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KABUL - An American journalist inmate at an Afghan jail block seized by prisoners said Taliban militants held there threatened on Tuesday to behead him and told him he would die if an attempt were made to end the siege by force. Emmy award-winning documentary maker Edward Caraballo, 44, from New York, was one of three Americans jailed in 2004 after being convicted of running a private jail and illegally detaining and torturing men in a freelance war on terror. Speaking by mobile phone from Pul-i-Charkhi jail on the outskirts of Kabul, Caraballo told Reuters he was barricaded in...

Iraqi prosecutors submitted to the court trying Saddam Hussein Tuesday what they said was a signed execution order showing his guilt in the killing of 148 Shiite civilians in reprisal for a 1982 assassination bid. The document, dated June 16, 1984 and allegedly signed by the ousted president, confirmed death sentences passed by a tribunal two days earlier. A second document purported to be letter dated March 23, 1985, and confirmed the executions had taken place, adding that a doctor had been on hand to confirm the deaths. The prosecutors said the villagers had been sentenced after a show...

Reuters - EXPLOSION HITS CENTRAL BAGHDAD-REUTERS WITNESS

TIKRIT, Iraq, Feb 28 (Reuters) - A bomb attack on Tuesday badly damaged a small mosque shrine Saddam Hussein had built over his father's grave, police and local officials said. The officials, confirming earlier reports of blasts at the site by residents, said bombs were planted at the shrine at dawn.

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. - Retired Brig. Gen. Robert L. Scott, the World War II flying ace who told of his exploits in his book "God is My Co-Pilot," died Monday. He was 97. The Georgia-born Scott rose to nationwide prominence during World War II as a fighter ace in the China-Burma-India theater, then with his best-selling 1943 book, made into a 1945 movie starring Dennis Morgan as Scott. Scott, who retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general, won three Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Silver Stars and five Air Medals before he was called home to travel the...

Dubai investment group buys midtown landmark Friday, November 11, 2005 By Aleksandrs Rozens Associated Press NEW YORK - A Dubai-based investment firm Thursday said it has purchased 230 Park Avenue, a 34-story office high-rise in midtown Manhattan. The property, commonly known as the Helmsley Building, sits above Grand Central Terminal's underground commuter train and subway complex. The buyer, Istithmar PJSC, purchased the building for $705 million. The seller was 230 Park Avenue Investors LLC, of which Robert Bass of Fort Worth Texas is a lead investor. Current tenants include ING Baring, Tokio Marine and the Bank of Argentina. The building...

Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has called on Iraqis to unite and praised the appeasing role played by top Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani, his lawyer said Monday. Saddam, who is on trial for crimes against humanity, called "for unity at all levels to stop those who want to trigger sedition and division", lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said in a statement. The call follows last week's unprecedented sectarian violence in which more than 120 people were killed. Saddam also "paid tribute to Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the religious authority, for his efforts to prevent sectarian strife". The Shiite religious leader appealed...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Generals and politicians have been convicted of genocide, but the UN's highest court will consider Monday whether a country - in this case Serbia - can be guilty of humanity's worst crime. The stakes potentially include billions of dollars and history's judgment. Thirteen years after Bosnia filed the case with the International Court of Justice, its lawyers will lay out their lawsuit against Serbia and Montenegro - the successor state for the defunct Yugoslavia - charging it with a premeditated attempt to destroy Bosnia's Muslim population, in whole or part. "Not since the end...

Someone left a Boston Globe at work today and I noticed it in passing the table. There it was. The feature article of Section B: "Unsung Veterans." It is a particularly nasty piece (even for the Marxist Trust Babies at the Globe), briefly profiling four black veterans of the US military. We learn that the first served in WW II as an Army captain, and allegedly was told by his commanding officer that the colonel was familiar with the needs of blacks because the colonel had raised blacks on his plantation. The second was a Navy machinist's mate who did...

