News Report

This page will be dedicated to a weekly news report about the world events. It’s a little off topic, yes, but it will include new about USA and Argentina, thats for sure!

Here is some news that may intrest you!

By BUSHRA JUHI, Associated Press Writer Wed Nov 21, 8:05 AM ET

BAGHDAD – A suicide car bomb exploded Wednesday at a police checkpoint guarding a courthouse in Ramadi, killing at least six people in the largest attack on Anbar province’s capital in months, police said.

The dead included three women, said Col. Jubair Rashid Naief, a provincial police official. Another 13 people were wounded, he said.

Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, was once a base for Sunni insurgents but has seen a huge security improvement since many Sunni tribesmen began partnering with U.S. forces last year.

The U.S. military said a sophisticated roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi interpreter and wounded three other soldiers on patrol Tuesday in eastern Baghdad. The soldiers were returning to a U.S. base after conducting an escort mission when they were struck by an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, the military said.

EFPs fire a slug of molten metal capable of penetrating even the most heavily armored vehicles, and are have been responsible for hundreds of U.S. deaths in Iraq.

At least 3,874 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Iraqi security troops, meanwhile, unearthed six decomposed bodies in southern Baghdad. The bodies were buried in the backyards of residents who had fled violence in their Saydiyah neighborhood, said army Col. Jabbar Hussein.

AP Television News video showed soldiers in white surgical masks wrapping the mud-coated bodies in blankets and black plastic bags and loading them into the back of a pickup truck. It was unclear when the victims died.

The U.S. military also said six suspected militants were killed and 10 captured in two days of raids across central and northern Iraq.

Other scattered attacks were reported Wednesday around the country. The deadliest occurred when gunmen attacked a police patrol in downtown Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

A police officer was also killed in a drive-by shooting in central Kut, 100 miles southeast of the Iraqi capital, police said.

On Tuesday, a British Puma helicopter crashed southeast of Baghdad, killing two soldiers and seriously injuring two others, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said. The cause of the nighttime crash was not immediately known, it said.

Earlier, the U.S. military said an investigation was under way, but initial reports indicated it was not due to hostile fire.

The U.S. put the total number of injured at 12 and did not specify the severity of injuries.

Violence has declined sharply in Iraq in recent months, due in part to stepped up U.S. military activity, a decision by the biggest Shiite militia to suspend operations and the Sunni Arab revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq.

The U.S. general in charge of training and equipping Iraqi forces said that overall, Iraq’s security situation is “better than it has been in previous months.”

“It’s certainly much better than earlier this year,” said Lt. Gen. James Dubik, commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command.

“But this is an enemy that is cunning, ruthless and desirous to figure out another way to re-engender violence and steal away security gains from the Iraqi people,” Dubik told reporters in the U.S.-guarded Green Zone.

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By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer 49 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – President Gen. Pervez Musharraf could quit as chief of the army and take oath as a civilian president by Saturday, a senior official said.

Meeting another key demand of his U.S. sponsors and domestic opponents, another official said authorities had freed almost all of the thousands of people rounded up under emergency law.

The Supreme Court is expected to clear the last legal obstacles to Musharraf’s continued rule as president on Thursday. The Election Commission can then confirm his victory in a disputed October presidential election.

Attorney General Malik Mohammed Qayyum told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Musharraf would quickly quit his army post and be sworn in for a new five-year term.

“It may happen on Saturday,” Qayyum said. “I know the president, and he will honor his commitment.”

The general has been under heavy political pressure since he suspended the constitution Nov. 3 and cracked down on dissenters who had questioned his right to stay in power.

The United States has said crucial Jan. 8 elections will be seriously compromised if the state of emergency is not lifted. Washington hopes that balloting will usher in a moderate government committed to fighting Islamic extremism.

At home, Musharraf risks seeing his two main rivals — former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif — join forces to oust him.

But after purging the Supreme Court of dissenting judges, Musharraf has reined back some of the most draconian elements of what many legal experts are describing as martial law.

In an interview with the AP, Sharif said Wednesday that Bhutto was resisting his call for an election boycott. Speaking from exile in Saudi Arabia, Sharif also forecast that Saudi authorities would approve his plan to leave the kingdom and return to Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Law Minister Afzal Hayder said the government had freed 5,634 political activists and anti-government lawyers. “Now 623 people are in the government’s custody” and authorities have been ordered to release them, Hayder said on state television.

Those freed included Imran Khan, a former cricketer and playboy who is now a firebrand opposition leader.

Mohammed Bakhsh, a senior official at the Dera Ghazi Khan jail where Khan had been held — told AP that friends had picked Khan up outside the lockup and driven him away.

Seeking to stave off diplomatic isolation, Pakistan on Wednesday asked a key international forum comprising Britain and its former colonies to delay a decision on whether to suspend it.

In a phone call with his British counterpart on Tuesday, caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro asked the Commonwealth for a “short postponement,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq said.

Soomro “expressed concern that any precipitate decision by (the Commonwealth) on Pakistan’s participation in the Commonwealth would be unfortunate” and urged them to send a delegation to Pakistan to find out more about the situation, Sadiq said.

Foreign ministers from the 53-nation organization meeting in Kampala, Uganda, were expected to take up the issue of Pakistan on Thursday.

A suspension would be an international embarrassment for Pakistan, which was last kicked out of the organization in 1999, following Musharraf’s coup. It took them five years to be reinstated.

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These are this weeks news reports. I’m just waiting for something to happen in Argentina!