A report on the Shi'ites power in today's Iraq:
The Shia - the majority sect of Islam in Iraq - who were suppressed by Saddam, are running not only hospitals but every aspect of life, including community and cultural centres and police stations.
The US is not happy that Shia gunmen are guarding the hospitals and have said they will confront the problem. But even if the Shias hand over control voluntarily they are well-entrenched at local level.
This takeover has been replicated in other parts of Baghdad and in the cities further south, such as Basra, Kerbala and Najaf.

The Guardian examines some of the issues regarding the U.N. and post-war Iraq:
Tony Blair yesterday seized the opportunity of his first meeting with US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime to press for a role for the UN in the reconstruction of Iraq.
However, it became clear last night he was struggling to get the US to agree to UN involvement. It also emerged that, whatever function the UN might have in post-Saddam Iraq, thousands of British troops will be deployed there for the foreseeable future.
"Nobody is going to put themselves in hock to this," senior British defence officials said yesterday. They were referring to American concern - shared in Whitehall - about being bound by future UN security council resolutions and being subjected to vetoes.
The issue is bound up with other concerns, including the existing oil-for-food pro gramme, and huge debts owed by Iraq to Russia and France.

Donald Rumsfeld apparently believes the conflict in Afghanistan is over:
"We're at a point where we clearly have moved from major combat activity to a period of stability and reconstruction," Rumsfeld said at a joint news conference with Afghan president Hamid Karzai. But he added that "there are still dangers."
U.S. officials said the announcement was meant to prod reluctant allies into sending more experts, money and equipment to help rebuild Afghanistan.
Some allies have said they wanted a declaration of an end to major combat before they send more aid.
Rumsfeld said the United States hopes to add more "provincial reconstruction teams," groups of 80 to 100 that include troops and military and civilian reconstruction experts. Three teams are working on projects such as building schools and digging water wells in Gardez, Bamiyan and Kunduz.
Officials plan to send new teams by the end of the year to Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat and Tarawan.

Pakistan is inviting India to talks at the highest levels:
Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali on Wednesday said his invitation to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for talks still stood as it was in the interest of the people of the region.
"In my telephonic conversation I had extended an invitation to Mr Vajpayee to visit Pakistan. That invitation still stands. I had even expressed my readiness to visit India, for the sake of peace in South Asia," said Mr Jamali while speaking at a news conference at the Chief Minister's House.
Governor Ishratul Ibad and Chief Minister Ali Muhammad Mahar were also present. "When we (Pakistan and India) will come to the negotiating table, we can discuss everything," Mr Jamali said.
Asked whether he considered this week's new Indian missile test helpful in creating a conducive atmosphere for dialogue, the prime minister replied: "The whole environment of India and Pakistan is under test. It is a test of leadership of the two countries."

The U.K. and North Korea are holding talks:
Britain held its first ministerial-level talks with North Korea since Pyongyang sparked a crisis last October by throwing out international weapons inspectors.
British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell said there had been "progress of sorts" in his discussions with opposite number Choe Su Hon, who said Pyongyang was ready to dismantle its nuclear facilities and readmit inspectors in return for a guarantee that it would not be attacked.
But Choe refused to confirm whether North Korea -- which Wednesday opened its first embassy ever in London -- actually has nuclear weapons, as it claimed last week.

Shi'ites are making another pilgrimage to Najaf:
Hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite Muslims swarmed on the Iraqi holy city of Najaf on Wednesday to mark the death of the Prophet Mohammad, freely making the pilgrimage for the first time in decades.
The pilgrimage to the tomb of Imam Ali, the son-in-law and cousin of Prophet Mohammad, was the second show of Shi'ite might in a week and highlighted the country's newfound religious freedom since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The S.F. Chronicle reports that Iran's Al-Alam tv network is winning Iraqi viewers:
Day after day, Al-Alam gives Iraqi viewers its spin on the country's tumultuous political transition, emphasizing the role of fundamentalist Shiite Islam while portraying the fledgling U.S. administration in the country as a disaster for common Iraqis.
By contrast, America's effort to reach Iraqis through the airwaves -- Alliance Television, a two-hour nightly State Department newscast transmitted from U.S. planes circling overhead -- is virtually ignored.
"I don't watch it because there's nothing on it," said Kerim. "It's just propaganda."
Besides, he noted, the signal is weak, limiting its audience to those who don't mind a fuzzy picture and scratchy sound.
When Iraqis toppled the dictator's statue in Baghdad, Al Alam's reporter exclaimed: "These pictures show that Saddam's regime had no popular base whatsoever. As soon as they have the first opportunity to rid themselves of him, look what they are doing!"
Al-Alam earned a reputation during the war for its gory footage of wounded civilians and soldiers, broadcast under the logo "War of Mastery." Its correspondents became celebrities on the streets of Baghdad.

