A former Iranian president speaks of reconciliation with the U.S.:
Iran's former president expressed support Saturday for holding a referendum on restoring ties with the United States, marking a significant shift as his fellow hard-liners nervously watch U.S.-led forces take control of neighboring Iraq.
Hashemi Rafsanjani has openly sided with hard-liners since stepping down as president in 1997 and still heads a powerful body advising Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Rafsanjani is the highest-ranking official to suggest the referendum idea, and he appeared to be floating a trial balloon to gauge the reaction of his hard-line allies.

Scenes from Baghdad and Kirkuk:
In Kirkuk, another northern city taken this week from Iraqi regime forces, there were signs of cooperation Saturday among the region's different ethnic groups. The Arab television network Al-Jazeera reported an agreement to form a local administrative body divided evenly among Arabs, Kurds and ethnic Turks.
The threat of suicide attacks appeared ever more potent. Marines showed reporters a cache of about 50 explosives-laden suicide-bomb vests in an elementary school in Baghdad, less than 20 feet from the nearest home.
At a nearby junior high school, seven classrooms were filled with hundreds of crates of grenade launchers, surface-to-air missiles and ammunition. Residents said Iraqi soldiers and militiamen had positioned weaponry throughout the neighborhood before U.S. forces moved in.
U.S. forces reopened two strategic bridges in the heart of Baghdad — giving looters easier access to territory that had previously been spared. U.S. soldiers watched but did not intervene as plunderers swarmed into several government buildings and emerged with bookshelves, sofas and computers.
In another Baghdad neighborhood, residents complained that U.S. soldiers thus far have not heeded requests to clear cluster bombs dropped during the war. The residents said three people had been killed and one injured trying to pick up the unexploded ordnance.

The State Department reacts to a statement from North Korea:
"We noted the statement with interest, and we expect to follow up through appropriate diplomatic channels," said State Department spokesman Philip Reeker.
The State Department was responding to a statement in which North Korea said it would consider any form of dialogue with the United States about its suspected nuclear arms ambitions if Washington made a "bold switchover" in its policy toward Pyongyang.

It's easy to be dismissive of Donald Rumsfeld's press conference today, as he seemed to take in stride the lawlessness in Baghdad and much of the rest of Iraq, especially when he said, "While no one condones looting, on the other hand, one can understand the pent-up feelings that may result from decades of repression." But, Rumsfeld's comments on the looting in Baghdad and elsewhere point out an interesting problem for Iraq. Iraqis have spent many years under a lawless regime, where the state itself was criminal and devoted mostly to brutalizing, killing and impoverishing its citizens. Iraqis had no power, and very little freedom, while the state had absolute power and expansive freedom to mistreat its citizens. As Rumsfeld said, it's no surprise that, when Iraqis are freed from that criminal regime, some of their first actions are criminal ones of looting, rioting and murder in the streets. And, quite possibly, the looting and murder is a force of habit picked up from the Ba'ath regime, which taught Iraqis the law of the gun-with Saddam Hussein out of power, there's an instinctive attempt to pick up the slack from the security forces and execution squads that were carrying out violence of all kinds against Iraqis. The challenge now, for the U.S. and others, but mostly for Iraq's citizens, is to develop a government which is law-abiding and obeys restrictions on its power, and can therefore be relied upon to respect the inherent freedoms of Iraq's citizens. If that does not happen, this war to depose Saddam Hussein will have failed.

Rumsfeld said today that Iraqis haven't been free to commit crimes under the Ba'ath party regime-that was because the state committed the crimes, and when private citizens were convicted of crimes, the state dealt out fearsome punishments, perhaps out of jealousy and indignation. After all, didn't the state establish a monopoly in crime, to be protected without mercy, just like the mob families intimidate and murder those who encroach on their home turf? When private citizens commit crimes, they can be controlled and punished within well-defined boundaries of justice-"the rule of law." This is what Rumsfeld referred to when he said Iraqis are now free to commit crimes-when he said, "Freedom's untidy. And free people are free to commit mistakes, and to commit crimes." The citizenry of Iraq no longer fears horrible punishments for the crimes it is convicted of by a lawless judicial system. But, when the state is criminal by its very nature, as in Iraq and North Korea, it cannot be bound by anything, and either a revolution from within or the use of force by an exterior power is required to destroy the criminals who control the country.

Australia pursues its economic interests in Iraq:
The unloading of Australian wheat in Kuwait this week was not only genuinely good news for hungry Iraqis.
It was a positive sign for Australia's efforts to participate in the reconstruction of Iraq.
The Prime Minister, John Howard, said the Government would proceed "with a very clear eye to Iraq's long term future, but also to our own national interest in terms of peace and security and of commercial interests".
The US lobby group, US Wheat Associates, publishes regular criticism of the Australian Wheat Board on its website, with current comments being about "the wheat contract they have with Saddam's regime" and "folks at the AWB ... with mercantilism on their minds during this most dangerous time".
The Minister for Agriculture, Warren Truss, was sending a different type of message to Washington.
"We have been concerned about the US's use of a mixture of aid and commercial services to break into new markets," he said. "We would expect the US to respect the market that we have in Iraq."

Details on the U.S. temporary takeover of Iraq's oil industry:
The United States plans to run Iraq's oil industry until an Iraqi interim authority can be formed to take it over, sources familiar with the evolving plan said today.
The Defence Department is considering putting in place an advisory board of former US oil industry executives to help run Iraq's oil industry, the head of which is likely to be Philip Carroll, a former chief executive of Shell Oil Co, sources said.

The G7 is meeting in Washington, D.C., this weekend to discuss Iraq:
As evidence grows that Iraq needs massive humanitarian aid quickly and help simply establishing law and order, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday it was vital the UN take the lead in crisis management.
"We stand for the fastest return of this issue to the framework of the United Nations," Putin said after talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in St. Petersburg. The two were later scheduled to meet French President Jacques Chirac, who, like them, stood against the U.S.-led war on Iraq.
Schroeder put it more bluntly. "Germany will participate in the reconstruction of Iraq only if the United Nations is involved," he said.

The U.S. responds to the friction between India and Pakistan:
Top Bush administration officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell or his deputy Richard Armitage, will be coming to South Asia possibly within the next fortnight amid growing concern in Washington that the situation in the region is taking a turn for the worse.
Following frantic inquiries by the Bush administration, New Delhi has clarified that the statements were more rhetorical in nature, but at the same time made it known to Washington that increasing public pressure on an India's elected representatives would make it difficult for the government not to take action on infiltrations and violence inspired by Pakistan.

