Brigadier General Janice Karpinski is among seven officers being investigated following claims that soldiers under their command mistreated detainees. 

The army confirmed the suspension after US television broadcast images of US soldiers allegedly abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. - from the BBC

The report states that Iraqi officers of the "Special Operations and Antiterrorism Branch," known within Mr. Hussein's government as M-14, are responsible for planning roadway improvised explosive devices and some of the larger car bombs that have killed Iraqis, Americans and other foreigners. The attacks have sown chaos and fear across Iraq. - from the NYT (reg/req)

"Nightline" producers said the show — in which anchor Ted Koppel will read the name, rank and age of more than 700 dead troops as their photos are shown — will air under the title "The Fallen." - from the LA times

The guard says he signed up in the new Iraqi Army to keep Baghdad safe from looters and thieves, but that if the Mehdi Army of the Shia leader Muqtada al- Sadr who has taken on the United States tries to take the municipal building, he will abandon his post. 

He carries a photograph of Muqtada al-Sadr and his father Ayatolla Mohammed Sadik al-Sadr in his wallet..."

Urging Muslims to avoid American civilian and military sites, the apparent voice of Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin told visitors to the Dirasat website on Tuesday that 2004 would prove the worst yet for the US.

"The Jews, the Americans and crusaders [Christians] in general will remain the targets of our coming attacks and this year, God willing, will be fiercer and harsher for them." -from Aljazeera

In an unprecedented move, a roll call of 52 ex-ambassadors, high commissioners and governors, some of whom had served in Iraq and Israel, said it was time for the prime minister either to start influencing America's "doomed" policy in the Middle East, or to stop supporting it. - from The Herald (UK)

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee opened hearings Tuesday on John Negroponte's nomination as America's first ambassador to post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. - from The AP

The poll, conducted by the University of Maryland, showedmost respondents were unaware of the testimony of David Kay, the administration's chief weapons inspector, that he had found no weapons, or that of Richard Clarke, the former counter-terrorism tsar whose book Against All Enemies has been the talk of Washington.

A staggering 82 per cent of respondents believed most experts supported the notion that Iraq was providing "substantial support" to al-Qa'ida - a contention that President Bush has been forced to disavow. Almost 60 per cent were unaware that world opinion was against the war in Iraq, with 21 per cent saying the world was behind the US-led invasion and 38 per cent saying views were "evenly divided."

The poll also showed a correlation between people's ignorance and their political affiliation. Among those who believed WMD had been found in Iraq, 72 per cent said they would vote to re-elect Mr Bush in November and 23 per cent said they supported his Democratic challenger, John Kerry. Among those who knew that no WMD had been found,74 per cent supported Mr Kerry and 23 per cent backed the President. - from The Independent (UK)

And tucked away somewhere are the documents attesting to Ms. Goodwin's recent honorable discharge from the United States Army, as well as Baghdad memories that are still fresh. - from The NYT (reg/req)

Ten percent actually worked against the U.S.

"About 50 percent of the security forces that we've built over the past year stood tall and stood firm," Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division, said. "About 40 percent walked off the job because they were intimidated. And about 10 percent actually worked against us." - from WorldTribune.com

The Web site, The Memory Hole, had filed a Freedom of Information Act request last year, seeking any pictures of coffins arriving from Iraq at the Dover base in Delaware, the destination for most of the bodies. The Pentagon yesterday labeled the Air Force Air Mobility Command's decision to grant the request a mistake, but news organizations quickly used a selection of the 361 images taken by Defense Department photographers." NYT(reg/req)

Three of them, including a woman who helped street children on the streets of Baghdad, appeared on television two weeks ago as their knife-brandishing kidnappers threatened to slit their throats. A few days after their release, they landed here on Sunday, in the eye of a peculiarly Japanese storm.

"You got what you deserve!" read one hand-written sign at the airport where they landed. "You are Japan's shame," another wrote on the Web site of one of the former hostages. They had "caused trouble" for everybody. The government, not to be outdone, announced it would bill the former hostages $6,000 for air fare. - from the NYT (reg/req)

But this good news has an unusual twist: Corporate America has been the greatest beneficiary so far, and the titans of industry are being very tight with their money. So job growth is expected to remain modest." The Christian Science Monitor

"There's not an American ... that doesn't understand what we are engaged in today and what the prospects are for the future," Senator Chuck Hagel told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on post-occupation Iraq. 

"Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face." 

The Nebraska Republican added that a draft, which was ended in the early 1970s, would spread the burden of military service in Iraq more equitably among various social strata. 

