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BAGHDAD (AFP) - Moqtada al-Sadr's militiamen Tuesday battled troops in four Iraqi cities on Tuesday, including the capital, as the hardline Shiite cleric threatened a countrywide campaign of civil revolt. Heavy clashes broke out between Sadr's Mahdi Army fighters in the southern oil city of Basra, killing at least seven people and wounding 48, and in Kut and Hilla, both south of Baghdad, officials said. As evening fell, Mahdi Army fighters fought with Iraqi and US forces in their Sadr City bastion in eastern Baghdad for the first time since last October, a security official and witnesses told AFP. Troops...

Battle for the £4 million sea fortress By Richard Savill Last Updated: 1:36am GMT 07/03/2008 With armour-plated walls rising defiantly from the sea, No Man's Land Fort has held out against invaders since it was built to repel Napoleon III 150 years ago. Now, however, the Solent fortress is under siege for the first time and could be facing its most determined enemy yet - estate agents. The fort, which has been converted into a hotel, has been put on the market by administrators. However, Harmesh Pooni, 42, who claims he is the rightful owner of the Grade II-listed building,...

** EXCERPT ** (CNN) — Likely GOP nominee John McCain said Sunday that beating an energized Democratic party in a fall election fight would be “an uphill battle all the way.”The Arizona senator told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week that he “can out-campaign them, and I can out-debate them, and I can out-perform them” but conceded that he had his work cut out for him in the months ahead.“…We've got to reunite the party, and we've got to re-energize the party. And I'm prepared to do that. We've got plenty of time. But I won't waste a day,” said...

McCartney and Mills' divorce battle to continue By Nick Allen Last Updated: 4:34pm GMT 15/02/2008 Sir Paul McCartney’s estranged wife Heather has criticised him for turning down a request from an autograph hunter as their divorce battle moved towards a bitter conclusion at the High Court. Heather Mills smiles as she leaves court The Beatles fan approached Sir Paul with an original version of the 1968 White Album as he prepared to enter Court 34 where the proceedings are being held in private. But, apparently Sir Paul turned him down, explaining he was sorry but he was not allowed to...

Ringgold City Council is facing potential legal action based on its 2005 decision to remove the Confederate Battle Flag from the Ringgold Depot Civil War Memorial. The Southern Legal Resource Center notified the city Feb. 11 by letter from SLRC chief trial counsel Kirk D. Lyons that it will face legal action unless it replaces the battle flag within 10 days. According to Roger McCredie, Southern Legal Resource Center executive director, the letter puts the city on notice that its clients, the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and its local Joseph McConnell Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp...

BASTOGNE, Belgium, Dec. 21, 2007 – Standing next to the killing field where he once found himself face-down in the snow surrounded by the dead and dying, Ted Paluch said his return wasn’t as emotional as it once was, especially having visited three other times. Emotions begin to overcome Malmedy massacre survivor Ted Paluch after he presented a wreath to remember 84 U.S. soldiers executed in World War II. To Paluch’s right is Fabien Steffese, curator of the Baugneze 44 Historical Center, which recounts the tragedy. Photo by Ray Johnson  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. His resiliency and...

BAGHDAD, Dec. 6, 2007 – Violence in Iraq has dropped significantly in recent months, but it’s still too soon to declare the home stretch in U.S. operations here, the commander of Multinational Force Iraq said today. Army Gen David H. Petraeus cited significant security progress during a roundtable with reporters at the Multinational Task Force headquarters at Camp Victory. Following the roundtable discussion, the general spent an hour with visiting Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Weekly attacks in recent weeks are roughly 60 percent of the levels they were in June, Petraeus said. High-profile attacks are down 60 percent from...

I wasn't born at the time of the Vietnam war... I am from the Reagan-Bush Sr generation. This video is my tribute to the previous generation who fought and bled there, and who often thinks that they are ignored by the new generation.

KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led coalition forces killed about 80 Taliban fighters during a six-hour battle outside a Taliban-controlled town in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, the latest in a series of increasingly bloody engagements in the region, officials said. Also Saturday, suicide bomber wearing an Afghan security uniform detonated his explosives at the entrance to a combined U.S.-Afghan base in the east of the country, killing four Afghan soldiers and a civilian, officials said. The battle near Musa Qala in Helmand province — the world's largest poppy growing region — is at least the fifth major fight in the area since...

