Source: AFP COPENHAGEN (AFP) - Dozens of massacred narwhals, an Arctic whale with a single long tusk, have been discovered on the east coast of Greenland in what local police said Thursday could be a case of poaching. "We received a complaint that there may have been a possible violation of the Greenlandic law regarding the protection of narwhals, after the discovery of cadavers in Illoqqortoormiut," the deputy chief of Greenland police Morten Nielsen told AFP. A scientific expedition from Ne...

Source: Reuters Families of Nepalese workers killed in Iraq sue KBR By Gina Keating LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - KBR Inc and its Jordanian contractor are being sued for human trafficking by a Nepalese survivor and the families of 12 other employees who were killed while being transported, allegedly against their will, to work in a U.S. military base in Iraq. The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, says military contractor KBR and Daoud & Partners recruited the men in Nepal by promising them jobs at a ...

Global warming time bomb trapped in Arctic soil: study PARIS, Aug 24 (AFP) Aug 24, 2008 Climate change could release unexpectedly huge stores of carbon dioxide from Arctic soils, which would in turn fuel a vicious circle of global warming, a new study warned Sunday. And according to one commentary on the research, current models of climate change have not taken this extra source of greenhouse gas into account. Scientists have long known that organic carbon trapped inside a blanket of frozen p...

Source: Reuters Ivory Poachers Decimate Congo Elephant Population Story by Joe Bavier KINSHASA - Poachers in Congo have killed a fifth of the elephants in Africa's oldest national park this year as China buys more ivory, the park's director said on Friday. Rwandan rebels have killed seven Savannah elephants in the past 10 days alone in the Virunga National Park, along Congo's eastern border with Rwanda and Uganda, Emmanuel de Merode told Reuters. "We've definitely lost 20 percent of th...

Source: Seattle Times Washington - The Bush administration Monday proposed scaling back protected zones for endangered whales in the Atlantic Ocean, yielding to cargo companies' concerns about new speed limits for ships in these areas. The proposal, unveiled Monday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, could end more than a year of wrangling between federal fisheries scientists and the White House over new measures to protect the North Atlantic right whale. About 300 of the ...

Source: Reuters BAGHDAD, Aug 17 (Reuters) - The Iraqi government is likely to abandon plans to sign short-term contracts with foreign oil companies, negotiations over which have been halting, a senior U.S. diplomat in Baghdad said on Sunday. "It appears that on present form (the Iraqi government) probably won't proceed with most of these or all of them," Charles Ries, coordinator for Iraq's economic transition at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, told reporters. "But I think that some of the compa...

Source: Gulf Daily News BAGHDAD: Iraq yesterday said it reserves the right to try six guards working for private security firm Blackwater USA for their alleged role in the killing of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad last year. "There is information that half a dozen Blackwater guards who have been accused of shooting and killing 17 Iraqis are to be tried in Washington," government spokesman said. "The Iraqi government stresses its rights and that Blackwater guards have committed crimes against Iraqi vict...

Source: Reuters NEW YORK, Aug 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. military must charge or immediately release a Reuters cameraman detained in Iraq, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Monday. Ali al-Mashhadani, who also works freelance for the BBC and Washington-based National Public Radio, was detained in Baghdad on July 26 while he was in the Green Zone government compound for routine checks for a U.S. military press card. U.S. forces have detained Mashhadani before. No charge has ever been fil...

Source: BBC Olympic official have denied agreeing to curbs on internet access for foreign journalists covering the Beijing Games. Reporters found a number of politically sensitive websites blocked earlier this week, and some senior Olympic officials said they had been aware of it. But International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge said that there had been "no deal to accept restrictions" on access. ... "I am adamant in saying there has been no deal whatsoever to accept restri...

Source: Associated Press JASPER, Ind. (AP) — The Indiana National Guard is notifying nearly 600 soldiers who served in Iraq that they may have drunk water tainted with a carcinogen at an Iraqi treatment plant. During a U.S. Senate hearing in June, senators learned that sodium dichromate — a cancer-causing chemical that can also cause breathing problems — was used at the Qarmat Ali water plant near Basra, Iraq. Guard spokeswoman Lt. Col. Deedra Thombleson told The Herald of Jasper on Monday th...