"Those who are serving today and dying today are the middle class and lower middle class," he observed. - from Agence France Presse

While the offenders are nonviolent - drunken drivers, shoplifters, car thieves - the early releases have stirred controversy over whether the savings in tax dollars is worth what many see as a threat to public safety. As agencies report drops in violent crime, so-called "quality-of-life" crimes are soaring. To critics, the trend goes hand in hand with weakening deterrence. - from the Christian Science Monitor

The longtime GOP consultant's reward for fomenting the "Brooks Brothers mob" that shut down the Miami-Dade recount in 2000 was an invitation within days of Bush's election to serve on the Department of Interior transition working group—helping, in his own words, to staff its Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Stone has since used this unannounced perch to market himself to tribes and developers from Louisiana to California, earning fat fees and contingent percentages of future casino revenue. Just two of the five deals examined by the Voice are projected to pay him at least $8 million, and perhaps as much as $13 million. - from The Village Voice

In 'The Mission,' which is shown on al-Manar, contestants battle for points which enable them to step towards Jerusalem on a virtual map. 

Questions range from the date of the French Revolution to names of militants who carried out suicide attacks." BBC

Mubarak also said Arab opinion of the United States had grown more negative because of Washington's continuing support for Israel. 

"At the start, some believed that the Americans were helping them," Mubarak said in comments published Tuesday by French daily Le Monde. "There wasn't any hatred toward the Americans." 

"After what has happened in Iraq, there is an unprecedented hatred and the Americans know it," he added. "There exists today a hatred never equaled in the region." 

Mubarak, whose country is among the biggest beneficiaries of U.S. foreign aid, said U.S. missteps in Iraq had made the situation worse. 

"In Iraq, they said: 'We are not going to allow the creation of an Islamic state.' Result: people are attached even more to the idea of religion," Mubarak said. - from The AP

Ariel Sharon boosted Bush's plummeting popularity when he helped the U.S. president reframe our current war against the people of Iraq as a struggle against terrorism. For 37 years, Israeli governments have used that approach to justify their own occupation of the West Bank and Gaza—and it has worked to convince many Israelis to ignore evidence that it is the occupation that causes the terror and not vice versa." TomPaine.com 

At least that is what archaeologists have concluded after finding an array of tiny shells pierced with holes, as if prepared for stringing as primeval beads. The 41 pea-size shell beads were uncovered in clusters arranged by similar sizes and shades, each cluster probably representing a single piece of jewelry.

If these are indeed remains of strings of beads, the discoverers reported last week in the journal Science, they represent the oldest well-dated examples of people making and wearing jewelry. This is further evidence, they said, that these people had a language capable of sharing the symbolic meanings of these objects.

In short, people may have been thinking and acting long before it has been generally supposed. - from the NYT (reg/req)

It's a familiar tableau repeated tens of thousands of times throughout recent wars, from Vietnam and Panama to Somalia and Kosovo. The deceased's family often is looking on, and in some cases, the president. Millions bear witness through television and photographs in newspapers and magazines.

But not in the current war with Iraq.

The honor guard rituals always take place. However, for more than a year, the Bush administration has strictly enforced a ban on media outlets taking pictures of soldiers' coffins being returned to U.S. military bases on grounds that it upsets mourners.

Critics say it's part of the White House's attempt to downplay the human cost of the war, which this month alone has killed at least 99 U.S. troops. As the casualties mount, the prohibition, whose origins date to 1991, has come under renewed scrutiny. - from Newsday

One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center. In another exercise, jets performed a mock shootdown over the Atlantic Ocean of a jet supposedly laden with chemical poisons headed toward a target in the United States. In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon — but that drill was not run after Defense officials said it was unrealistic, NORAD and Defense officials say." USA Today

"I'm surprised that he is surprised because there was a lot of us who were telling him that it was going to be thus," said Zinni, a Marine for 39 years and the former commander of the U.S. Central Command. "Anyone could know the problems they were going to see. How could they not?" 