Doctors battle to save 'human pin-cushion' By Richard Spencer and Juliet Turner Last Updated: 5:47pm BST 25/10/2007 Doctors in China have saved the life of a woman who had 26 pins and needles inserted into her body when she was a child in an apparent attempt to change her sex to a boy. The objects were discovered when the 29-year-old woman, named in local papers as Luo Cuifen, went to hospital for a check-up after she started experiencing blood in her urine. They had penetrated vital organs such as the lungs, kidney and liver, while a needle in her brain...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2007 – An eight-hour battle this morning in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province ended with another defeat of the Taliban by Afghan forces. A combined force led by an element of 205th Afghan National Army Corps advised by coalition forces was on a combat patrol near a small village in the Meian Nashin district when more than 30 enemy fighters attacked from multiple compounds and fighting positions using small-arms fire. The Afghan-led force repelled the attempted ambush with small-arms and crew-served-weapons fire. As the insurgents continued to reinforce their positions with additional fighters, the ground commander requested coalition close-air...

MOBILE, Ala., Aug. 18 (UPI) -- The city of Mobile, Ala., is contesting a judge’s $3,000 award to a man arrested for flipping off a cop who later sued the city. The favorable decision for Addison DeBoi, 56, of Mobile, which was rendered by District Judge Michael McMaken, was the subject of an Aug. 7 Fox News Channel talk show segment titled “Is it legal?” during which host Bill O’Reilly labeled the judge a "pinhead," the Mobile Press-Register said. The judge, in making the award, wrote that legal precedent holds that police officers should have a “thicker skin” than someone...

Mass Grave Sheds Light on Europe's Bloody History By David Crossland in Berlin Europe's soil is blood-soaked from centuries of fighting but rarely yields mass graves from battles that took place before the two world wars. One such grave has now been found near Berlin with over 100 soldiers who died in the 1636 Battle of Wittstock. Archaeologists say they can learn much from the skeletons which show terrible wounds. An archaeologist gently uncovering a row of skeletons in the mass grave found in Wittstock near Berlin. Archaeologists in Germany are examining a mass grave containing the skeletons of more...

High-flying John Travolta is in an uproar over an airport near his $8 million home in Florida. Travolta contends he was lied to(!) by owners of the Greystone Airport near Ocala, Fla., because they didn't want him to land his Boeing 707 there. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the new Mrs. Edna Turnblad claims that Greystone owners James and Christine Garemore falsely told Travolta that they couldn't accommodate his jumbo jet. It's so tough owning your own plane! Travolta says he used to use the Greystone airport all the time, but in 2006, the Garemore's changed the airport's master record...

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces battled Iraqi police and gunmen Friday, killing six policemen, after an American raid captured a police lieutenant accused of leading an Iranian-backed militia cell, the military said. Seven gunmen also died in the fight, a rare open street battle between American troops and policemen. Washington has demanded the government purge its police force of militants, and U.S. and Iraqi authorities have arrested officers in the past for militia links. But the Bush administration said in an assessment Thursday that progress on that front was "unsatisfactory." The lieutenant was captured before dawn in eastern Baghdad, but the...

Palestinians flee as Lebanon army set to storm camp By Nazih Saddiq 40 minutes ago About 160 Palestinians fled a refugee camp in north Lebanon on Wednesday as the Lebanese army prepared to launch a final assault against al Qaeda-inspired militants holed up inside. Troops have been battling Fatah al-Islam fighters at Nahr al-Bared for nearly eight weeks in Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war. A total of 205 people have been killed. The army seized all the militants' positions on the outskirts of the camp last month but refrained from entering its official boundaries. A 1969...

In Memoriam: Custer's Last Stand, June 25, 1876 Private William Slaper : «Each man had secreted himself behind a slain horse. » Lieutenant Charles DeRudio: “The horses were laying as if to suggest a barricade.” Lieutenant Luther Hare: “The evidence on the Custer field indicated very hard fighting.” __ Reno court of Inquiry: “In regard to the severity of the fighting on General Custer’s battlefield, did you see any evidences that there was hard fighting there, or the contrary? Lieutenant Godfrey: “I think there must have been a very hard fighting. Reno court of Inquiry: “You think there was a...

Imagine it's June 7, 1944, the day after the D-Day invasion. You pick up your newspaper. There's no mention of Normandy on the front page, and only a brief reference to it in a roundup story on an inside page.

LOS ANGELES Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told U.S. mayors Saturday they must take the lead in battling global warming and creating an economy based on "clean" technology. Schwarzenegger said California and other states are "not waiting for Washington" before promoting legislation to protect the environment by reducing greenhouse emissions blamed for climate change. "Washington is just a little dot on the map. You are making up America. So we don't have to wait for Washington to get aboard," Schwarzenegger told the 75th annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which made the environment one of its top agenda items. The...

The Army is developing the most expensive and complex weapons system in its history, but it's based on some very questionable concepts. The Army bought what has become one of the Pentagon's most costly and problem-plagued weapons programs during a post-Cold War identity crisis. Locked in a political battle for taxpayer dollars with the Air Force and Navy in the late 1990s, when the military embraced a questionable vision of warfare fought from a distance with sensors and precision munitions, which obviated the need for ground troops that could result in politically costly deaths, the Army turned to industry to...