Another scene from Baghdad:
"Is this your liberation?" one frustrated shopkeeper screamed at the crew of a US tank as a gang of youths helped themselves to everything in his small hardware store and carted booty off in the wheelbarrows that had also been on sale.
"Hell, it ain't my job to stop them," drawled one young marine, lighting a cigarette as he looked on. "Goddamn Iraqis will steal anything if you let them. Look at them."
Near the airport, volunteers wearing face masks and rubber gloves used shovels to scrape human remains from the burnt-out wrecks of cars, trucks and buses, just metres (yards) away from US forces and their tanks.
With no possibility of identification, corpses were being buried in shallow graves on the roadside.
"This is going to cause a major problem for sanitation and the water system," a US army engineer officer told Reuters.

A report from Kirkuk:
Turkey expressed alarm at the chaotic entry of hundreds of peshmerga into Kirkuk on Thursday, fearing Iraqi Kurds could use the city's wealth to finance an independent state and stimulate separatist demands among its own Kurdish minority.
More buildings of the ruling Iraqi Baathist party were looted and at least one was set ablaze on Friday as children and families searched rubble left by vandalism and U.S. bombing.
A supermarket in central Kirkuk still smoldered and a party administration office was completely gutted by fire.
At the airport, people searched abandoned Iraqi bunker positions and barracks, carting away anything from bedding to guns. Several groups of peshmerga could be seen taking away cartons of ammunition.

Turkey responds to the Kurdish movements into Kirkuk and Mosul:
Turkey sent military observers to northern Iraq following the Kurdish capture of Kirkuk and Mosul, amid accusations the United States broke its promises to Ankara to keep Kurds out of the key oil-rich towns.
Ankara fears that taking control of local oil resources could embolden Iraqi Kurds to move towards independence, a prospect that could rekindle a separatist Kurdish rebellion in adjoining southeastern Turkey.
Kurdish fighters who poured into the other regional oil capital, Mosul, early Friday will also withdraw "in the shortest possible time," Gul said, speaking of US "guarantees" given to Ankara.
Turkish officials had said that US Secretary of State Colin Powell promised during a visit here last week that the Kurds would not be allowed to go "beyond a certain line" around Kirkuk and Mosul.

Paul Wolfowitz discusses Chalabi and issues a warning:
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, one of Chalabi's allies in the Bush administration, said the leader of the Iraqi National Congress had unilaterally drawn a crowd of 10,000 to a rally in the southern town of Nassiriya and had had a calming influence on the local population there.
Wolfowitz said: "We are ... not trying to anoint him or anyone else as the future leader of Iraq.
"You can't talk about democracy and then go around and say we are going to pick the leaders. We are not singling him out and we are a little puzzled at press commentary that suggests that we are singling him out.
"The Syrians have been shipping killers into Iraq to try to kill Americans. We don't welcome that. We've stopped it when we've found those people, so it is a problem.
"I think it is important that Iraq's neighbors not meddle with Iraq."

More details of the scene in Baghdad:
Taking the law into their own hands, Baghdad residents blockaded streets and beat up looters Friday as disorder spread in the Iraqi capital. The United States said the military does not intend to act as a police force.
Four civilians were shot and killed by U.S. troops wary of suicide attacks at Baghdad checkpoints, and a 5-year-old girl was wounded.
The Ministries of Education and Industry, both in the heart of Baghdad, were looted and set on fire, sending dark smoke over the city. The Foreign and Information Ministries and the Baath Party headquarters were sacked along with the city's engineering and nursing colleges.
In Saddam City, a Baghdad slum dominated by Shiite Muslims and named after the Sunni Muslim leader they despised, mosque minarets blared appeals for people to stop looting and destroying their city. Some heeded the clerics' calls and brought stolen goods to mosques for safekeeping.

The NY Times offers some information on the Halliburton subsidiary currently fighting oil fires in Iraq:
Since the attacks of Sept. 11, Kellogg Brown & Root has won significant additional business from the federal government and the Pentagon. It has built cells for detainees at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and is the exclusive logistics supplier for the Navy and the Army, providing services like cooking, construction, power generation and fuel transportation.

The NY Times reports on events in western Iraq:
Out of sight of television cameras, some of the heaviest fighting in Iraq has been raging for nearly three weeks near the town of Qaim on the Syrian border, where American Green Berets and British commandos have been attacking units of Iraq's Special Republican Guard and Special Security Services, according to senior military and defense officials.
The Iraqi forces in the area, near the Euphrates River and alongside a rail line, have been defending a large compound that includes phosphate fertilizer and water treatment plants. American officials say the sheer tenacity of the Iraqi fighters has led them to suspect that they may be defending Scud missiles or other illicit weapons.

The looting may be ending in Baghdad:
The illegal Iraqi "sale of the century," at which looters swiped booty of all makes, models, shapes and sizes from buildings across Baghdad, has prompted orders for US Marines to crack down on thieves.
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Belcher, commander of the Marines' 3rd Battalion, said his goal was to protect government infrastructure, hospitals and other aid stations. Commanders were told to use their discretion.
"When I came down here earlier, I said, 'They're taking everything but the kitchen sink'," said US Marine Staff Sergeant John Kelley, 29, who then spied another looter.
"Ah," Kelley noted, "he's got a sink."
In the north, looters swarmed the oil city of Kirkuk after Kurdish guerrilla fighters entered the city Thursday and Saddam's Baath Party loyalists fled. Kurdish residents targeted government sites, cleaning out the post office, stealing reinforced safes and bashing them with hammers in the streets.

Basra responds to its interim leader:
Today, Sheik Muzahim Mustafa Kanan Tameemi went public, meeting with a council of about 30 local leaders designated to start running the city. Tameemi, a former brigadier general in the army of Saddam Hussein and a onetime member of Hussein's ruling Baath Party, was considered sufficiently anti-Hussein by British officials for the post.
But the announcement today was greeted by political tumult. A rival tribe nearly rioted, throwing stones at Tameemi's home in the Basra suburb of Zubair. In a poor slum neighborhood of the city, there was a protest march of Shiite Muslims sympathetic to Iran.
The controversy that erupted over Tameemi's appointment reflected the historical enmity between the majority Shiite Muslims and the Sunni minority that dominated Hussein's government, and rivalry among tribes whose power has grown in recent years under Hussein.

The Asahi Shimbun reports on Japan's role in rebuilding Iraq:
The U.S. government has asked Tokyo to provide advisers for a caretaker administration to be set up in postwar Iraq, sources here said Tuesday.
U.S. officials have made similar overtures to a number of countries, including Australia, the sources said.
Japan's response depends on what role the United Nations plays in the reconstruction process, according to government sources in Tokyo.
Asked to comment by reporters Wednesday on the U.S. request, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said, ``If I am asked whether there is such a request now, I must say that the Japanese government has not received such a request.''

Canadian Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister John Manley says, about Canada's involvement in rebuilding Iraq:
"I think we have to be prepared to play our role in the world and sometimes that means foreign aid as it’s going to mean in Iraq and as it’s meant in Afghanistan. Sometimes it means military capability. It was one of the reasons I felt we needed to be rebuilding and we made an important start in the budget, not because we want to go fight in every war that might come along.
"I think that we have absolutely got to be seen by the United States as worthy partners in continental security because otherwise they will build their own perimeter fence and we’ll be outside it. We can’t afford to do that."