At a Pentagon news briefing yesterday, Rumsfeld said he could not have estimated how many troops would be killed in the past week. - from The San Diego Union-Tribune 

But the more than 250 sociologists, anthropologists, historians and other scholars who gathered at the University of California here on Monday for a conference on Wal-Mart came looking for more than the company's vital statistics. Like archaeologists who pick over artifacts to understand an ancient society, the scholars here were examining Wal-Mart for insights into the very nature of American capitalist culture. As Susan Strasser, a history professor at the University of Delaware, said, "Wal-Mart has come to represent something that's even bigger than it is." - from the NYT(reg/req)

Bush feared that if news got out about the Iraq plan as U.S. forces were fighting another conflict, people would think he was too eager for war, journalist Bob Woodward writes in Plan of Attack, a behind-the-scenes account of the 16 months leading to the Iraq invasion." AP

"You're sure?" Mr. Powell is quoted as asking Mr. Bush in the Oval Office on Jan. 13, 2003, as the president told him he had made the decision to go forward. "You understand the consequences," he is said to have stated in a half-question. "You know you're going to be owning this place?" - from the NYT (reg/req)

Even after warrants are approved, the FBI often doesn't have enough agents or other personnel with the expertise to conduct the surveillance. And the agency still is trying to build a cadre of translators who can understand conversations intercepted in such languages as Arabic, Pashto and Farsi." AP

At least 45 men and women were under voluntary quarantine because they had sex with the HIV-positive performers or their sex partners, said Sharon Mitchell of the nonprofit Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation.

The first performer to test positive, whom Mitchell declined to name, was 'conscientious' about having HIV tests every three weeks, she said. On Friday he tested positive for HIV and a follow-up test on Monday confirmed it, Mitchell said. 

Mitchell confirmed later Thursday that one of about a dozen women the performer had sex with in films also tested HIV-positive. 

A list of quarantined performers was placed on the Web site of the foundation, which screens about 1,200 adult movie performers a month for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases." AP

Rania al-Baz said her husband, Mohammed al-Fallatta, beat her so hard earlier this week that he broke her nose and fractured her face in 13 places.

She is recovering in hospital. Police are looking for Mr Fallatta, an unemployed singer. 

Reuters news agency says he faces charges of attempted murder. 

Ms Baz's mother told Saudi media that Mr Fallatta beat her daughter regularly. 

This time, the mother is quoted as saying, he became infuriated when Ms Baz answered the telephone. - from the BBC

"The public thinks these journalists are either lying or deluding themselves. The public believes that news organizations are operating largely to make money, and that the journalists who work for these organizations are primarily motivated by professional ambition and self-interest." - from the Boston Globe

Critics say they hear echoes of the most divisive war of the 20th century in the first war of the 21st.

Is Iraq becoming another Vietnam?" USA Today

Most dramatically, as several thousand U.S. troops pushed south this week from the Baghdad area to this new base in central Iraq, one highway bridge on their planned route was destroyed and two others were so heavily damaged that they could not be used by heavy Army trucks and armored vehicles." Washington Post 

What they didn't get were answers.

In the one-hour hybrid that was part speech and part question-and-answer session, the president parried nearly every one of the 15 questions posed by reporters with the same refrain, just worded a bit differently: The administration is staying the course in Iraq." The Hartford Courant

But since the uprising, they say, the safety situation has deteriorated throughout the country. With Westerners at risk of being kidnapped, reporters are increasingly using Iraqi staffers to do field reporting while they work by phone in well-guarded bureaus.

''It is getting worse day by day,'' says Rod Nordland, Newsweek's Baghdad bureau chief. ''We can't work on the street anymore, and in terms of just wandering, that's not doable.''

Until very recently, Nordland says that he would have agreed with the Bush administration's assessment that the violence in Iraq was mainly coming from ''a bunch of dead-enders'' who didn't want democracy to succeed.

But now, he says, the resistance to the American occupation ''is so widespread that it shows there either is a wellspring of discontent or an awful lot of Iraqis have changed their view. It's astonishing.'' - From USA Today

The independent candidate noted that the federal government is filling seats on local draft boards as preparation for a reinstatement of the draft, which was eliminated in 1973.

"The Pentagon is quietly recruiting new members to fill local draft boards, as the machinery for drafting a new generation of young Americans is being quietly put into place," Mr. Nader said in a press release sent out to constituents and posted on his Web site during the weekend. - from The Washington Times

The dispute points to one of the most difficult challenges that has plagued Web search engines: what to do when the results of a search are offensive to some, but legal?

In this case, the first listed site on a search for "Jew" is "JewWatch.com," which promotes itself as "Keeping a close watch on Jewish communities and organizations worldwide" and offering references to anti-Semitic research, documents and organizations. - From the NYT(reg/req)

'Most of the West is headed into six years of drought and some areas are looking at seven years,' said Rick Ochoa, weather program manager at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho." AP via the NYT (reg/req)

But if the White House hoped that all of this would make major newspapers spin the story their way, officials there must be sadly disappointed today. Nearly every major outlet chose to focus on the aspects of the brief that were not merely "historical," as the administraton had portrayed the document before its release.

