All that is being threatened and I am afraid it is going to get worse I

All that is being threatened and I am afraid it is going to get worse I am not going to vote. The Sunni bitterly bemoan that they will be left with “the sands of Anbar” – the barren, Sunni majority province.Like the Kurds, the Shia south suffered from periodic bouts of brutal repression under Saddam. “I felt proud that the Iraqi police had arrested the British soldiers, it is our country and our laws should be obeyed”, said Zainab. Her colleague Fatima added: “I do not like seeing foreign soldiers on our streets, they should go.”
What is surprising about these views in Basra is that they came from two educated, middle class women speaking fluent English who have frequent contact with the British and have little sympathy for the Shia militia who have infiltrated the Iraqi police.In fact, the women admit they are very wary of the same police who had arrested two British special forces soldiers, triggering a rescue mission in which British forces smashed their way into a police station.Their sentiments, echoed by others, do reflect, however, the new, public mood of defiance and nationalism among the Shia of Iraq as they prepare for power for the first time in 100 years.The generally accepted forecast now is that the impending referendum will vote in favour of the new constitution and, with it, put in motion the Shia gameplan for a future Iraq.Under the federal structure of the document Shia leaders will, at last, gain control of thelucrative oil fields of the south while the Kurds keep hold of those in the north. However, Mr Abbas is hoping to persuade President Bush to put pressure on Israel to reopen Rafah as the first step towards to giving Gaza residents and their produce better access to the outside world.. Israel has yet to relax its bar on the release of “prisoners with blood on their hands”.The Palestinian leadership, which regards the Rafah crossing as vital for the Strip’s economy, has said it is willing for a third party to have a security presence at the crossing.Israel wants the goods and people to pass through a planned terminal at Kerem Shalom, where the borders of Israel, Gaza and Egypt meet. Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, cancelled plans to meet today after preliminary contacts failed to produce the concessions Mr Abbas had been seeking.
While both sides indicated the summit would still go ahead, PA sources said yesterday that Mr Abbas had been reluctant to hold a meeting which might give a false appearance of progress ahead of talks with President George Bush in Washington on 20 October.In particular the PA wants Israel to agree to the reopening of the Egyptian border crossing at Rafah, at least for outgoing goods and people and for incoming Palestinians with Israeli-approved identity cards.The Palestinians have also been pressing for at least 20 out of more than 100 Palestinians who have been in Israeli prisons since before the Oslo accords over a decade ago to be released.

He has been treated for injuries sustained during the incident and was shown in police photographs with his right eye swollen shut and a cut on his right temple.. A planned Israeli-Palestinian summit has been shelved amid disputes about the future of Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt. It is then that he lunges for one of the producers, pushes him against the car and unleashes a tirade of profanities.”The incidents taped by our cameraman are extremely troubling,” said Mike Silverman, AP’s managing editor. “We are heartened the police department is taking them seriously and promising a thorough investigation.”More than a month after Katrina, the police department in New Orleans is still reeling. Many of its officers vanished in the days after the storm, apparently unwilling or unable to help curb the violence and criminal activity that quickly took over the city.

Late last month, its leader superintendent, Eddie Compass, resigned his position. There have also been several suicides among police officers.Last week, officials revealed that they were investigating allegations that police officers broke into a car dealership as Katrina was advancing on New Orleans and made off with 200 new cars, including 41 luxury Cadillacs.Mr Defillo said that Mr Davis had been charged with public intoxication, resisting arrest, battering a police officer and public intimidation. The two police officers in custody for the assault on Mr Davis were named as Lance Schilling and Robert Evangelist.A third officer facing charges was named as Stuart Smith, who is seen on the tape losing his temper with the television team.When he demanded they stop filming the incident, an AP employee held up his press credentials and protested that he was merely doing his job.”I’ve been here for six weeks trying to keep .. alive .. Go home!” the officer is heard to shout. Mr Davis is then seen lying face down on the pavement, with blood streaming down his face and arm into the gutter.Four of the five police officers involved appear to be white and the fifth was described as light-skinned Two of the men were later found to have been federal agents. If the big First World nations cut farm subsidies, it is hoped emerging nations will open their markets to European industrial products.* WHAT THE OTHERS WANT Brazil, India and China have grown in influence and their priority is better market access to Western countries and a reduction in those countries’ agricultural subsidies. The wider grouping of 90 poorer nations has disparate objectives.

This is because the poorest often already enjoy tariff-free deals with the EU on which sections of their economies rely.. Three New Orleans police officers have been placed under arrest for the alleged beating of a black man in the French Quarter at the weekend – a brutal m?e that was captured by a film crew. The confrontation occurred in the Bourbon Street area late on Saturday night. In addition to the battering of the man, identified as 64-year-old Robert Davis, a police officer also became aggressive with a member of the television news team, pinning him against a car and jabbing him in the stomach.
“It’s a troubling tape, no doubt about it,” said Marlon Defillo, a spokesman for the New Orleans Police Department, which has had a chequered track record of brutality as well as corruption.”This department will take immediate action.” The tape was delivered to senior officials by AP Television. It vividly shows the police officers tackling Mr Davis, who appeared to be seriously intoxicated at the time.Normally, the New Orleans authorities avoid confronting drunken individuals in the Bourbon Street area, the heart of tourist revelry before Hurricane Katrina drowned the city.There was no mistaking the ferocity of the police action against Mr Davis, however. He is seen on the tape flailing his arms helplessly as two of the officers punch him in the head twice and eventually drag him to the ground.