Newsgab

An anonymous US military officer has told a media organisation that Saddam Hussein will be hanged before the start of the Eid holiday which begins at dusk on Saturday. The Iraqi government has already requested Saddam be transferred to them.

Saddam’s lawyers have pled with the international community for help. He has cited international conventions forbidding handing a prisoner of war to his adversary. He has already met with the UN and the Arab league.

The deposed president knows he is to be executed and reportedly welcomes the chance to be a martyr. He has handed over letters for his family. Many international groups have accused the Iraqi government of interfering in the trial. Source

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A group of Marines and ex-Marines who fought in Iraq are featured in a beefcake calendar being touted as the America’s Heroes calendar being sold to help wounded veterans.

“It’s a stopgap effort to help people where government programs leave off,” said Rudy Reyes, who served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan and is on the calendar’s cover. “This is a way for citizens to help citizens.”

The “America’s Heroes” calendar is being sold by Freedom is Not Free, a San Diego-based nonprofit group that helps injured service members and their families with such expenses as travel, mortgage and utility bills and special beds for burn victims.

The $14.99 calendar promises that “100 percent of proceeds aid wounded heroes and their families.”

From the site:

Some of the hottest hunks in the Marine Corps are posing for the America’s Heroes 2007 Calendar to raise money for wounded service members and their families.

The Secret Service has no sense of humor about threats to the President, even from adolescents. Julia Wilson, 14, was removed from class Wednesday by Secret Service agents to discuss a webpage she had during the summer, which she had already taken down.

Julia had made a cartoon on her website with the words “Kill Bush” scrawled above an image of a knife being plunged into President Bush’s hand. Utilizing the popular children’s site MySpace.com, Julia had a group called something like “People that want to stab Bush”, she couldn’t recall exactly; as she soon changed it after learning that such a name could be considered a threat. Apparently, that was not enough to escape notice of the Secret Service.

Lecturers at British universities are asked to spy on their students who are Muslim and “Asian looking”, if they think they hold extreme views and are susceptible to being influenced to terrorist groups.

The guideline document drawn up for them suggest that Muslim students from “segregated” backgrounds are more likely to support extremist stances than their counterparts who are “integrated into wider society”, and can therefore see a wider picture.

The Guardian newspaper reported that the document encourages universities to proactively report students to the special branches of local police forces which have been set up to deal with national security.

The report also suggests universities make checks on external speakers invited to give lectures by their student Islamic societies, before they are invited to speak. In this manner extremists can be weeded out.

Northern Ireland’s Republican leader Gerry Adams vowed to make peace with his long-time Protestant adversary Ian Paisley, for the good of every Irishman.

At a rally of his supporters, Sinn Fein chief Adams argued in favour of the peace plan, brokered by London and Dublin, to bring back rule from Stormont.

He declared that the truce was good for all both the North and the South. He prepared his followers for the fact that Paisley will probably present it to his party as a victory.

“Bringing rejectionist unionism into the peace process would be an enormous achievement. Our endeavour is to make peace with Ian Paisley and those he represents because we are avowedly anti-sectarian,” Adams said.

“We are prepared to make peace. Our watchword is equality. Equality includes those citizens represented by the DUP.”

Iran’s president said Tehran would keep up its nuclear activities despite the fact the West was increasing pressure on them to desist.

The European Union’s 25 foreign ministers want to agree at a meeting on Tuesday to ask the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions, against Iran. The request was delivered by the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier yesterday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was defiant, saying Iran was determined to press on with its work to introduce nuclear technology, ostensibly for power supplies.

“The threats and pressures against Iran’s nuclear activities will not tarnish the will of the Iranian nation to continue its way (of achieving nuclear technology),” Ahmadinejad said.

Iran’s case has been sent to the Security Council after it failed to halt uranium enrichment, a process the West fears Iran is using to develop atomic bombs despite Teheran’s repeated denials.

The grieving Amish community who recently lost of their young girl’s has not forgotten that the Robert’s family are grieving too.

Not only have the community forgiven him, they have reached out to his wife and started a fund for the family based in their local bank

Marie Roberts said she and her family were “overwhelmed by the forgiveness, grace and mercy” shown by the community after her husband shot dead five small girls, and left at least another five in hospital.

“Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need,” Marie Roberts wrote in a letter addressed to Amish friends, neighbours and the local community.

The letter, released by a family spokesman,said that Marie Robert’s thanks the community for their understanding and compassion.

The UN Security Council has voted unanimously in favour of a resolution imposing sanctions on North Korea as a result of its nuclear test.

Resolution 1718 imposes weapons and financial sanctions but is not backed by the threat of military force. The US had wanted chaper 7 invoked to make it mandatory.

North Korea’s UN envoy walked out when he rejected the proposals.

After hours of talks, China agreed to back the resolution, but said it had “reservations” about provisions for cargo checks on North Korean ships.

The resolution included the following provisions .

A demand North Korea eliminate all its nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles.

Requires all countries to prevent the sale or transfer of materials that will further the nuclear ambitions of North Korea; as well as large-sized military items such as tanks, missiles and helicopters.

Canadian troops fighting the Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpectedly potent enemy a forest of 10 feet high marijuana plants.

General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defence staff, said on Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In defence the Canadians are using it as cover, they are camouflaging their tanks with the leaves.

“The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It’s very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices, it gives the Taliban a place to retreat and hide, he said in a speech in Ottawa.

“We tried burning them with white phosphorous and with diesel but they have absorbed so much water they will not burn even with a catalyst.

“A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those forests did catch on fire. But the soldiers downwind from that had some ill effects, Hillier said drolly.

During recent years the Americans have made a lot of aid to the third world contingent on the process of democratisation.

The Americans simply could not imagine that a an election could bring to power Hamas. When given the choice the Palestinians voted for Hamas.

The process of democratisation has also helped the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Hamas the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah have to be perceived not to be an ally of the US or of Israel.

The reality in Iraq, which only a year ago was hailed as a catalyst for a new democracy in the Middle East, can be seen to be a public bloodbath.

Washington is now strangely silent about actions taken by Middle East regimes to suppress political opposition. Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who made an impassioned speech about democracy in Cairo last year, yet stopped short of being critical of Egypt’s repressive tactics.