Newsday reports on the return from exile of Shi'ite clerics to Najaf:
In a preview of the jostling for power in postwar Iraq, leading Shiite exiles are racing to Najaf. Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, who has lived in Iran for 23 years, plans to return to Najaf within days. Another leading cleric, Ayatollah Abdul Majid al-Khoei, has already returned and is organising his followers.
As an ally of Iran, Ayatollah al-Hakim has had a testy relationship with the Bush Administration. Ayatollah al-Khoei has a better relationship with the US, and his quick return to Najaf - with American assistance - could be part of a Bush Administration effort to draw support away from Ayatollah al-Hakim.

The AP reports some Arab fighters are returning home from Iraq:
But with the fall of Baghdad and the disappearance of the Iraqi leadership, some volunteers are returning home, disillusioned and angry at the failure of their Jihad, or holy war.
"We volunteered to defend Baghdad," said Firas Ali Abdullah, who returned to Syria with seven other Syrians and Lebanese yesterday.
"Instead of giving us weapons to fight, they used us as human shields."
Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera reported that even the Iraqis were trying to talk the Arabs into giving up the fight. One rumour suggested that, as Abdullah said, the Iraqis were using violence to convince them.
The network reported that Arab volunteers had withdrawn from Mosul, northern Iraq, following the departure of their leaders.

Colin Powell explains what "vital role" means:
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that the U.S. military will select emerging leaders in postwar Iraq to help create a new interim Iraqi authority to replace Saddam Hussein, but the United Nations will not play a leading role in the political transformation.
"The suggestion that some of my colleagues would give that now that the coalition has done all of this and liberated Iraq, thank you very much, step aside and the Security Council is now going to become responsible for everything, is incorrect. And they know it. And they were told it," Powell said.
Despite strong warnings from European allies about the need for U.N. involvement in all aspects of post-war Iraq, Powell forcefully rejected the prospects of a U.N. supervisory role in the political process during the transition. The U.N. role should instead focus largely on humanitarian aid and reconstruction issues, he said.

The AP takes the pulse of Basra's populus:
While most people interviewed here seemed short on concrete ideas of how to run Basra, one demand was constant: the new leadership should be comprised of civilians and be representative of the population.
Basra is overwhelmingly Shiite Muslim, Iraq's majority sect, whereas Saddam and other senior regime leaders are Sunni Muslim.
For some, a "tribal" government has a nasty sound to it.

North Korea continues to respond to the Iraq war:
"The Iraqi war launched by the U.S. pre-emptive attack clearly proves that a war can be prevented and the security of the country and the nation can be ensured only when one has physical deterrent force," said KCNA, the North's state-run news agency. It did not specifically refer to nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
"The U.N. Security Council discussion of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula itself is a prelude to war," said North Korea's Pyongyang Radio. North Korea has issued similar warnings in the past, and belligerence is a trademark of its statements.

News of a disturbance at the U.S. Embassy in Algiers:
A guard at the U.S. Embassy in Algiers fired his handgun into the air several times Saturday before he was overpowered by other guards, the country's official news agency reported. No one was hurt.
The guard, identified only as Mesaoud B., an Algerian national, was turned over to security forces and sent for psychological testing, APS reported, citing sources in the North African nation's security service.
There was no immediate explanation for his actions and no one at the embassy was available to comment after office hours.

The S.F. Chronicle asks what's next for the peace activists:
Peace activists say they aren't being derailed by polls showing their support fading, or by televised images of cheering Iraqis greeting invading U. S. soldiers and dragging the severed head of a Saddam Hussein statue through Baghdad.
Instead, they're altering their message: They still want the U.S. military to pull out of Iraq, but now they're calling for the United Nations or a neutral third party to handle Iraq's transition to a democracy.

The Chronicle adds that many activists "acknowledge privately that the movement has lost numbers in recent weeks, and worry that Americans don't see it as relevant with the Pentagon apparently about to win a war that is popular in the United States."

The NY Times reports from western Iraq:
The few Iraqis near this border post a long and dusty 580 kilometers west of Baghdad did not quite seem know how to think or act today. Order, imposed to the point of cruelty, was the hallmark of Mr. Hussein's rule, and for whatever else one might say about him, Iraq worked well.
Since the war began, little has been known about the military operations in the western desert. Perhaps several thousand special forces troops, including Americans, British, and Australians, took control of at least one air field, some 35 miles to the east, and have been conducting searches for Scud missiles or other weapons of mass destruction in the vast stretches of desert. So far, none have been found.

A report on the new, Allied-controlled TV network in Iraq:
Moving their propaganda strategy into high gear as the war entered its endgame, London and Washington said a new Arabic TV network called Nahwa Al-Hurrieh or "Toward Freedom" would begin broadcasting into Iraq during the afternoon there.
London said the station would broadcast for one hour a day from a U.S. Air Force plane flying over the country, providing news and "coalition public service announcements."

Protest of the Palestine Hotel attack continues:
Representatives of editors in 115 countries have written to Donald Rumsfeld to condemn the "inexcusable" and "reckless" American attack on a hotel in Baghdad, which left two journalists dead and several injured.
Johann Fritz, the director of the Vienna-based International Press Institute and vice chairman Richard Tait, a former ITN editor-in-chief, told the US defence secretary that the IPI believed the US could have been in breach of the Geneva conventions when one of its tanks opened fire on the Palestine Hotel.

The AP reports on the mob killing of two senior Shi'ite clerics:
A crowd rushed and hacked to death two Shiite Muslim clerics — one a Saddam Hussein loyalist, the other a returning exile who had urged support for U.S. troops — during a meeting meant to forge reconciliation at one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines, witnesses said.

The scene in Baghdad:
Iraqi looters carted off bottles of wine and whisky, guns and paintings of half-naked women on Thursday from the luxury home of Uday, the playboy son of Saddam Hussein.
Gangs of looters, many of them armed, have roamed the streets of Baghdad since Saddam's power crumbled, ransacking the homes of his inner circle as well as offices and the homes of ordinary Iraqis.
The whereabouts of Saddam, his two sons and his associates remains a mystery.

Kirkuk has apparently fallen to the Kurds:
In the north, hundreds of Kurdish guerrillas moved largely unopposed into Kirkuk, a move that sparked celebrations in the streets but alarm in Turkey. Iraqi Kurds consider the city, source of 40 percent of Iraq's oil revenue, their capital. Turkomans claim it as theirs.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Washington had assured Ankara U.S. forces would remove Kurdish fighters from the city.
The White House said U.S. forces will take control of Iraq's Kirkuk region.

The NYPD says it has destroyed a political database:
New York police admitted on Thursday to compiling and then destroying a database of people arrested during anti-war protests, but rights groups decried the practice as an erosion of civil liberties in the name of the U.S. war on terrorism.
The practice ended after pressure from the New York Civil Liberties Union, which received complaints from demonstrators that they felt coerced and that their constitutional rights of free speech and free association were being violated.
Thursday's disclosure came just weeks after a judge cited "fundamental changes in the threats to public security" in lifting decades-long restrictions on the New York Police Department's ability to spy on political groups.

