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WASHINGTON, Jan. 6, 2006 – The past year has yielded major growth in Iraqi security forces and significant political progress in Iraq's Anbar province, and 2006 will give the people there a chance to enjoy the benefits of that progress, a top U.S. commander in Iraq said today. In April, only two Iraqi army brigades were operating in Anbar, and now there are two divisions that comprise almost 20,000 soldiers, Marine Maj. Gen. Stephen Johnson, commander of Multinational Force West and 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), said while briefing Pentagon reporters via satellite. Iraqi army battalions are bearing an increasingly...

The global trade in legal caviar has been stopped by the United Nations, leaving gourmands gasping and conservationists cheering. "It's not good news. . . . I have clients who don't care about the price, they need legal caviar," said Mark Omidi, owner of the Toronto-based importer Caviar Centre. "It's the most prestigious commodity." Alarmed by the plunging number of sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, a UN agency dedicated to preserving endangered species has put the onus on wild-caviar exporting nations to prove that their conservation methods can protect the fish stocks. In the meantime, the Convention on International Trade...

The worldwide trade in caviar and other products that come from the wild sturgeon has been banned by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. A spokesman said the decision was imposed for scientific reasons connected to dwindling stocks of sturgeon, and to bring an end to illegal poaching in the Caspian Sea. Every year the organisation approves fishing quotas for sturgeon proposed by nations from the Black Sea, Caspian Sea and Danube regions. Now it is asking for confirmation about stocks of the fish before it can agree to new catches, saying exporting countries should adopt a...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 2005 – The Iraqi people won't have an easy time setting up a new national government, but they are resolved to surmount all difficulties, a senior Defense Department official said here today. "One of the big challenges that's in front of the Iraqi people is seating a government that reflects and respects the views of all the Iraqi people, and doing it in a way in which all Iraqis can feel included in the political process," DoD spokesman Bryan Whitman told Pentagon reporters. Whitman had responded to a reporter's question about alleged discord among some of Iraq's...

MOSUL, Iraq - Lt. Col. John Norris drives through the southeastern corner of Mosul comfortably standing up in the turret of his Stryker armored vehicle, something he rarely did until a few months ago for fear of being hit by a bomb or a bullet. While he is proud of how much security has improved in some neighborhoods, and the fact that President Bush has noticed, he keeps his rifle ready. "This city still isn't safe," he warns. "But it's a lot better than it was." Few Iraqi cities have seen such extreme swings between peace and violence since the...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22, 2005 – Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld heralded 2005 as a year of extraordinary contributions by the U.S. military and looked toward the new year as an opportunity to continue building on those efforts and transforming the military into a 21st-century force. During a recent interview with the Pentagon Channel and the American Forces Press Service, Rumsfeld cited the array of missions the military carried out during an exceptionally busy year. These include humanitarian efforts following the tsunami in South Asia on Dec. 26, 2004, the devastating Oct. 8 earthquake in Pakistan and hurricanes Katrina and Rita...

BAGHDAD, Dec. 12, 2005 – The highest-ranking military officer in Iraq said over the past year his country's armed forces have accomplished "almost a miracle." Speaking through a translator, Army Gen. Babakir Shawkat Zebari said only one battalion was capable of operating with coalition forces when he became the Iraqi military's chief of staff. Now dozens are taking the lead in the counterinsurgency fight, and many more are operating with coalition forces. In the west, he said, Iraqi forces now allow the coalition to hold areas. In the past, coalition forces would move into an area, clear out the terrorists...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2005 – President Bush today highlighted reconstruction achievements made in Iraq over the past two years as positive evidence that that country is making progress toward becoming a self-sufficient, productive state. U.S. and coalition forces continue to assist the Iraqi government to establish its own military and police to confront remnant Saddam Hussein supporters and terrorists, Bush said in his speech before the Council on Foreign Relations here. And, as Iraqi security forces are increased to eventually take over the mission of combating terrorists, progress on the reconstruction front also is being made for the benefit of...

UNITED NATIONS - The Iraqi army and multinational forces violated international law during military operations in western Iraq last month by arresting doctors and occupying medical facilities, a U.N. report said Monday. The five-page report, from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq, said military operations by the two forces had "a negative impact on human rights" and cited figures that more than 10,000 families have been displaced in two restive provinces — Anbar and Nineveh — alone. Covering the period of Sept. 1 to Oct. 31, it said the United Nations has repeatedly sought to draw attention to the issue...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2005 – People who wonder why it's taking so long for Iraqi security forces to become capable of providing for their nation's security need to look at what's happened since coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein's regime, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in a Nov. 8 radio interview. Speaking with Samir Nader on Voice of America's Radio SAWA, Rumsfeld pointed to the progress evident today in building Iraq's security forces from scratch. "First of all, it's not taking so long," Rumsfeld said. "It's been two and a half years, and we've gone from zero to 210,000 Iraqi...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13, 2005 – A new Defense Department report sent to Congress today cites strong forward momentum in developing Iraq's security forces, noting a 50 percent increase in the number of troops capable of taking the lead in combat operations. The Report to Congress Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, the second quarterly "report card" on the security, political and economic environment in Iraq, addresses specific baseline metrics, measurements and indicators of Iraq's security, political and economic environment. Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defense of international security affairs, told Pentagon reporters today not all aspects of progress or lack...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Guantanamo Bay interrogators degraded and abused a key prisoner but did not torture him when they told him he was gay, forced him to dance with another man and made him wear a bra and perform dog tricks, military investigators said on Wednesday. The general who heads Southern Command, responsible for the jail for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, also said he rejected his investigators' recommendation to punish a former commander of the prison. A military report presented before the Senate Armed Services Committee stated a Saudi man, described as...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A report commissioned by the United Nations calls for a formal investigation into the operation of the widely praised U.N. office that helps organize elections around the world, citing staff allegations of sexual and professional harassment and the possible misuse of money to support travel for a favored group of staff members. The report by a Swiss-based management consulting firm, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, focuses on the management of the Electoral Assistance Division by Carina Perelli, an Uruguayan whose work in helping organize elections in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian territories has received high...

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The Los Angeles Unified School District's citizen bond oversight committee questioned on Wednesday how the district is spending voter-approved bond revenue and warned that it might run out of money before all projects are built. The panel has been asked to sign off on using bond revenue to pay salaries, leases and expense reimbursements, which members noted were legal but violate the spirit of the two bond measures -- to build and repair schools. Members said these items should have been paid for using other sources, including the district's general fund. And while the district has about $14 billion in...

BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct. 12 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The world's most-feared shark received international protection from human predators here today when the international community approved trade controls on great white sharks and shark parts at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. World Wildlife Fund praised the addition of great whites to CITES as a conservation boost for the ocean's largest predatory shark. The member nations of CITES voted Tuesday to include the shark on CITES's Appendix II, 87 to 34. Appendix II listing of a species allows international trade, but requires importing and exporting countries to ensure that trade...

LOS ANGELES - Cleaning up the budget mess in state government will require additional measures to boost revenue as well as economic growth, a key Schwarzenegger administration official said Wednesday. "We can't grow our way out of" the so-called structural deficit, Donna Arduin, director of the state Finance Department, told an audience of about 250 gathered for the release of the influential quarterly economic forecast from UCLA's Anderson School of Management. In a rare acknowledgment of the intractability of the state's budget problems, Arduin said that the administration must find "ways to continue to grow revenue."