International News
Experts: Iraq can't be stabilized unless militias are dismantled
By ANNA BADKHEN
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
It is impossible to stabilize Iraq _ and pave the way for a U.S. withdrawal _ without dismantling the nation's Shiite militias, which have infiltrated the security forces and are using their official status to operate death squads, experts say.
Far less clear is who is capable of doing that job in a country that has become a minefield of sectarian allegiances and where the militias operate beyond government control.
"In the current environment, where so much blood is on the ground, I see no way not only of easily stopping the bloodletting, the death squads and other things, but also taking down the militias," said Wayne White, a former State Department analyst on Iraq.
The conundrum was illustrated Wednesday when U.S.
On perilous patrol with the 3rd Battalion
By JAY PRICE
Monday, November 13, 2006
It was 9 a.m., and the start of another day of Lt. Col. Todd Desgrosseilliers' hands-on approach to counterinsurgency.
Most go well, at least by the perilous standards for Marines operating in Anbar province, the heart of Iraq's Sunni Muslim insurgency.
Many questions in wake of disabled boy's ordeal
ByJOE FRIESEN
Thursday, November 09, 2006
It was early evening in the Gilbert Park public-housing complex, and smoke from fires set by neighborhood kids curled among the two-story concrete townhouses.
Coast Guard holds off on gun practice on Great Lakes
By JEFF SALLOT
Thursday, November 09, 2006
The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended machine-gun practice on the Great Lakes as Washington considers whether the live-fire drills pose an environmental danger to fish and a safety hazard for boats.
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said Monday that Canada is concerned about possible lead poisoning of the lakes, noting that the use of lead shot and sinkers in fishing gear is already banned.
Canada has informed the United States about its environmental worries, he said.
Woman carrying conjoined twins hopes for the best
By MARK HUME
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
As two nurses spread their hands over her swollen belly, searching for the heartbeats of rare twins within, Felicia Simms leans her head back against the wall and waits.
The external microphones being slid over her skin by Cordelia Merritt and Cathy West, members of the Antepartum Home Care team at British Columbia Women's Hospital & Health Center, are probing for a sound few people ever hear: the reverberations of two separate but linked hearts.
When it comes, insistent and urgent, it will charge the room with emotion.
The identical twins that Simms has now been carrying for 31 weeks are conjoined, which occurs only once in every 100,000 births.
The twins _ already named Krista and Tatiana, after fairies _ are joined at the head where skin, bone and possibly the brain are connected.
Critics say 600,000 Iraqi dead doesn't tally
By ANNA BADKHEN
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
President Bush dismissed it as "not credible," and others are questioning the validity of its findings. But a controversial new survey suggesting that more than 600,000 Iraqis may have died since the U.S.
X Prize funder forced out of his comfort zone
By CAROLYN ABRAHAM
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
The Canadian diamond hunter behind one of the largest science prizes in history _ the catalyst for a race firing up researchers the world over _ rarely allows himself to be caught in the spotlight.
Multimillionaire Stewart Blusson _or "Stu," as he likes to be called _ is more comfortable riding the bus, flying the red-eye or fixing his neighbors' vehicles.
The only car the 67-year-old owns himself is a 1979 Ford Mustang, a battered gray beast with no heat and a broken window.
Worst-case scenario: N. Korea sells nukes to al Qaeda
By DOUG SAUNDERS
Monday, November 06, 2006
The most alarming thing about Kim Jong Il's new weapons, to many knowledgeable observers, is not the nuclear threat itself. It is the way the world's major powers might respond to them.
The worst-case scenario goes something like this: Terrified by the nuclear threat next door, the Japanese decide to build their own nuclear arsenal, to the deep alarm of China.
Highway threatens Chilean wilderness
By ROBERT COLLIER
Friday, November 03, 2006
The Chilean government is planning to blast a highway directly through one of the country's most pristine wilderness areas, a move that environmentalists say threatens a unique experiment in international forest protection.
A bleak message for Iraqis waiting for basic services to kick in
By JAY PRICE
Friday, November 03, 2006
With U.S. reconstruction money dwindling, RTI International is spreading an unpopular message through the Iraqi government officials it tutors: It will be years before citizens can expect basic services such as clean water or 24-hour-a-day electricity.
"We need to help them redefine their 'hope horizon,' " said Jeevan Campos of Houston, the company's regional program director in the city of Hillah, where an office serves five of the nation's 18 provinces.