Iran reacts to events in Baghdad:
"The fall of Saddam is the happiest day for the Iranians", Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a close ally of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, told AFP.
While many Iranians fear the threat of US forces just next door, others welcome it as a means of pressure on the Islamic regime to make a number of fundamental changes to appease the United States.
"They tell us that Syria is the next target, but according to our reports Iran could well follow," Khatami was quoted as saying at a closed-door meeting of government officials and members of parliament.

Hans Blix states his opinion of the weapons inspection process:
The invasion of Iraq was planned a long time in advance, and the United States and Britain were not primarily concerned with finding any banned weapons of mass destruction, the chief UN weapons inspector , Hans Blix, said in an interview on Wednesday.
"There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the (weapons) inspections," Mr Blix told a Spanish daily, El Pais.

AFP reports from Basra:
With no police or government to speak of and its basic infrastructure battered by war, the southern Iraqi city of Basra is sinking into anarchy, with rampant looting, murders and petty crime.
"We're getting patients who were hurt in the looting, stabbed by their neighbours, hit by bullets in squabbles between members of (Saddam's) Baath Party and their rivals," said Muayad Jumah Lefta, a doctor at the city's largest hospital.

Ahmad Chalabi, head of the INC, is upset with the U.S.:
Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, demanded to know why Jay Garner, the retired US general who will run civilian affairs in postwar Iraq, was not already working to restore security, water and electricity inside Iraq.
"Where is General Garner now?," Chalabi said in an interview with CNN from his base in Nasiriyah. "People are hungry, their supplies are going to run out. Why are they not here? Why are they in Kuwait?"
Chalabi also said his contacts inside Iraq were reporting Saddam was alive and hiding in the town of Baquba, north-east of Baghdad.

In North Korea, tensions might be easing:
According to Japan's Kyodo news agency, the United States and North Korea held working-level talks over three days last week.
U.N. envoy Maurice Strong, who just returned from Pyongyang, said Tuesday there has been "sufficient progress" to bridge the gap, with both sides now agreeing that there should be direct and multilateral talks. There is now no reason to delay talks, but there is no agreement yet on the format, he said.

Some in the U.S. government are upset with Syria:
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld accused Syria on Wednesday of giving haven to some members of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government and assisting others to additional safe locations.
On Capitol Hill, Reps. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said they would seek action on legislation authorizing President Bush to punish Syria through curbs on exports and the sale of equipment with military use, and restrictions on Syrian diplomats' travel in the United States.
"Now that Saddam Hussein's regime is on the precipice of defeat it is time for America to get serious about Syria," Engel said.

An update on the continuing battles in Afghanistan:
Soldiers of the new Afghan national army battled resurgent Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing a former Taliban minister in a four-hour gunbattle, state television reported.
The former minister of borders and tribal affairs, Ammanullah, was killed during a firefight in Orgun, 108 miles south of Kabul. Several other suspected Taliban fighters also were killed, and four government soldiers were injured, state TV said. Ammanullah used only one name.
The latest round of factional fighting in the north broke out Tuesday in Maimana, the capital of Faryab province. At least four combatants were killed and four wounded during clashes between forces loyal to ethnic Uzbek warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum and those of his Tajik rival, Gen. Atta Mohammed, said Qudrat Ullah Hormat, spokesman for Atta Mohammed.

Spain's journalists protest the casualties suffered by their compatriots:
Spanish journalists today snubbed Spain's prime minister and Britain's foreign secretary in protest at the death of the Spanish TV cameraman who was killed by a US tank shell in Baghdad.
The US military has given differing accounts of why one of its tanks fired on the journalists' hotel, initially suggesting there was enemy sniper fire coming from the building, and later claiming enemy binoculars had been spotted.

Some are looking for the next regime to overthrow:
"It's time to bring down the other terror masters," Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute wrote on Monday -- two days before U.S. troops swept into the heart of Baghdad -- in a piece entitled "Syria and Iran Must Get Their Turn."
No one is explicitly advocating force against Syria or Iran but conservatives in and out of the U.S. government hope the Iraq war will signal to Damascus and Tehran that seeking weapons of mass destruction could be hazardous to their health.

Meanwhile, at the embassy in Brazil:
Iraqi Embassy employees in Brasilia started burning documents Wednesday after TV stations broadcast images of a Saddam Hussein statue being toppled in Baghdad, police said.
Police said they could see men outside the embassy burning boxes and large quantities of paper.
Media photographers who arrived a short time later saw three piles of smoldering paper inside the embassy's walls next to the building.
A man who answered the phone at the embassy said only, "I'm not working now" and hung up.

The AP asks what's next in this war:
Sniper fire continues, looting is widespread, units loyal to Saddam are regrouping to the north — and his fate is unknown.
Still, sporadic and sometimes fierce battles flared in the Iraqi capital, including around Baghdad University. Forces loyal to Saddam remained active in other parts of the country, particularly in the north, while urban combat continued in several southern cities.

Mohammed Al-Douri, who may still be Iraq's Ambassador to the U.N.,
said:
"My work now is peace. The game is over, and I hope the peace will prevail. I hope the Iraqi people will have a happy life."
When asked about Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Al-Douri said he had no "relationship with Saddam."
"I have no communication with Iraq," the ambassador said.
When asked what he thought about scenes being broadcast from Baghdad, he said, "Well I don't know really, I watch the television like you."
He said that because of the war he has been unable to contact any government officials "for a long time."

Dawn reports that Pakistan is set to discuss issues with the U.S:
Interior Secretary Tasneem Noorani arrives in Washington on Wednesday with a four-member delegation to attend the second meeting of the US-Pakistan joint working group on terrorism.
The talks are expected to revolve around Pakistan's efforts to catch the Taliban and Al Qaeda supporters, particularly those entering the country from Afghanistan.
During the two-day - April 10 and 11 - the joint working group meeting the US delegation is expected to raise the issue of "infiltration" into Indian occupied Kashmir as well.

The Sydney Herald reports on looting in Baghdad:
Just down the road, two young men steer a yellow and white grain harvester, straight off the showroom floor, past smouldering Iraqi tanks. The thieves wave and laugh at a US marine convoy taking a small group of journalists on a tour of Baghdad's so-called liberated south-east.
"Looting has got really bad in the past 24 hours," said US marine Warrant Officer John Collins, as the fight for Baghdad rages across the swirling dark waters of the Diyala River.
Some shops have also been stripped. The soldiers' popcorn and chocolate came from one nearby.

A report from Baghdad:
An elderly man beat a portrait of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with his shoe while a younger man spat on the image.
The Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera reported that Mr. Hussein had taken refuge in the Russian embassy. Russia denied the report, in a statement disseminated by Reuters.
"This type of statement is not in any way true," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told Russian state television. "This is another attempt to place our embassy in Baghdad under threat."

