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Iraq minister escapes car bomb attack More Iraq prisoner abuse cases,
says US Senator US writes off Pak debt Pak protests against new US immigration measures
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Labour loses Leicester seat
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Iraq minister escapes car bomb attack Baghdad, July 17 Another car bomb blast in Mahmudiya, just south of Baghdad, killed two Iraqi National Guardsmen and wounded 25 people, the latest in a series of attacks targeting Iraq's security forces. Witnesses said the Baghdad suicide bomber drove towards the convoy carrying Justice Minister Malik al-Hassan and then detonated his vehicle in a ball of flame. ''There was a blast alongside the convoy. A booby-trapped car came alongside and blew up,'' said Hussein Abed, a traffic policeman who raced to the scene after the blast. Abdul Nasser Mohammed, an Iraqi bodyguard at the scene, said four people were killed in the explosion. He pointed at one destroyed car and said: ''Two were killed in this car and all we found was body parts.'' “What I want to highlight is that this is clearly a terrorist attack by people who do not want to see this country move forward,” U.S. Colonel Michael Formica of the 1st Cavalry Division said at the scene. Hospital officials said at least eight people were wounded. “We were working as painters near the ministry house when suddenly there was an explosion,” one of the wounded, Khalid Waleed, said as he lay in a hospital bed. Insurgents have repeatedly targeted top officials. Earlier this week, a regional governor was killed when his convoy was ambushed. In May, a suicide car bomb attack killed Izzedin Salim, the president of the country's Governing Council. A group linked to Jordanian born al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for both those attacks.
— Reuters |
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More Iraq prisoner abuse cases, says US Senator Washington, July 17 “We’re still uncovering, as late as this morning, other incidents, other cases that will be promptly investigated by the Department of Defence,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner said on Thursday after his panel was briefed by Pentagon officials in a closed-door meeting. Warner, a Virginia Republican, said there were possible violations of the Geneva Conventions and Defence Department’s rules and regulations on prisoners. The Pentagon officials briefing the committee also showed the senators 24 confidential documents from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The papers are part of an ICRC report on prisoner treatment in Iraqi jails written before the scandal broke in April. Warner has held three hearings on Abu Ghraib and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has testified before the committee.
— AFP |
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US writes off Pak debt Islamabad, July 17 The agreement to write-off the 495.3 million dollar debt was signed here by US Ambassador to Pakistan Nancy Powell and Secretary of Pakistan Economic Division Waqar Masood Khan, taking the total debt cancellation during the past two years to one and a half billion dollars. Mr Powell appreciated Pakistan’s economic policies initiated during the past five years and said the write-off marked a continuation of the US partnership with Pakistan. “Our continued commitment to Pakistan is a vote of confidence in the economic stewardship of the Pakistani government and the intelligence, energy and resourcefulness of the Pakistani people,” he said. Significantly, the second debt write-off followed Mr Armitage’s visit to Islamabad on Thursday during which he held talks with top Pakistani leadership.
— PTI |
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Pak protests against new US immigration measures Islamabad, July 17 In a recent memorandum, the US Department of Home Security asked officials at major airports to be extra vigilant against the travellers of Pakistani origin. Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri told the Senate yesterday that Pakistan had asked its war-on-terror ally to review body search procedures as it was sending wrong signals among its people. He was forced to address the House after an Opposition Senator blasted the new US immigration measures as shameful and virtual stripping of Pakistani visitors, the report in Daily Dawn said. The Minister said he even pointed it to US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage who was in Pakistan on a day-long trip on Thursday that it was wrong and harmful even to American interests, particularly when the move was directed against a particular community. Armitage reportedly expressed regret over the matter and promised to look into it. Pakistan worked as a front-line state in the US-led war on terror and, despite an opposition to the American military action in Afghanistan, provided critical, logistic and intelligence support to help the US forces overthrow the Taliban regime.
— DPA |
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Arafat revamps security, rejects PM’s resignation
Ramallah, July 17 Mr Arafat also replaced the national police chief, who was briefly abducted in a wave of kidnappings a day earlier, and named two new top officials in a shake-up of his security machine, an aide, Nabil Abu Rdeneh said. The Palestinian leader appointed his cousin Mousa Arafat al-Qidwe (64), as the new security chief for the Palestinian territories, which were plunged into chaos yesterday when police chief Ghazi Jabali and another senior security officer were seized by militants and later released. Egypt and the quartet of international peacemakers the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, have been pressing Mr Arafat to bring rival security factions under unified control. More than a dozen security branches now operate in the areas, often fighting each other. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia submitted his resignation today, plunging the Palestinian government further into crisis, but Mr Yasser Arafat rejected it, a top official said. The resignation came as Mr Qureia and Mr Arafat discussed a shake-up of security forces amid a rapidly deteriorating crisis in the Gaza Strip. Six persons, including the national police chief and four French charity workers, were briefly kidnapped in Gaza a day earlier.
— AP, Reuters |
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Labour loses Leicester seat London, July 17 The Liberal Democrats, who strongly opposed the war in Iraq, came first with 10,274 votes in Leicester, a city in Central England with a high Muslim population. Labour came second with 8,620 votes and the Conservative Party came third with 5,796 votes. The result is a further blow for Blair, whose popularity has slumped since the Iraq war. Labour fared terribly in local council and European Parliament elections last month and some in the party question whether Blair, once their most-prized electoral asset, has become a liability.
— AP |
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