BP denies accusations of ties with the U.K. government:
BP chief executive Lord Browne fended off accusations yesterday of being too close to government as the company racked up record first quarter profits of $3.7bn (£2.3bn) on the back of the war in Iraq.
Lord Browne said it was "neither fair nor reasonable" for critics to label Britain's biggest company "Blair Petroleum" because of its links with the prime minister. He shrugged off suggestions that he had been helped by pressure from Mr Blair on Vladimir Putin to recover the assets of BP's Russian business, Sidanko.
Lord Browne said he had not asked Mr Blair for help to ensure BP secured any commercial contracts on offer in a post-Saddam Iraq, but it was quite "ethical" and appropriate for a global company based in Britain to be supported by the government.
"I think it's a little cute to call us Blair Petroleum. It's not fair, reasonable or well judged because its not true," he told a lunch meeting to discuss the financial results.

More shooting in Falluja:
Protesters started throwing rocks and shoes at the compound and troops opened fire about at 10.30am (0730 BST), scattering the demonstrators. Some of the protesters then returned to pick up the wounded.
Lieutenant Colonel Tobin Green, commander of the 2nd squadron of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which is taking over from the 82nd Airborne in Falluja, said the six-vehicle convoy was shot at and responded with gunfire.
"The evil-doers are deliberately placing at risk the good civilians. These are deliberate actions by the enemy to use the population as cover," said Lt Col Green, whose regiment came to Iraq from Fort Carson, Colorado, three weeks ago.
A local hospital official said two men had been killed in the incident, both in their late 20s and early 30s. At least eight people were being treated for wounds.

Australia keeps trying for its share of the post-war contracts:
A business delegation to the US led by Australia's Trade Minister, Mark Vaile, has failed to extract promises that Australian companies will win a share of lucrative postwar contracts in Iraq.
After a series of meetings in Washington, Mr Vaile said talks with senior United States officials and companies involved with Iraq's reconstruction had been "very, very positive".
While Washington was buzzing with goodwill towards Australia, he said, this would not necessarily win Australian firms special treatment when competing for lucrative US reconstruction contracts.
Less promising appears to be Australia's attempts to hold on to its wheat market in Iraq. After talks with the US Secretary for Agriculture, Ann Veneman, Mr Vaile said the US and Australia had agreed to "expect our respective grain industries and grain traders to operate and compete transparently in markets across the world without intervention or support".

Israel's ambassador to the U.S. wants more regime change:
Israel's ambassador to the US called for "regime change" in Iran and Syria yesterday as players in the Middle East staked out their positions before a crucial Palestinian vote that is expected to trigger publication of the American-backed "road map" to peace.
Removing Saddam Hussein was "not enough", said Daniel Ayalon. But war against Syria and Iran was not the answer, he added, advocating isolating them diplomatically, imposing economic sanctions and using "psychological pressure".
The war in Iraq "has to follow through", he told a conference in Washington of the Anti-Defamation League, an organisation that campaigns against anti-semitism. "We still have great threats of that magnitude coming from Syria, coming from Iran."

The AP reports on the conflicting reports about the shootings in Fallujah:
U.S. soldiers opened fire on Iraqis at a nighttime demonstration against the American presence here after people shot at them with automatic rifles, soldiers said Tuesday. The director of the local hospital said 13 people were killed and 75 injured.
"There was fire directly over the heads of soldiers on the roof (of the school). They returned fire in order to protect the lives of our soldiers," said Lt. Col. Eric Nantz.
Dr. Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali, director of Fallujah General Hospital, said there were 13 dead, including three boys no older than 10. He said his medical crews were shot at when they went to retrieve the injured, which he said numbered 75 people.
Residents say they had been growing increasingly disturbed by the presence of U.S. forces.
Some in the conservative town were upset that American soldiers were using night-vision goggles and could see into courtyards and onto rooftops, where women often sleep outside in the hot weather, according to one resident, Basheer Abdul Aziz.

A report on the U.S. cease-fire with a mujahedeen group:
A U.S. cease-fire with the Mujahedeen Khalq allows the terrorist group to keep its weapons to defend itself from attacks by Iranian-backed groups, U.S. military officials said Tuesday.
The deal signed April 15 with the Iraq-based Mujahedeen Khalq, or People's Mujahedeen, doesn't require its fighters to surrender to coalition forces — at least for now, said a military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The cease-fire appears to be a way for the United States to increase pressure on Iran, which Washington has accused of meddling in Iraq after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime.
But the cease-fire represents a conundrum of sorts for the United States, which has classified the Mujahedeen Khalq as a terrorist organization. The United States went to war against Iraq in part to dismantle what it said were terrorist networks supported by Saddam's regime.