Source: Associated Press US admits soldiers killed innocent Iraqis By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD - The U.S. military admitted Sunday that American soldiers killed innocent civilians after opening fire on a car last month on the heavily secured Baghdad airport road. The statement — which called the man and two women killed "law abiding citizens of Iraq" — reversed earlier military claims that they were suspected militants who shot at a parked American convoy. The militar...

Source: AFP BAGHDAD (AFP) - Gunmen shot dead a group of seven pilgrims who were walking to a holy Shiite shrine in the Iraqi capital on Sunday, police and a doctor said. Pilgrims are flooding into Baghdad for one of Shiite Islam's key religious festivals that will on Tuesday commemorate revered imam Mussa Kadhim who died 12 centuries ago. Up to a million pilgrims are expected for the festivities prompting authorities to step up security amid concerns over attacks. In Sunday's attack the men...

Source: Reuters WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A group of New Zealand students has come up with a novel way of protesting against a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, offering a cash reward for her "arrest" over U.S. actions in Iraq. The Auckland University Students' Association has offered NZ$5,000 ($3,700) for any student making a citizen's arrest of Rice during her 36-hour stay that starts later on Friday. "It's primarily symbolic, but it's a protest against her actions as secret...

Source: CNN Gays in Iraq terrorized by threats, rape, murder By Frederik Pleitgen, Mohammed Tawfeeq and Wayne Drash Editor's note: CNN agreed to change the names of the two men in this article to protect their identities. BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Kamal was just 16 when gunmen snatched him off the streets of Baghdad, stuffed him in the trunk of a car and whisked him away to a house. But the real terror was about to begin. The men realized he was gay, Kamal said, when he took his shirt off and ...

Source: AFP WASHINGTON (AFP) - Four US soldiers have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the deaths of several detainees in Iraq in early 2007, the US Army said Wednesday. The soldiers were charged in Grafenwoehr, Germany where they are currently serving in the 172nd Infantry Brigade, the army said in a statement. "The soldiers were charged with conspiracy to commit premeditated murder," the statement said. "The charges relate to an incident that occurred during...

Source: Xinhua BAGHDAD, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi police Tuesday said gunmen have shot dead a Kurdish journalist working for a local magazine in the city of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of Baghdad. Unknown armed men gunned down Soran Mama Hama, 23, reporter for the Kurdish-language magazine Leven, on Monday night in front of his house in the al-Shorja district in central Kirkuk, a source from the city police told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Meanwhile, Ziyad al-Ajili, head of the Journali...

Source: Associated Press Female soldiers raise alarm on sexual assaults Pentagon responses include new trauma ward, prevention strategy By Kimberly Hefling YORK, Pa. - It took Diane Pickel Plappert six months to tell a counselor that she had been raped while on duty in Iraq. While time passed, the former Navy nurse disconnected from her children and her life slowly unraveled. Carolyn Schapper says she was harassed in Iraq by a fellow Army National Guard soldier to the extent that she began c...

Source: The Herald Thousands of former UK troops now mercenaries in Iraq IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent July 21 2008 Thousands of former British soldiers have signed up as mercenaries in Iraq since 2003, lured by the prospect of a tax-free £250 a day offered by "private military companies" making billions from the booming security industry. A four-man ex-SAS team in Baghdad can command £2500 a day and live in the plushest villas in the most exclusive section of the Iraqi capital. The UN ...

Source: KUNA BAGHDAD, July 20 (KUNA) -- US soldiers killed Sunday the son and nephew of an Iraqi governor during an operation in Tikrit, an official said. Deputy Governor of Salahiddin Abdullah Jebara told KUNA US forces broke into the home of the sister of Governor Hamad Al-Kashti and killed the two teenagers. He added that the two boys, who died of direct gunfire, did not have any weapons on them. The names of the owner of the house was similar to the name of a wanted person, he pointed ou...

Source: Associated Press Cases against Iraq IG, deputy, end without charges By LARA JAKES JORDAN WASHINGTON (AP) — The government has cleared the top U.S. watchdog of Iraq reconstruction projects and his deputy of fraud and abuse allegations lodged by former employees, officials said Wednesday. On July 3, federal prosecutors alerted the office of Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen that a grand jury declined to indict him or deputy Ginger Cruz. Last week, on July ...