The Sydney Herald reports on the situation beyond Baghdad:
In addition to Baghdad, where fierce firefights continue, allied forces have yet to seize much of thinly populated western and northern Iraq or the area around Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit - the only region that appears to have enough intact military units to put up a meaningful fight.
Even so, coalition forces continue sporadic battles in small towns south of Baghdad. They face the task of rooting out remaining regime loyalists who they fear could join Islamic fundamentalists from abroad to wage guerilla campaigns.

An ITV reporter talks about one scene in Baghdad:
Ian Glover James, a reporter for ITV in Baghdad, said the scenes of celebration and looting had however turned "ugly" in some places.
"Initially [it was] very good-natured. We saw a crowd ransacking what had been a government intelligence headquarters.
"But on our return on the way out, the scene had turned rather more ugly.
"There was gunfire at the scene. There was a man standing in the middle of the road with a very heavy calibre machine gun, the kind of thing that's mounted on an armoured vehicle normally.
"There was at least one corpse on the ground and it did look like the crowd that had been busy looting had had an altercation and gunfire had ensued."

The New York Times reports on the security situation in post-war Iraq:
"The security nationwide in Iraq will be a combination of coalition forces and the new Iraqi government's re-established police forces and armed forces," Gen. Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview today.
The size and scope of any postwar security force has already stirred debate on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon.
Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, has said several hundred thousand troops will be needed to keep the peace in postwar Iraq. Mr. Wolfowitz dismissed General Shinseki's assessment as "wildly off the mark." Pentagon officials have put the figure closer to 100,000 troops.

The AP details Jay Garner's support of Israel:
Arab and Muslim leaders say retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner's involvement with the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs — including the document he signed and a trip he took to Israel — raises questions about whether he is the right person to oversee Iraq's reconstruction.
Garner was one of more than 40 retired U.S. military leaders to sign his name to a letter 2 1/2 years ago amid renewed Mideast violence. The letter strongly supported Israel for exercising "remarkable restraint" and blamed the crisis on Palestinian leaders.
Palestinian leaders taught children the mechanics of war while "filling their heads with hate," and Palestinian police and military commanders were "betting their children's lives on the capabilities and restraint" of Israeli defense forces, the statement added.

The AP reports from Afghanistan:
An American warplane mistakenly bombed a house, killing 11 civilians near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan, the U.S. military said Wednesday.
The killings in Shkin, 130 miles south of Kabul, happened after unidentified assailants attacked a checkpoint of Afghan soldiers allied with American forces near the town, the military said in a written statement.

The AP reports on the search through Baghdad's underground city:
"For the type of regime we're dealing with, the tunnels represent an ideal spot to conceal weapons and serve as a hideout and in some cases an escape route," said Lt. Mark Kitchens, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command.
On Monday, U.S. forces captured an Iraqi colonel in one tunnel who was calling in artillery fire from his hideout.

Al Jazeera is withdrawing from Iraq:
The Arab satellite television channel al-Jazeera is to pull its reporters out of Iraq after one of them was killed during a US air raid on Baghdad.
"I cannot guarantee anyone's safety," the news editor, Ibrahim Hillal, told reporters. "We still have four reporters in Baghdad, we will pull them out. We have one embedded with US forces in Nassiriya; we want to pull him out."
During the Afghan war, two supposedly smart US bombs hit the Reuters office in Kabul and many suspect the attack was no accident. It happened at a strategic moment, two hours before the Northern Alliance took over the city.

The Japan Times reports that Japan has sent a message to Jay Garner:
Japan's top diplomatic aide on Monday urged the chief of the newly formed U.S. occupation administration of Iraq to hand over control of the country to the Iraqi people as swiftly as possible.
Yukio Okamoto, diplomatic adviser to the Cabinet Secretariat, said he outlined Japan's position to retired U.S. Army Gen. Jay Garner, who is scheduled to lead the U.S. Defense Department's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in overseeing Iraq's civil administration.
Okamoto, in the region to discuss the reconstruction of Iraq and surrounding countries, is the first top Japanese official to meet Garner, whose appointment was announced Monday in Washington.

The U.S. has plans to reshape Iraq's schools, reports AFP:
The United States Agency for International Development is currently reviewing bids for a contract, reported to be worth some 65 million dollars, to revamp the country's educational system, from printing new textbooks to handing out chalkboards, pencils and book bags.
In its request for bids, USAID said the educational system in a post-war Iraq must "lay a foundation for democratic practices and attitudes among children and educators."

The Pentagon's spokeswoman issues her thoughts on the journalists killed yesterday in Baghdad:
"We are at war. There is fighting going on in Baghdad. Our forces came under fire. They exercised their inherent right to self-defense," Clarke told a news briefing.
"We go out of our way to avoid civilians. We go out of our way to help and protect journalists," she added.
"Unless the U.S. can demonstrate that the Palestine Hotel had been used for military purposes, it was a civilian object protected under international humanitarian law that should not have been attacked," Amnesty International said in a statement.

Reuters reports on the Iraqi National Congress coming to Iraq:
The U.S. military flew Chalabi to Nassiriya on Sunday, giving the INC a head start over other Arab opposition groups in establishing a political presence under U.S. protection.
It was a defeat for the State Department and the CIA, which do not believe Chalabi is a credible Iraqi leader.
The Bush administration plans to set up a big opposition meeting inside Iraq, but INC officials said on Tuesday that press reports of a meeting this week were premature.
"It's the Bush administration that's calling the meeting and deciding who's invited and what's the purpose. At the highest levels those questions are undecided," said one official, who asked not to be identified.

As the Korea Times reports, South Korea and the U.S. are meeting to discuss the future of their alliance:
Senior South Korean and U.S. military officials yesterday started the first session of the Future of Alliance Initiative talks, which are widely expected to bring about major changes to the 50-year-old alliance.
Washington negotiators reportedly lowered the tone of their demands for a southward repositioning of the 2nd U.S. Infantry Division in Korea, which is currently clustered near the North Korean border.
It is not known whether the U.S. expressed a wish to reduce its number of troops in South Korea during the talks, a move that has been hinted at by some Pentagon officials recently and is opposed by Seoul.

Condoleezza Rice's visit to Moscow results in some news and comment from an anonymous "senior U.S. diplomat":
Following the meeting with Foreign Minister Ivanov, Rice said only that she had had a "very good" conversation and declined to answer questions from reporters. Later in the day, the U.S. diplomat said both sides seemed "very pleased" with the talks, which were "useful in keeping up the dialogue on our relationship."
Kommersant reported on Monday, citing an unidentified source in the U.S. State Department, that Rice was to discuss Russia's possible role in postwar Iraq, including its role in oil projects. The U.S. diplomat would not comment on the details, but said that Rice discussed "the need to work to find a practical solution to the many issues relating both to the humanitarian aspects and to the broader reconstruction of the country."
Kommersant reported on Monday, citing an unidentified source in the U.S. State Department, that Rice was to discuss Russia's possible role in postwar Iraq, including its role in oil projects.