An overview of the ethnic tensions in northern Iraq:
The dreaded and violent fallout from Arabization is being felt throughout northern Iraq, as Kurdish families are expelling Arab families from the houses, farms and villages where the Arabs have lived for a decade or more.
The Kurds are reclaiming these places as their ancestral homes, along with the vacated homes of military and political officers from the old regime. In the absence of any viable law, order or documentation, these "negotiations" over houses are often conducted at the business end of a Kalashnikov.
One Arab family in the Nasar section of Kirkuk, an extended family with 11 children, had its well-appointed home seized overnight by a Kurdish military officer. The family appealed to Kurdish police and security officials in the city, but they only shrugged.
"The officer said there was only one way for me to get him out of the house - if the Americans came and forced him out," said Marwan Muhadeen, an apprentice petroleum engineer. "He also said if the Americans did force him out, he would take his revenge on me and my family at night."
In several villages around Kirkuk, angry Arabs evicted from their houses have packed their belongings and then set fire to the dwellings. Better that, they reasoned, than let the returning Kurds have them.

A report on the scene in Kirkuk:
This oil-rich city in northern Iraq always figured to be one of the great prizes of the war, and Kurdish political parties are aggressively moving to take control of it - lock, stock and oil barrel.
The Kurds, strongly opposed by rival groups of Arabs and Turkmen, have taken the largest physical hold of Kirkuk.
Hundreds of Kurdish police officers have been imported from the neighboring ethnic enclave of Iraqi Kurdistan, and squads of Kurdish soldiers man the 24-hour checkpoints on every road leading into the city.Officials from the dominant and well-armed Kurdish groups - the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan - have occupied numerous government buildings in Kirkuk, along with the telecom offices, the TV station, military and police installations, and most of the former Baath Party offices. At each bank in town, two armed guards stand watch: one from the KDP, the other from the PUK.
"Nobody is watching the Zambur (oil and gas) company," said a Kurdish police sergeant, Ibrahim Hamza Aziz. "We saw some men looting it the other day, but the Americans weren't around. And since the Americans don't allow us to carry guns, we couldn't do anything. Zambur is a huge facility, and you could blow up the whole place with a single cigarette butt."
Kurds, meanwhile, are also moving to influence the cultural and social life of Kirkuk through a covert but aggressive campaign of flooding the city with Kurdish teachers, doctors, engineers and lawyers.

Many of Iraq's oil pipelines are broken, reports the AP:
"The degree to which Iraq will ramp up production is largely overstated," said Jon Rigby, an oil analyst with Commerzbank Securities in London. "It's not just a matter of turning the taps back on again." The fragility of Iraq's rebound was underlined Monday as engineers raced to repair oil leaks that stymied efforts to restart a key oil refinery in southern Iraq, where supplies of finished products such as gasoline are running short.
Amid pomp and ceremony, the oil flow to the Basra refinery was restarted last Wednesday for the first time since the war began March 20. But several line leaks, some of which caught fire, have since forced oil officials to suspend the stream.
"Multiple lines have caught on fire all over the place," said an oil engineer familiar with the repair work in southern Iraq. "Because the urgency of getting the oil in there is real, we're moving as fast as we can."

A report on the situation between North Korea and the U.S.:
North Korea has offered to scrap its nuclear weapons and its missile exports, U.S. officials and Western diplomats in Beijing said on Monday, but Washington said Pyongyang demanded concessions in return.
Reacting to the Beijing briefing, a senior U.S. official confirmed North Korea's offers -- saying they included scrapping its ballistic missiles outright -- but called them unacceptable because of the concessions demanded, which he said included oil, energy, economic exchanges and normal relations.
"We're not going to pay for elimination of nuclear weapons programs that never should have been there in the first place," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

Pakistan has reciprocated India's offer of dialogue:
Pakistan Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali called Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and asked "to resolve outstanding issues through dialogue," according to Pakistan Television.
Jamali also said Pakistan officials are willing to visit India and invited Indian officials to visit Pakistan "in the cause of peace," the report said.
Jamali made his offer after Vajpayee last week proposed talks between the two nations while visiting the troubled Indian-Kashmir capital of Srinagar. It also comes weeks before a top Bush administration official visits the region in an effort to ease ongoing tensions.
According to a Pakistan foreign ministry statement, Jamali "welcomed Prime Minister Vajpayee's offer of talks with Pakistan and reiterated Pakistan's readiness for a dialogue with India at any level."

News and speculation on Iran's involvement in Iraq's future:
"Iran's foreign policy must become more active and politically productive, otherwise tension will rise," newspapers quoted Mohsen Rezai, secretary-general of the influential, conservative-dominated Expediency Council, as saying.
"Iran can work with America directly... but we need a strong policy," he said, without going into detail.
"No Iranian officials have suggested the formation of an Iranian-style government in Iraq," newspapers quoted Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi as saying.
Earlier this week Kharrazi told a news conference "...we are not insisting on (the role of the Iraqi) Shi'ites...for us Shi'ites, Sunnis, Turks and Arabs are the same and everybody should play their role in a democratic Iraq."
"For a religious regime, nothing is worse than having a religious regime as a neighbor," said an analyst who asked not to be named. "There will be disputes over who is the boss and who is the big brother."