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"Paul Sanford, a prominent Aptos, California, attorney, who accused Karl Rove of treason in the Plame outing case, took a leap from the Embassy Suites Hotel in Monterey Bay on Christmas Eve. Police describe it as “probable” suicide, even though it appears Sanford was" Lawyer falls to death at hotel

The African Union has called on Ethiopia to withdraw thousands of troops from Somalia immediately. The call, supported by the Arab League and the east African grouping IGAD, comes after Ethiopia intervened to support Somalia's interim government.

"This government failed on all the promises it made to Iraqis, and so all Iraqis want it changed," Muhammad Basher al-Faidhy, spokesman for the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, told IPS. "They are sorry they ever took part in the elections. Our Association warned Iraqis that this government would be the worst ever. They simply cannot get rid of death squads because they are their major ally."

"NAIROBI: Undeterred by the horrors and setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, the Bush administration has opened another battlefront in the Muslim world. With full U.S. backing and military training, at least 15,000 Ethiopian troops have entered Somalia in an illegal war of aggression against the Union of Islamic Courts, which controls almost the entire south of the country. As with Iraq in 2003, the United States has cast this as a war to curtail terrorism, but its real goal is to obtain a direct foothold in a highly strategic region by establishing a client regime there. The Horn of Africa is newly oil-rich, and lies just miles from Saudi Arabia, overlooking the daily passage of large numbers of oil tankers and warships through the Red Sea. General John Abizaid, the current U.S. military chief of the Iraq war, was in Ethiopia this month, and President Hu Jintao of China visited Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia earlier this year to pursue oil and trade agreements."

"MOGADISHU, Somalia - The Islamist forces who have controlled Somalia's capital for months abandoned the city Thursday after government forces advanced to within striking distance. Looting broke out and clan leaders called for calm."