Prime Minister Chretien praises the U.S., but debate over Canada and the Iraq war goes on:
Chretien said Ottawa would not reverse the policy that has so infuriated Washington -- the decision not to send troops to Iraq -- and criticized Canadian "scaremongers" who were predicting business ties to the U.S would suffer.
The opposition Canadian Alliance, which says Canada should have sent troops to help U.S. forces, attacked what it said was Chretien's inconsistency and pointed out that not long ago the government had been critical of the decision to go to war.
"Today (we're) shoulder to shoulder, it's all about the United States and the United Kingdom, our friends, support for the aims of the war and to fight terrorism and of course to congratulate the President for all of his hard work," said Alliance leader Stephen Harper.

France, Germany, Russia and Syria may be allowed to bid on reconstruction projects after all, says Tom DeLay:
"I think we got the message across as to how the American people feel" about French and German opposition to the US-led war on Iraq, Delay told reporters.
Delay's change in tone apparently reflected a White House desire not to further antagonize allies in Europe and Russia as attention shifts to post-war Iraq, where Washington does not want to bear reconstruction costs alone with its wartime coalition partners.

Allegations that the CIA threatened a non-allied Iraqi militia force:
A local militia opposed to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein took control of the southeastern city of Amara on Sunday but a CIA officer told them to withdrew under threat of bombing, opposition officials said on Tuesday.
The militia of several thousand armed men, led by a man by the name of Abu Hatem Mohammed Ali, captured the headquarters of the governorate, 230 miles southeast of Baghdad, without support from U.S. forces, opposition leader Kanan Makiya told the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
"He was then told by a CIA officer whose name I do not know but who spoke perfect Arabic that he had to vacate that city ... He was threatened with bombing and strafing of the building, the compound he took over, so he decided it would be better to be wise and he did withdraw in fact," he added.

Osama bin Laden may have made another cassette tape statement:
The tape was obtained yesterday by the Associated Press from an Algerian national, identified only as "Aadil", in remote north-western Pakistan. He said he had slipped across the border from Afghanistan, where the tape was apparently recorded.
There was no way to independently confirm that the voice on the tape is Bin Laden's. It was translated by an Arabic speaking Afghan who met with the terrorist leader years ago and claims the voice is Bin Laden's.
"The United States has attacked Iraq and soon he will also attack Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Sudan. The attacks in Saudi Arabia and Egypt will be against Islamic movements there," says the voice on the tape.

Al Jazeera says one of its vehicles was shot at by the U.S.:
The Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera charged yesterday that US forces fired on one of its vehicles near Baghdad.
The Qatar-based station, whose coverage of the war has been criticized by both Washington and Iraq, said the car was bearing the Al-Jazeera insignia when it “came under fire on a highway outside Baghdad”.
The driver reported the firing came from US forces, the channel said in a statement.
Separately, Al-Jazeera said, without elaborating, its correspondent in northern Iraq, Waddah Khanfar, was detained and then released, and that its office in the southern city of Basra “was the direct target of shelling” on April 2.

AFP reports on the prospects of Kurds advancing into Kirkuk:
Since war broke out on March 20 they have progressed to within five kilometers (three miles) of the oil-rich city, after pushing back Iraqi troops with deadly coalition airstrikes, directed by US special forces.
But instead of moving against Kirkuk as, further south, US troops enter to "liberate" Baghdad, the Kurds have been told by Washington to stay outside the historically Kurdish city.
According to a senior Turkish government official, US Secretary of State Colin Powell pledged during a visit to Ankara last week that the Kurds would not be allowed to advance "beyond a certain line" around Mosul and Kirkuk.

The AP reports on the bombing of Al Jazeera's Baghdad office:
The al-Jazeera office is in a two-story house on a road along the Tigris River that links the Information Ministry with the old palace presidential compound. Al-Jazeera said the area is residential and isn't close to governmental or military installations. The station continued to broadcast live from the Palestine Hotel after the bombing.
Chief editor Ibrahim Hilal, speaking from the station's headquarters in Doha, said witnesses "saw the plane fly over twice before dropping the bombs. Our office is in a residential area and even the Pentagon knows its location."
In November 2002, Al-Jazeera's office in Kabul, Afghanistan, was destroyed by a U.S. missile. None of the crew was at the office at the time. U.S. officials said they believed the target was a terrorist site and did not know it was Al-Jazeera's office.

And in Baghdad, the AP reports on the scene in one of the presidential palaces:
Soldiers used Saddam's toilets, rifled through documents, helped themselves to ashtrays, pillows, gold-painted Arab glass ware and other souveniers.
In one cabinet was an assortment of pirated movies, some with the titles in English. Saddam, or his guests, had a choice of movies like "Hanoi Hilton," "The Assassination of Trotsky," "Les Miserables" from the many Arab titles in the collection.

Meanwhile, in the city of Basra, Reuters reports:
"We are caught between two enemies, Saddam and the British," said Osama Ijam, a 24-year-old medical student in the grounds of the rundown Basra General Hospital.
"Is this what they call a liberation? We want our own government. We want our own security and our own law."
The hospital, like many government buildings, stores and offices has been looted in recent days.
Residents said the thieves were from the impoverished shanty towns on the edge of the city, which were the main hideouts of Fedayeen militia who held out against British forces for the first 19 days of the war.
"When I see my college looted and destroyed in front of my eyes I wonder why they (British troops) allow this to happen," said Ijam. "Are they here to help us or just to help themselves?"
Army spokesman Col. Chris Vernon told a news briefing in Kuwait that the British army had appointed a tribal chief, determined to be "worthwhile, credible" and with authority, to provide civilian leadership of Iraq's southern Basra province.

Reuters reports from Qatar on Basra:
At war headquarters in Qatar, Group Captain Al Lockwood told Reuters: "I think we can safely say now the city has been liberated...It's not quite secure yet, there may be some pockets of resistance."
"Basra now has been quiet overnight and through the day today we'll be conducting searches to locate any pockets of resistance that do exist," Lockwood said.
"Life is very much back to normal there," he said, adding that bus services were running in the city already.

The Sydney Herald reports on cases of journalist casualties, including the death yesterday of a Reuters cameraman:
Al-Jazeera accuses US forces of firing on one of its vehicles near Baghdad and says its office in the southern city of Basra "was the direct target of shelling" on April 2.
"Taras's death, and the injuries sustained by the others, were so unnecessary," said Reuters' editor in chief Geert Linnebank.
He called into question the "judgement of advancing US troops who have known all along that this hotel is the main base for almost all foreign journalists in Baghdad".

