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TwinCities.com - Tensions between Eritrea, Ethiopia on the rise Western diplomats suspect that Ethiopia, the Goliath of the two opponents, is sorely tempted to deliver a killer blow against its smaller rival before the Bush administration, a close Ethiopian ally, leaves office at the beginning of 2009. Last year, Ethiopia invaded Somalia and, with clandestine Pentagon help, toppled an emerging Islamist movement accused of sheltering al-Qaida operatives. And though tiny Eritrea has more to risk in going to war, experts say its deepening isolation from the world doesn't preclude its launching a pre-emptive strike. One bleak scenario: an assault on contested territory in November, when an exasperated boundary commission set up by the U.N. packs up after years of Ethiopian stonewalling, and declares the two countries' border officially mapped. "I don't want to be here if it happens," said Tsegaye Redaye, a sad-eyed merchant in Badme whose tea shop's construction i...

20 Hurt as Fatah Members Protest Arrests at Wedding - New York Times : "The Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot has published unverified reports that Fatah armed cells had re-entered Gaza, presumably with help from Israel, and committed sabotage."

truth-about-iraqis: Defeated in Iraq, the US military considers returning to the draft

Free Iraq: "What goes around comes around"

Video: Sean Smith in Iraq | Video | Guardian Unlimited

Scotsman.com News - Latest News - Iraqi translators not guaranteed UK asylum : "LONDON (Reuters) - The government will not grant automatic asylum to dozens of Iraqis who work for British forces in Iraq, the government said on Tuesday, despite fears that they face persecution or even death once the troops pull out"

Another Day in the Empire : "If the resistance in Iraq continues to kill U.S. occupation soldiers, the United States will attack Iran, so declared the decider and commander guy during a news conference yesterday. “President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he threatened action if that continues,” reports McClatchy. “At a news conference Thursday, Bush said Iran had been warned of unspecified consequences if it continued its alleged support for anti-American forces in Iraq. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had conveyed the warning in meetings with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad, the president said.”"

Tunisian sent home from Guantanamo says he was beaten by US soldiers - International Herald Tribune : "The Associated PressPublished: August 11, 2007" TUNIS, Tunisia: A Tunisian man released from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay says he was beaten by American soldiers while in custody in Afghanistan, his lawyer said. The former detainee also says U.S. medics amputated his frostbitten fingers unnecessarily and against his will, the attorney said. Lotfi Lagha, who was returned to Tunisia in late June after five years at the U.S. detention center for terrorism suspects in Cuba, spoke with his lawyer, Samir Ben Amor, for the first time Thursday at a prison in Mornaguia, south of the capital, Tunis.

60 Iraqi interpreters murdered working for UK - Telegraph : "Up to 60 Iraqi interpreters working for British forces in southern Iraq may have been murdered by insurgent death squads - more than twice as many as had previously been feared. Details of the horrifying death toll came from an Iraqi national in Basra, who has been working for the British as a front-line interpreter for three years."

US prepares to plug hole left by British troops - Telegraph : "Whitehall sources admit that there is a firm consensus among British military chiefs that maintaining a presence in Iraq after the control of Basra passes to the Iraqis in November is 'pointless'. But while British generals firmly deny that they have been defeated in southern Iraq, there is also an increasing acceptance that the mission is facing 'strategic failure' and that the war is a 'lost cause'. One senior officer, who has served on operations in Iraq, said: 'In terms of intervention operations, the military can never deliver success if the policy is wrong - and in terms of Iraq the policy of intervention was wholly wrong from start to finish.'"

UN staff forced back into Iraq to provide ‘fig-leaf cover’ for US - World news - News - Belfast Telegraph "The 15-member UN security council yesterday unanimously adopted a resolution authorising the UN to return to Iraq almost four years to the day that it pulled out most of its staff after a deadly car bomb that killed its envoy. The resolution, co-sponsored by the US and Britain, will provide a fig-leaf, if needed, to cover a withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq in the coming months, and pick up the pieces afterwards. But the US and Britain deny any such intention."

U.S. Pays Millions In Cost Overruns For Security in Iraq - washingtonpost.com : "The U.S. military has paid $548 million over the past three years to two British security firms that protect the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on reconstruction projects, more than $200 million over the original budget, according to previously undisclosed data that show how the cost of private security in Iraq has mushroomed."

Sectarian 'cleansing' in Baghdad - Los Angeles Times : "So Mekki, a Sunni, remains holed up in his home, dependent on sympathetic Shiite neighbors to pick up his groceries and run other errands. 'I ask you to help us!' Mekki sobbed on the phone late one hot July night. 'I don't want democracy! I just want security.' Iraqi and American military officials say incidents of sectarian 'cleansing' in Baghdad have decreased since a U.S. military clampdown began in February, but what is happening in Amil and neighboring Bayaa belies the claim. Since May, Iraqi police say, more than 160 bodies have been found in Amil and Bayaa -- men without identification, usually shot and bearing signs of torture, hallmarks of sectarian death squads."