Times Online – Bloody clashes between competing factions of Afghanistan’s insurgency left up to 79 people dead, officials said today, including 19 civilians in a lawless part of the country beyond the reach of government or Nato forces. Fighting in a remote stretch of Baghlan province, in northern Afghanistan, broke out on Saturday, local police said, and continued through the weekend — although it was not clear what triggered the violence. Read Article
BBC – Hundreds of Iraqi Christians have taken part in protests calling for government action after a spate of killings. At least eight Christians have been killed in the past two weeks in the volatile northern city of Mosul. The killings prompted an appeal by Pope Benedict on Sunday for Iraqi authorities to protect vulnerable religious minorities. Read article
BBC – A total of 201 people were arrested on suspicion of terrorism last year, 66 of whom were eventually charged, Home Office figures reveal. The number is up on last year, when 178 arrests were made. In total there have been 1,759 terrorism arrests since 11 September 2001, the figures show. Read article
Times Online – THE slaughter of the al-Kaabi family last week horrified Iraqis who had prayed that the parliamentary elections next Sunday would be free from political violence. Eight-year-old Ahmed was found hanging from a ceiling fan, blood dripping from slashed wrists tied behind his back. Little Rafel, her throat cut, was still in the purple and pink T-shirt she had worn to bed. Read article
ABC – In Turkey, two retired generals have been charged over an alleged coup plot in 2003 – the most senior military officers to be charged so far. A total of 33 officers have been charged. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a warning to anyone conspiring against the elected government that they will be brought to justice. Read article
The Palestine Telegraph – There has to be a point in our lives when we turn our backs on normal news and bring out the truth behind a gut wrenching story that nobody wants to talk about or who may not be permitted to talk about. We at the Palestine Telegraph always want to bring out topics that no one else is prepared to print. The case of Hollie Greig is one such story that will make you feel terribly sick inside whilst at the same time wanting to bring those responsible to justice. I did a radio show the other day and someone specifically asked me to investigate this sad story probably knowing that I would do an article on it. One must feel the intense pain of Hollie’s mum and the ongoing nightmare’s that must haunt Hollie, the innocent victim of a pedophile father and his ring of evil friends. Read Article
BBC – Gunmen have killed 13 people in the southern Oaxaca state, police say. Officials say hooded men travelling in several cars stormed a ranch killing the owner and his three sons as well as four other people. The Mexican authorities say the gunmen then killed five local police officers who tried to fight back. Read article
Spiegel – Europe is outraged over the targeted killing of Hamas functionary Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. On Monday, members of the European Parliament threatened Israel with the discontinuation of partnership talks. European foreign ministers likewise demanded Israel’s full cooperation. Read article
BBC – Men seen as likely to be violent towards their wives could be forced to wear an electronic tag under a law being debated by the French parliament. The tag would have to be worn by men who have received a court order to stay away from their partner. The proposal is part of a draft law on conjugal violence. It has cross-party support and is expected to pass easily. Read Article
Presstv – In an unprecedented move British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized on Wednesday for the UK’s role in sending an estimated 150,000 children to former colonies, where they were abused. Brown apologized for the treatment of children by the child migrants program — under which thousands of British children were sent to Commonwealth countries including Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Read article
Washington Post – An airport shuttle bus driver who plotted to detonate potent explosives in New York’s subway system pleaded guilty Monday for his role in a “martyrdom operation” that authorities called one of the most serious terrorism plots on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001. Najibullah Zazi’s plea in a Brooklyn courtroom gave the Obama administration a new argument in its battle with Republican critics and predecessors over its handling of national security threats. Read article
AP — The number of students who claim they were sexually abused by Jesuit priests at schools across Germany has jumped to 115, a lawyer said Thursday. Ursula Raue, an attorney appointed by the order to handle the charges, said that since seven alumni of the private Catholic Canisius Kolleg in Berlin first reported abuses in January, the accusations have “taken on a dimension of previously unbelievable proportions,” the DAPD news agency reported. Read Article