Reuters reports on the shooting by soldier Boggs of an Iraqi boy, one of many who, Reuters says, are:
apparently being used as fighters or more often as scouts and weapons collectors. US officers and soldiers say that turns them into legitimate targets.
"I think they're cowards," Boggs said of the parents or Fedayeen paramilitaries who send out children to the battlefield.
"I think they thought we wouldn't shoot kids. But we showed them we don't care. We are going to do what we have to do to stay alive and keep ourselves safe."

Meanwhile, fellow ally Britain expects, says Defense Secretary Hoon, to leave Iraq fairly soon:
Asked how many British soldiers would still be in the country in six to nine months, he answered, "I would hope that it would be a very small number."
"It's important that British forces — coalition forces — do not stay in Iraq a day longer than necessary," Hoon said on British Broadcasting Corp.'s "Breakfast With Frost" program.

The AP reports on Australia's war effort, which has not included any casualties:
Australian elite commandos are battling Iraqis in "shoot-and-scoot" missions deep behind enemy lines, air force pilots are pounding enemy positions and navy divers are swimming through murky waters hunting anti-shipping mines.
Yet, each morning of the 16-day old conflict, Australian military spokesman Brigadier Mike Hannan opens his media briefing in Canberra on Australia's 2,000-strong commitment to the Iraq war with these words: "I'm happy to report there have been no major incidents or casualties in the past 24 hours."
The vast majority of Australian forces are in non-combat roles. Of the 2,000 personnel only 150 elite special forces troops are operating on the ground in Iraq. The other personnel considered most at risk are the pilots who fly Australia's 14 F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets.

The U.S. and the U.N. express two conflicting assessments of the situation in Iraq:
Michael Marx, leader of the U.S. government relief team for Iraq, said its prewar planning had been based on the prospect of millions of Iraqis fleeing their homes.
"We are seeing some displacements, but it is in the thousands, instead of the millions we planned for," Marx told reporters.
"This is not a major humanitarian crisis," he said, "and we are happy about that."
"What is critical is the state of water and power supplies in major centers, and medical stocks in hospitals," said David Wimhurst of the U.N. Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq. It will remain critical, he said, "until large-scale assistance can be brought in rapidly."
He said the number of displaced people who will require outside aid isn't "tangible," but "it's certainly more than thousands. We saw large-scale numbers in the north, and in the south it's picking up."

A Shi'ite revolutionary leader is coming back to Iraq:
The leader of the largest Iraqi opposition group has decided to return home as the regime of President Saddam Hussein is caving in to US-led military invasion, his spokesman said Monday.
"Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim has made a definite decision to return home after 23 years in exile," Haj Abu Zeid said. He said al-Hakim had not given a date for his return.
Al-Hakim heads the Tehran-based Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose military wing, the Badr Corps, claims 10,000 fighters both in Iraq and Iran. The group has said for years that it has spread guerrillas throughout Iraq in anticipation of a revolution.
"The Iraqi nation will not accept US domination," Abu Zeid said. "We don't expect the Americans to stay in Iraq after Saddam is toppled."

The India Times, which prominently features a "No war" forum on its site, asks "Who will fill the post-Saddam vaccum?"
With the Iraqi prize almost in its hands, the Anglo-American coalition is working overtime to see just how it can create a "legitimate" successor government in Iraq from an act that most of the world, and Iraqis themselves, consider illegitimate.
The one thing that an alien military government will do is to unite Iraqis and imbue them with a nationalist fervour that will make things difficult for the US. Post-war Iraqi resistance could range from civil disobedience and strikes to car bombings, suicide attacks and assassinations. The American response could well be to get a proto-Saddam to control things by dictatorial methods, or to declare victory, pack their bags and leave.

Three excerpts from a story on the Baghdad Aiport's luxury lounge:
It was an offbeat adventure in this daily slog of a war. On Sunday, a couple of platoons of U.S. Army soldiers -- filthy, unwashed and lugging their rifles -- got a rare and close-up look at how the Iraqi elite live when they travel.
He was in the Baghdad airport's opulent VIP lounge and presidential palace, a kind of super-luxury holding space used by high Iraqi government officials and their guests -- including Saddam Hussein himself, whose name is emblazoned across the front of the main terminal.
After Koppel and the general left, U.S. soldiers were asked to sweep up the place, make it clean. Word is that the brass is going to use it for some sort of headquarters.

The Chronicle also reports on the symbolic battle between peace activists and their counterparts:
The use of nationalistic symbols and language by the peace movement occurred during the first Gulf War and even before. But as the current Iraq war continues, a new movement is emerging to wrestle patriotic words and images from conservatives -- and allow mainstream Americans to feel more comfortable about participating in anti-war demonstrations.
Many peace activists, however, are bothered by the use of patriotic symbols and are raising questions within their own movements. Some are internationalists who believe the entire U.S. government is immoral, not just Bush and the war itself, and they have chosen the globe or an upside-down U.S. flag as their symbols.

The S.F. Chronicle reports on the chances of restoring Iraq's marshlands:
"By any measure, this was one of the most important wetland systems in the world," said Scott McCreary, a principal and co-founder of Concur Inc., an East Bay consulting group that specializes in developing consensus solutions to natural resource conflicts. "It was on par with other great mega-deltas such as the Yangtze and the Amazon."
In the short term, Stevens said, scientists must do two things.
"First, we need to identify areas that are so toxic (from pesticides and salt accumulation) that it would be counterproductive to rehydrate them," she said.
Those planning for the marshes' restoration must also grapple with the fact that there's less water available in Iraq than there was 10 years ago.
"New hydro projects in Turkey, Syria and Iran have significantly reduced the flow down the Tigris and Euphrates," Stevens said, "and we're going to have to work with that."

The Oakland Tribune reports on the shooting with rubber bullets of protesters at the Port of Oakland:
Police opened fire with non-lethal projectiles at an anti-war protest at the Port of Oakland on Monday morning, injuring at least six demonstrators and six longshoremen standing nearby.
Most of the 500 demonstrators at the port were dispersed peacefully, but police opened fire at two gates when protesters refused to move and police said some of them threw rocks and bolts. The longshoremen, pinned against a fence, were caught in the line of fire.
"Oakland police are being the most aggressive of any department I've seen in the Bay Area since the war began," said protester Damien McAnany, a database manager. "The San Francisco Police Department never used any of this stuff against us."

The Bangkok Post reports on the war's impact in Thailand:
``The local electronics business is expected to barely avoid a downturn this year, following the war in Iraq and due to lacklustre worldwide chip sales,'' said to James Menges, executive director at J.P Rooney & Associates Ltd, a business advisory firm in Bangkok.
However, under the current scenario Thailand could also benefit.
Mr Menges said that as firms in the US and Europe struggle, they often look for ways to cut costs, which could result in some companies shifting their production to Asia, and specifically to Thailand.

