AFP - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that a "comprehensive" package offered to Russia was aimed at "eradicating" the threats of war.
McClatchy Newspapers - MEXICO CITY? U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Tuesday acknowledged that a seven-month lull in U.S. troops deaths in Iraq has come to an end and blamed the bloodshed on Shiite Muslim militiamen who have bombarded the Green Zone and key parts of Baghdad with rockets and mortar rounds.
Reuters - The U.S. Navy has temporarily added
a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf as a "reminder" to Iran,
but this was not an escalation of American forces in the
region, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.
Reuters - President George W. Bush, seeking a
Middle East peace legacy that eluded his predecessors, said on
Tuesday he is still hopeful an Israeli-Palestinian deal can be
reached before he leaves office in January.
AP - As of Tuesday, April 29, 2008, at least 4,058 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians. At least 3,306 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
AP - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told an American Jewish audience Tuesday that young Palestinians are losing hope for an agreement with Israel.
Reuters - Last week Haider Lefta took the
boards off his shop renting out musical instruments and session
bands for parties, and dusted off a wooden "oud" -- the
traditional Arabic lute central to much Iraqi music.
AP - An Army medic testified at a court-martial Tuesday that after he told his sergeant a wounded insurgent was going to die, the sergeant ordered him to suffocate the Iraqi and then killed the man himself.
AFP - US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has withdrawn a 171-million-dollar funding request to build police stations in Iraq after demands from Congress to have Baghdad take on a greater share of reconstruction costs, according to a letter released Tuesday.
AP - The mission was to get Simba al-Tikriti out of Iraq and to a new life in Britain.