THE ONE-month suspension of London Mayor Ken Livingstone for "offending" a Jewish reporter by comparing the journalist with a Nazi concentration camp guard smacks of overkilling at the first given opportunity. But then, we need to remind ourselves as dealing with Israeli machinations. The Adjudication Panel for England has ruled unanimously that the comments made by Livingstone, 60, to Oliver Finegold, a reporter for the London Evening Standard, in February last year had been "unnecessarily insensitive and offensive." Indeed, people holding high office are not supposed to use such language as described by the panel and Livingstone's refusal to accept...

Return of the leader Moqtada Sadr Shiite in Iraq AL BASRA (Iraq) - the radical chief Moqtada Sadr Shiite, whose movement is shown to have taken part in the recent exactions antisunnites, arrived Sunday morning to al Basra (southern) coming from Iran, after a round in the Middle East, indicated one of his close relations. At once after its arrival, it was addressed to its faithful, affirmed sheik Khalil Al-Maliki, a person in charge for his office. It had carried out in January the pilgrimage in Mecque then had gone then to Syria, Jordan and to Lebanon. The movement...

<p>NEW ORLEANS — They're throwing Mardi Gras beads again - so many strands, they're landing in tree branches and getting snagged on the trellised balconies of the French Quarter.</p> <p>You'll find them adorning the arms of Spanish statues. Tourists are wearing them, but these days so are contractors and the National Guard. It's hard to walk on Bourbon Street without stepping on them. You're likely to crunch them underfoot, long necklaces of plastic pearls brightening the asphalt.</p>

Reuters - CAR BOMB EXPLODES IN STREET MARKET IN IRAQI CITY OF KERBALA, DOZENS OF CASUALTIES-POLICE

Bangladesh: a building of five floors breaks down, feared victims DACCA - a building of five stages sheltering a textile workshop, stores and offices broke down Saturday in the capital of Bangladesh, Dacca, making fear many victims, one learned from police source. Many employees worked in the textile workshop at the time of the accident, indicated to AFP the assistant prefect of police force of Dacca, Obasidur Rahman. "Of the police officers, the firemen and voluntary are on the spot in order to help the people taken in the debris", it added.

ALARM - Al-Qaïda asserts an attack against an oil installation in Arabia PARIS - the Saoudi Al-Qaïda branch asserted an attack with the booby-trapped car, which was thwarted Friday against an oil installation with Abqaiq (Eastern Province), in Saudi Arabia, in an official statement on an Internet site.

APNewsAlert MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Philippine president declares state of emergency amid flurry of coup rumors.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - RadioShack said on Monday that its board accepted the resignation of David Edmondson from his posts of president, chief executive and director. Edmondson has been under pressure after admitting that he lied on his resume and after the company posted disappointing quarterly results last week.

No skating rink collapse, judging scandal or childhood triumph over adversity could compete with the melodrama broiling inside NBC as it launched its coverage of the 2006 Winter Games. The agita — set off by rumors that Couric might defect to anchor the "CBS Evening News" — cut right through the network's opening ceremony extravaganza. Bob Costas was once again the NBC host, but he had a new partner at his side, the anchorman Brian Williams, stiffly dignified even though he wore a navy sweater over his shirt and tie. Neither man mentioned Couric, who played host to the last...

MOSCOW — In any boxing club, sweat is part of the ambience, but in Russia, the sweat factor usually scores a one-two punch to the nose right from the doorway, reminding all who enter of what it smells like to be a nastoyashi muzhik, a real Russian man. On the wall of a small neighborhood boxing club in northwest Moscow, there is a huge, grainy photo of Stanislav Stepashkin, the 1964 Olympic featherweight champion who was one of Russia's early claims to international boxing fame, and a real Russian man if there ever was one. Stepashkin agreed two years ago...

Russian Boxer Valuev Number One WBA Heavyweight Russian boxer Nikolai Valuev has reached the top of the WBA heavyweight rating. Earlier, Valuev, Russia’s largest boxer at 151 kilograms and a height of 215 centimeters, occupied the third place in the list. Valuev will thus fight the current WBA heavyweight champion John Ruiz as the latter he defends his title. The Russian’s manager, Wilfried Sauerland, was quoted by RTR-Sport television channel as saying he will take all measures to make the match between Valuev and Ruiz take place this year. Valuev has so far won 43 matches and lost none. In...