The Herald also asks why Murdoch-owned media reports the war as it does:
Rupert Murdoch's vast newspaper empire has waged a relentless pro-war propaganda war before and since the war began without even the pretence, in many cases, that even the facade of journalism - a genuine attempt to get the facts in the time available and to present what is known at the time of going to press, appropriately attributed - is being preserved. It just so happens that Murdoch wants US government approval to take over DirecTV and further extend his grip on pay TV.
Now that Australia's identity under John Howard seems to be dissolving into a subset of America's identity, it would be nice to maintain some semblance of a diverse Australian oriented, Australian owned, media in this country.
But don't expect the government to care about silly little issues like that. It's already negotiating a 'free trade' agreement with the USA, which demands an end to foreign ownership restrictions on media, Qantas, Telstra and Woodside, as well as an end to laws trying to preserve our cultural identity. Australian nationalism? Not for much longer, if John Howard gets his way.

The Sydney Herald asks why Fox is getting superior access to the news in Baghdad:
Not for the first time, the most spectacular images of the United States armoured advance to Baghdad have come from Rupert Murdoch's Fox Network.
A US military spokesman, Max Blumenfeld, denied that Fox - with its racy but unashamedly patriotic and unquestioning coverage of the war - was being openly favoured. However, he did say enigmatically that public affairs officers such as him were paid to "know your enemy".
"Fox may well have more access. They have good contacts and they asked the right questions in the pre-planning."

The AP reports from Basra:
The success of the troops saw a brutal response from some civilians. Several militiamen were seen being killed by throngs of civilians, Press Association said. A British soldier was also told that civilians had killed a policeman who worked on their street corner, according to British press pool reports.
At the Sheraton Hotel, people loaded up carts, junked vehicles and any other transport they could find with chairs, sofas — even the grand piano that had been in the hotel lobby, which residents pushed down the street. Smoke rose from the hotel after it was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. British soldiers ordered people to leave the hotel and blocked the entrance.
The humanitarian situation remained bleak, with many residents desperate for fresh water.
"All the citizens are very thirsty," said a man who would only identify himself as Ali. He was holding his year-old daughter.

News on the situation in Iraq's hospitals:
"There is no doubt really that the resources and staff of these places are really stretched to the limit," said Florian Westphal, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, the main aid agency left in Iraq. "They have very little power, if any. This morning, for example, they said they were functioning entirely with generators."
The organization also discovered that the number of casualties in Baghdad is so high that accurate statistics were impossible to maintain.
The Red Cross gave no estimates on the number of deaths in Iraq, and did not confirm U.S. Central Command estimates that between 2,000 and 3,000 Iraqi fighters were killed in Saturday's foray into Baghdad by American forces.

More about post-war Iraq:
Tony Blair will today urge George Bush to internationalise the reconstruction of postwar Iraq, and is expecting a series of conferences to phase in a democratic Iraqi government.
In advance of today's two-day summit with the US president in Belfast, Mr Blair spoke to the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, to discuss the likely role of the UN in endorsing an interim Iraqi authority.
Mr Blair is hoping the temporary administration in Iraq, to be run by a retired US general, Jay Garner, will last only two to three months, before the interim authority takes over. The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, suggested yesterday a longer time frame, of six months.

The Guardian gives an update on action in Basra:
Basra's college of literature, located five kilometres into the city, has held the British forces at bay for the best part of two weeks.
From here the citizens of Basra have been kept largely captive to the Ba'ath party loyalists and Fedayeen who controlled the city centre, manning checkpoints and surveying the city from their windows and every street corner. Foreign paramilitaries were also holed up in the college, including, reports suggested, Syrians and Palestinians.
But yesterday British soldiers took the building, room by room. Dozens of Iraqi fighters were killed in the action as they emerged from sandbagged defensive positions, firing rocket-propelled grenades at the British soldiers.
The British now plan to use the college as a new forward operating base inside the city itself, as British forces take on other heavily defended positions in the city centre.

An update on prospects for war in North Korea:
War in North Korea is now almost inevitable because of the country's diplomatic stalemate with America, a senior UN official claims.
Ahead of this week's crucial talks between members of the UN Security Council, Maurice Strong, special adviser to the Secretary General Kofi Annan, was gloomy on the chances of a peaceful settlement.
'I think war is unnecessary, it's unthinkable and unfortunately it's entirely possible,' he said.
On Wednesday the UN security council will hear America's demand for sanctions against North Korea, which it accuses of planning to develop nuclear weapons.
The Communist state has already said it would regard any such move as an 'act of war' and yesterday further warned that it would ignore any UN resolutions on the issue.

Al Jazeera has established itself as the network to watch in this war. Everyone is reacting to what Al Jazeera is showing and what people on Al Jazeera are saying and doing. The three U.S. cable news channels, and Sky News too, are reporting the news, even sometimes breaking the news, but Al Jazeera is news, in the same way CNN was news in the Gulf War. Tom Friedman talks about it, as does Bill O'Reilly, Andrew Sullivan, and every other pundit on the East Coast, and the NYSE, NASDAQ, and the White House are angry with it-so of course Al Jazeera must be doing its job well. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda started making the network notorious with the videos, audio tapes, and polemics they released to Al Jazeera. And, there was a deep desire in D.C. to dissect the Arab street and figure out what people in the Middle East were so upset-Al Jazeera was the easiest place to find clues. But, it's with this war to depose Saddam Hussein that Al Jazeera is confirming its position as the most important, most influential news network in the world.
Now, media people are trying to figure out why Al Jazeera is so much more compelling in this war than MSNBC, CNN, or Fox. Some of it's access to Iraq's officials, correspondents in all of Iraq's cities, and an authenticity in the Arab world that Western media can't match. But, I think the greater reason is that Al Jazeera is showing the real war. That is, the blood-soaked bandages on children lying in bleak hospitals, the coffins carried through streets, the shaken U.S. POWs trembling before their captors, mothers shrouded in black and screaming dirges, angry mobs across the Middle East, dead Iraqi civilians and soldiers lying on the ground. War is blood, violence, mayhem, savagery, and anger; it is not photos of pretty soldiers on a corkboard, streaming video of Abrams tanks rolling through the empty desert, retired generals pointing to maps, pundits talking on tv, or convoys of humanitarian aid. This is obvious, but Al Jazeera seems to be the only place on tv where you see that fact.
Kathryn Kross, Washington bureau chief for CNN, said, "It's very powerful and a little eerie. Just when video games are starting to look more like real action, the real action looks like a video game." I don't think anyone in the Middle East agrees with that sentiment, but if you want to see why, you have to watch Al Jazeera, not CNN.

The Iraqi National Congress is moving troops into Iraq:
U.S.-led forces were airlifting soldiers of an Iraqi exile group into southern Iraq to serve as humanitarian liaison officers and help root out Saddam Hussein's paramilitary among the population, the group said Sunday.
The first of more than 1,000 expected, some 700 soldiers of the Iraqi National Congress were near the city of Nasiriyah, the group said. The city was brought under control of the U.S.-led invasion force only a few days ago after a two-week battle by U.S. Marines, defense officials have said.