Greer elitist and condescending Tuesday after she criticized Australians as too relaxed to give a damn in a newspaper article. If your ambition is to live on Ramsay Street, where nobody has even been heard to discuss a book or a movie, let alone an international event, then Australia may be the place for you, Greer wrote," reported the AP news agency.
"The outgoing chief US weapons inspector says his inability to find illicit arms in Iraq raises serious questions about American intelligence-gathering. Last year, David Kay had confidently predicted weapons would be found. But after nine months of searching, he said on Sunday: I don't think they exist," reported the AP news agency.
"Kay's comments came as no surprise to Hans Blix, the former chief UN inspector whose work was heavily criticised by Kay and came to an end when the United States went to war with Iraq. Blix said the United States should have known the intelligence was flawed last year when leads followed up by UN inspectors didn't produce any results. Speaking of Kay's resignation, Blix said, If you find yourself on a train that's going in the wrong direction, its best to get off at the next stop," reported the AP news agency.
"US and British leaders George W. Bush and Tony Blair are wrong to retroactively justify the invasion of Iraq on humanitarian grounds, a global rights group said yesterday. New York-based Human Rights Watch criticised the West for turning a blind eye to Saddam Hussein's atrocities – such as the 1988 massacre of Kurds – at a time when the level of slaughter could have justified armed intervention. The group's head Kenneth Roth said in its annual report Brutal as Saddam Hussein's reign had been, the scope of the Iraq government's killing in March 2003 was not of the exceptional and dire magnitude that would justify humanitarian intervention," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Tony Blair believed that Jacques Chirac was out to get him ahead of the Iraq war, because the French leader feared Britain's prime minister was usurping his own position as the natural leader of Europe, the Financial Times newspaper reported yesterday. Stephens said it was exquisite irony that Chirac did more than anyone to rescue Blair who was struggling domestically to make the case for war in Iraq," reported the AFP news service.
"Israeli soldiers yesterday began digging up 59 bodies of Lebanese militants buried in a small plot in northern Israel, a first step toward a prisoner swap with the Hizbollah group that is to take place this week," reported the AP news agency.
"US Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday he was worried about Russia's democracy and its muscular dealings with its neighbours in some of Washington's most critical comments about Moscow. In a front-page article published in major Russian daily Izvestia, he said Russian politics were not sufficiently subject to the rule of law and made clear there were limits to the US-Russian relationship without shared values," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Japan yesterday formally ordered the dispatch of ground troops into Iraq in the country's first full deployment to a combat zone since World War II, ending months of anguished debate over the role Japan should play there," reported the AFP news service.
"Prime Minister Tony Blair narrowly overcame a major rebellion within his Labour Party on Tuesday, winning a key vote on university fees that severely tested his authority. Having squeaked through the House of Commons vote with a majority of five, the Blair government faces an anxiously awaited report on the inquiry into the death of weapons inspector David Kelly, who was at the center of a controversy over the war in Iraq," reported the AP news agency.
"For the first time, a federal judge has declared unconstitutional a section of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated foreign terrorist organisations. In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available on Monday, US District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban was impermissibly vague in its wording," reported the AP news agency.
"A policeman and an Islamic fundamentalist were killed in Morocco when police arrested 35 suspected extremists in two raids on villages near Meknes," reported the AFP news service.
"The US authority in Iraq received a boost yesterday as UN chief Kofi Annan agreed to a US and Iraqi plea to send a team of experts to Iraq, hours after a rocket attack on the coalition's headquarters in Baghdad," reported the AFP news service.
"An apparent suicide attack on a convoy in Kabul yesterday killed one Canadian soldier and wounded three others," reported the AP news agency.
"Three US soldiers were killed and one wounded in a large explosion yesterday in the restive Euphrates Valley town of Khaldiya, west of the Iraqi capital," reported the AP news agency.
"A suicide bomber blew up a car packed with more than 180kg of explosives at a hotel here yesterday, killing three people, in violence that casts fresh doubts on whether Iraq is safe for early elections. US officials said two Iraqis were killed and at least 10 other people wounded in the blast, which ripped the front off the three-storey Shaheen Hotel," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians yesterday in the deadliest raid in the Gaza Strip in more than a month, casting a shadow over a new US push to salvage a battered peace plan. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the main groups behind a campaign of suicide bombings against Israelis, vowed revenge, saying five of their fighters were among those killed in fierce gun battles in Gaza City. Medics said the other dead were civilians, but Israel said all were armed terrorists," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Britain’s Tony Blair cleared the second hurdle of his toughest week in power yesterday when a judge said the prime minister bore no blame for the suicide of a top Iraq weapons expert. Blair seized on his all-clear, which came hours after a damaging revolt in parliament, but with his party restive, Iraq policy under fire and voters losing faith, Blair can ill afford to gloat ahead of an expected 2005 election," reported the news Agencies.
"Prime Minister Tony Blair narrowly escaped a humiliating defeat on Tuesday at the hands of rebels in his own Labour party, winning a crucial parliamentary vote on university fees on which he had staked his authority," reported the AFP news service.
"The French Cabinet approved a controversial Bill to ban the Islamic headscarf from schools yesterday, opening the way for its passage through parliament and adoption by the start of the next school year," reported the AFP news service.