Many newspapers ran Scott Lindlaw's Associated Press wrap-up which opened this way: "President Bush was told more than a month before the Sept. 11 attacks that al-Qaida had reached America's shores, had a support system in place for its operatives and that the FBI had detected suspicious activity that might involve a hijacking plot."  -- from Editor & Publisher

There's a method in horary astrology in which one draws a chart for the exact time, date and place one first heard a rumor or report, to determine whether it's true (and the consequences, etc.). A chart for the first time I heard this news doesn't show anyone lying at the time, nor in future, but it shows that a lie was told approximately three weeks and several days before that television interview - or around the end of February. However, at almost the same time (late February) someone told the truth. The truth was told about these things: status, prestige, death, war, secret negotiations, mutual possessions and 'personality.' A lie was told about law, internationalism, justice, co-operation, relationships and possession. I think al-Qaeda might have its hands on a nuclear bomb, or part of one, but that there is "another partner" involved, a group or person whom al-Qaeda must co-operate with, or lose the nuclear capability. We should know much more about four and a half weeks after the news, which is around April 21/22, and at the 7-and-a-half-week point, which is the week of May 9. Fire fights ice in this chart, which could mean they cannot keep the weapon cool enough, or could point to an accident (if so, it would occur just shy of four months from March 21 - or late July)." astralreflections.com

In the face of these challenges, Bush has yielded the stage, remaining largely out of sight at his Texas ranch as others in his administration explain his policies. Bush's silence in the face of mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq and concerns about the administration's timetable for transferring power to the Iraqis has brought criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike." Washington Post

In February, Gen. Martin Dempsey, who is in charge of coalition troops in Baghdad, decided that Iraqis were ready to take over some security operations in the city. He began moving US troops from forward positions in Baghdad to bases on the outskirts of the city.

But reports are coming in from around the country that Iraqi security forces are refusing to confront the new challenges head on. Analysts now say the best military solution to the rising tide of Sunni and Shiite attacks - and unexpected alliances - is a major increase in US forces." Christian Science Monitor

The spacecraft, the size of a delivery van, will try to take direct measurements of two predictions from Einstein's theory of general relativity. First, it will gauge how a massive object - Earth - warps space around it. Second, it will test for the first time whether Earth's rotation drags the fabric of space nearby, much like a top twirling on a small cloth drags the cloth into a pinwheel pattern." Christian Science Monitor

Now move this supposed scenario forward to 2004 and you have virtually a perfect fit." Salon(reg/req)

In the latest book to attack the conduct of the current United States administration, Mr Dean says that it has created potentially the most corrupt, unethical and undemocratic White House in history.

His Worse than Watergate, the Secret Presidency of George W. Bush is published this week by Little Brown.

"Bush and [Vice-President Richard] Cheney are a throwback to the Nixon time," Mr Dean, 65, told The Telegraph last night. "All government business is filtered through a political process at this White House, which is the most secretive ever to run the United States. - from The Telegraph (UK)

She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie". 

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege" - from The Independent (UK) 

In interviews with USA TODAY, veal industry officials said that calves have been fed growth hormones for decades. Officials with the Food and Drug Administration, however, say this has never been legal and the safety of this practice has not been tested."

Among the 120 largest metropolitan areas, San Antonio had the highest prevalence of binge drinking; Chattanooga, Tenn., had the lowest, according to the study by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."USA Today

At press time, an Air America spokesman said stations in Portland, Ore., and Loma Linda, Calif., might be signed up in time for launch.

The network said it expects to have a station in San Francisco one week after the debut.

Air America will also be available on XM Satellite Radio and on the Dish Network's audio programming, as well over the Web at www.airamericaradio.com.

But in the East, things are different. Traditional Chinese medicine has been used for thousands of years to treat everything from constipation to infertility using, among other things, potent mixtures of plants. And, by and large, it seems to be successful: in China there are thousands of hospitals that specialize in traditional health care and business is booming. 

Now, the West's powerful drugs industry wants in on the action." The Guardian (UK)

The report forecasts there will be nearly 9.1 billion people by 2050, a nearly 50% increase from the 6.2 billion in 2002. However, the growth rate is slowing significantly." AP

But something remarkable has been happening lately: more and more insiders are finding the courage to reveal the truth on issues ranging from mercury pollution — yes, Virginia, polluters do write the regulations these days, and never mind the science — to the war on terror. PAUL KRUGMAN writes in the NYT (reg/req)

In the Middle Ages, human dissections were forbidden. In 17th century Europe, medical school dissections were open to the public and often attracted unruly crowds cracking obscene jokes. By the 20th century, dissection had become the exclusive purview of scientists and a mandatory rite of passage for all doctors...