Source: McClatchy Newspapers Al Douri, a voice from Saddam regime, supposedly surfaces By Nancy A. Youssef and Sahar Issa | McClatchy Newspapers BAGHDAD — Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, Iraq's former military commander and vice president who has eluded capture since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, released a purported audio message for the first time since the fall of the regime, telling President Bush this would be a "decisive year "and vowing to continue fighting American forces. Al Douri...

Source: McClatchy Newspapers Bush officials' 'lack of recall' thwarted Tillman, Lynch probe By Mark Seibel WASHINGTON — A congressional investigation has failed to determine whether the Bush administration attempted to build support for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by deliberately misrepresenting the details of the friendly fire death of former NFL player Patrick Tillman and the capture of Jessica Lynch in the first days of the Iraq invasion. In a report released Monday, the House Committ...

'Standup soldier' who killed Iraqi journalist had troubled past Russell Carollo | Sacramento Bee last updated: July 14, 2008 05:52:38 PM Dr. Yasser Salihee's body lay in his compact car on a busy Baghdad street for everyone to see. The doctor, employed as a journalist by the now defunct Knight-Ridder Newspapers group, had been shot by an American soldier who claimed that Salihee refused to slow down and who believed he presented a threat. Though the details are disputed, the results were not...

Pre-service crimes often go uncited when vets claim PTSD By Russell Carollo | Sacramento Bee Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones saw the horrors of the Iraq war firsthand, including the site where his fellow Marines allegedly killed 24 women, children and other civilians at Haditha. So when he returned to Kings County, Calif., got drunk and drove a stolen pickup into someone’s living room, family and friends blamed the psychological effects of war, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). His cri...

Source: AFP MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) - Four shepherds were shot dead on Monday near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police said. Unidentified gunmen killed the four outside Mosul, a mixed city 370 kilometres (230 miles) north of Baghdad which the US military says is the last urban bastion of Al-Qaeda militants in the violence-wracked country. Read more: (Link)

Source: CNN BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — A traffic police officer was among three people killed in central Baghdad on Monday when a grenade was tossed at a crowd of officers, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said. The police officers were gathered at an intersection when the explosive was hurled from a speeding car. Thirteen people were wounded, including four traffic police officers, the official said. Read more: (Link)/

Source: Sacramento Bee Suspect soldiers: Did crimes in U.S. foretell violence in Iraq? By Russell Carollo | Sacramento Bee Before Army Sgt. 1st Class Randal Ruby was accused in Iraq of beating prisoners and of conspiring to plant rifles on dead civilians, he amassed a 10-year criminal record in Colordao and Washington state for assaulting his wife and in Maine for a drunken high-speed police chase, for which he remains wanted. Before Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes stabbed an Iraqi private to de...

Source: Fort Worth Star Telegram Fort Worth dad deploying to country that took his son By CHRIS VAUGHN FORT WORTH — In a few days, Francisco Martinez will land in Iraq. He is one of tens of thousands of men and women who, with various motivations, enlisted in the armed forces, knowing that they’d someday end up there. For Martinez, Iraq is a kind of perdition, a receptacle for all the dark emotions, anguish and guilt that have buffeted him for the last three years. When Martinez steps off...

Source: AFP WASHINGTON (AFP) — The biggest US military contractor in Iraq, KBR, was steeped in another scandal Friday as lawmakers, families and experts accused it of recklessly causing the electrocution deaths of US soldiers. "While I had always been prepared to hear that one of my sons died by way of a firefight or a roadside bomb, I was dumbstruck to hear that my son was electrocuted while taking a shower in his living quarters," said Cheryl Harris, mother of army Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth...

Source: Associated Press 2 kidnapped U.S. soldiers found dead in Iraqi desert By Nancy A. Youssef and Sahar al-Issa | McClatchy Newspapers BAGHDAD — The remains of two U.S. soldiers kidnapped during a military patrol last year were found after a U.S.-captured suspect led soldiers to their location, the Pentagon announced Friday. Spc. Alex R. Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, Mass., and Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Mich., members of the 10th Mountain Division based at Fort Drum, N.Y., were...