As the British media followed the whale up and down the Thames, the more serious stories were left broadly unreported. Ayman al-Zawahiri surfaced on a new audio tape and the death and killing continued unabated in Iraq. Four children and the brother of a policeman died when insurgents fired a rocket into the officer's house in Balad Ruz, north-east of Baghdad. Four policemen were killed and nine injured in Baquba, north-east of the capital, when a roadside bomb targeted their patrol. A Jordanian kidnapped by militants demanding the release of a failed woman suicide bomber appealed for his life in a video released to an Arabic TV station. And a further 23 bodies were found dumped north of Baghdad; 12 bodies were found last week. They were believed to be police recruits kidnapped a week ago. Election results were announced with the Shi’ites gaining the majority of seats in the Iraqi parliament. This will no doubt cause further riffs between the minority Sunnis and the majority Shia population. [BBC]
The Saddam Hussein trial remains in limbo, awaiting witnesses. Over the course of the trial two defence lawyers have been killed and another injured. Others have pulled out following death threats. Three judges have presided over the case, one left only last week. Ramsey Clark, a former US attorney who is on the Hussein defence team, speaking on CNN, said the whole project should be abandoned. “It (the trial) is dysfunctional,” he said, “It should be an international court…not having a fair trial will only lead to more violence.” The trial is set to continue on Sunday.
In Iran 11 people were killed and 46 wounded in bombing in Ahvas, by unknown assailants. President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad cancelled his visit to the area. Ahvaz was also the scene of bombings in June and October that the government blamed on Iranian Arab extremists whom it claimed were trained abroad and maintained ties to foreign governments, including Britain. [Fox News]
CIA prisons and the rendition row continue in the US and the EU. Questions have been raised in the European Parliament. Dick Marty of the European Council called the rendition flights illegal. But US secretary Condoleezza Rice has said the US did not involve itself in torture. But facts are hard to obtain. European leaders are however under pressure to what they knew about such flights. [Guardian] And with allegations of Britain’s MI5 spying in Russia the Cold War seems to have returned again. [BBC]
President Bush is set to meet with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and discuss both the continuing War on Terror and the relief effort for victims of the October earthquake. Earlier this month a US strike in the northern region of Waziristan killed 18 men, women and children. The targeting of the area was an attempt to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s no. 2. Zawahiri is believed to have survived the attack.
And Wednesday is set to bring with it political change in Palestine with the first elections in a decade. Ehud Olmert, the acting Israeli PM, has expressed his concern over any radical shift in the Palestinian leadership. In an address carried Live on CNN, Olmert said he would bar Palestinian refugees from the ‘Jewish state of Israel’. “The road map is based on a clear idea, if the Arab desire to set up a Palestinian state is to be achieved…the solution must be of two clearly defined states.”
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