Now, though, the place of dissection in medical education is changing in ways that have not been seen before.

The hours devoted to formal anatomy training are sharply down in medical schools. Anatomy instructors are in short supply. Computerized scans and three-dimensional recreations of the human body provide cleaner, more colorful teaching tools than the time-consuming dissections of the past.

Some educators say that dissection, as taught to medical students since the Renaissance, is on its way out. Others maintain it is becoming more important than ever, not only for teaching the structure of the human body but also for the more subtle lessons it can impart on the meaning of being a doctor. From the NYT (reg/req)

The soldiers, members of a military police unit, were charged with a range of crimes, including conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault and indecent acts with another person. The military said about 20 detainees were involved." AP

One Arab journalist stood up as soon as Mr Powell walked into the room at the Baghdad convention center and read a statement saying that after one year of "US occupation," Americans cannot provide security in Iraq.

"We demand an open investigation in front of the mass media," the Arab journalist said. "We also demand that security be guaranteed to journalists" working in Iraq, he said.

Seconds later, more than 20 journalists walked out of the room. From the Independent (UK)

There is a sharp and growing disconnect between the views of Americans and people who live in other countries, the poll shows." USA Today

The discovery of red and shiny Sedna, a 'planetoid' of rock and ice between 800 miles and 1,100 miles in diameter, or about three-quarters the size of Pluto, was announced by Mike Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology who led the NASA-funded team that found it." AP

The tactics include setting multiple charges along convoy routes, disguising bombs inside animal carcasses and planting hollow artillery shells to draw troops into an ambush, they said." NYT(reg/req)

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is adamant that he will not ask Congress to authorize a draft, and officials at the Selective Service System, the independent federal agency that would organize any conscription, stress that the possibility of a so-called "special skills draft" is remote.

Nonetheless, the agency has begun the process of creating the procedures and policies to conduct such a targeted draft in case military officials ask Congress to authorize it and the lawmakers agree to such a request. -- from the SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

"It has been irresistible for policymakers to use threats of WMD as powerful tools of public persuasion and as forceful rationales for policy initiatives," writes Susan D. Moeller, the University of Maryland journalism professor who led the study. "It has been equally irresistible for the media to report both the doomsayer arguments and the defense and security arguments verbatim." From the Baltimore Sun

The suits by America Online, Earthlink Inc. Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. target what their lawyers called some of the largest spam operations, accounting for hundreds of millions of e-mails hitting their networks every month." The Washington Post

Officials said the Hubble image contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies, and astronomers around the world will now search in this field of view for the most distant objects known. 

Steven V. W. Beckwith, director of the institute, said the long-duration exposure by the orbiting space telescope collected light that has been streaking through space for more than 13 billion years and started its journey when the universe was only 5% of its present age, believed to be about 13.7 billion years. 

'For the first time, we're looking back at stars that are forming out of the depths of the Big Bang,' Beckwith said. 'We're seeing the youngest stars within a stone's throw of the beginning of the universe.'

The images were collected by focusing the Hubble's instruments at a single point in the sky for 1 million seconds, an exposure that took more than 400 orbits of the space telescope. 

Beckwith said finding the faintest objects in the long-term exposure, called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, is like trying to collect the light from a firefly hovering over the moon. 

The images were collected over four months starting last September." From the AP

Ivan Rogers, Mr Blair's principal private secretary, told Sir David King, the Prime Minister's chief scientist, to limit his contact with the media after he made outspoken comments about President George Bush's policy on climate change.

In January, Sir David wrote a scathing article in the American journal Science attacking Washington for failing to take climate change seriously. "In my view, climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism," he wrote. From The Independent (UK)

The speech by Mr. Kennedy to the Council on Foreign Relations was the most detailed Democratic assault to date on the issue. He has played a high-profile role in Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign, and the tone and timing of his remarks suggested that Democrats see merit in opening a new election-year challenge on the issue of Mr. Bush's credibility.

Mr. Kennedy accused the president of resorting to "pure, unadulterated fear-mongering, based on a devious strategy to convince the American people that Saddam's ability to provide nuclear weapons to Al Qaeda justified immediate war." From the NYT(reg/req)