The Guardian – The prime minister of New Zealand angrily denounced Israel and imposed diplomatic sanctions on it after two suspected Mossad agents were jailed for six months for trying on false grounds to obtain a New Zealand passport. The plot, which involved obtaining a passport in the name of a tetraplegic man who had not spoken in years, provoked a furious reaction yesterday.”The breach of New Zealand laws and sovereignty by agents of the Israeli government has seriously strained our relationship with Israel,” said the prime minister, Helen Clark.”This type of behaviour is unacceptable internationally by any country. It is a sorry indictment of Israel that it has again taken such actions against a country with which it has friendly relations.” Read Article
New York Times – Britain said today that Israel had admitted using fake British passports, and a newspaper said the documents were intended to help agents of the Israeli secret service attack foes abroad. The Foreign Office said it made a strong protest last October to the Israeli Ambassador, Yehuda Avner, about ”misuse by the Israeli authorities of forged British passports.” It said Israel later apologized and promised not to do it again. Read Article
Guardian – Police in Dubai are to issue arrest warrants for 11 “agents with European passports” suspected of assassinating a top Hamas official last month. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was murdered in his hotel room in Dubai on 20 January. Reports have suggested that he was in Dubai to buy weapons for Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. It has accused Israeli agents of killing him. Read article
CNN – Two ex-Blackwater Worldwide employees allege the company charged the government for a prostitute and strippers and kept incompetent personnel for financial reasons, part of what they call a systematic pattern to defraud authorities. The accusations come in a lawsuit filed by Brad and Melan Davis — who said the fraudulent activity, such as double billing and submitting false invoices, occurred while the security firm, now known as Xe, carried out its work in Iraq, Afghanistan and in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath. Read article
ScienceDaily — Thinking about a typical victim of college dating violence, you’re probably imagining her, not him. Researchers often think the same way, according to a Kansas State University expert on intimate partner violence. Sandra Stith, a professor of family studies and human services, said most research has looked at men as offenders and women as victims. “In the research on college students in particular, we’re finding both men and women can be perpetrators,” she said. Read article
Reuters – A British student, described by prosecutors as a “wannabe suicide bomber,” had his main conviction for possessing terrorism-related materials quashed on Tuesday after spending nearly four years in custody. Read article
Times Online – Some of the anti-terror laws introduced in 2006, just a year after the 7/7 attacks, are proving unhelpful to the security agencies. In recent months the use of control orders and the power to stop and search have been deemed unlawful by the courts. Both measures tried to balance the freedoms of the individual against national security. The courts felt that the powers overstepped the mark. Read article
Telegraph – Saudi Arabia says it will not give up a controversial rehabilitation programme for Islamist radicals heavily criticised in the US after former inmates set up an al-Qaeda cell in neighbouring Yemen. Read article
Epoch Times – BAE, the second biggest defence contractor in the world, agreed on February 5th to pay out nearly £300 million to the US and the UK after admitting guilt in a long-standing corruption scandal. The British company said it would plead guilty to charges of false accounting and misleading statements made to both the US and the UK at the same time. Read article
Reuters – Iran said on Sunday it had arrested seven people accused of stoking unrest after last year’s disputed election, including some who it said were employed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Read article
Telegraph – The threat to detain the Israeli leader came as police in Dubai linked the apparent murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior member of the Hamas military wing, to the Jewish state for the first time. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai’s police chief, claimed that the dead man was killed using methods known to be employed by Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. He added that Mr Netanyahu would be held personally responsible if Mossad was identified as the culprit. Read article
New York Times – Ten Americans who tried to take 33 Haitian children out of the country last week without the government’s consent have been charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy, as Haitian officials sought to reassert judicial control after the Jan. 12 earthquake. Read article
Daily Telegraph – The former prime minister’s wife, who sits as a judge as Cherie Booth QC, told Miah Shamso that she would suspend his prison sentence because he was a “religious man”. Miah, a devout Muslim who had been convicted of breaking a man’s jaw with two punches after a dispute in a bank queue in East Ham, London. The 25-year-old had gone to the bank from a local mosque. Read article
