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ROME, April 26 (Xinhuanet) -- A small force of Italian troops, military police and environment and cultural experts will leave for Iraq on Sunday on a week-long mission, Italian Environment Minister Altero Matteoli said Saturday. Matteoli, in Paris for an environment summit, said the task force would leave Rome at 5:00 Sunday. The task force includes two Environment Ministry officials, two experts from the Cultural Heritage Ministry, a Foreign Ministry representative and diplomat Antonio Armellin, who is charge of overseeing Italian aid operations in Iraq. "Our aim is to carry out an initial assessment of the situation focusing on water,...

The world's leading museums are to join forces to send an emergency team to Iraq to help rebuild its shattered cultural heritage. The Louvre, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, New York's Metropolitan and the Hermitage in St Petersburg are among those preparing to contribute to a task force led by the British Museum. The alliance is being co-ordinated by Neil MacGregor, the British Museum's director, who last week pledged to send his own curators to help assess the extent of the cultural "catastrophe" suffered by the Iraqi capital. Up to 170,000 priceless antiquities – many hailing from the earliest...

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usshot262979152oct26,0,7319464.story Official: Sniper duo stopped at least 5 times at roadblocks By Knut Royce and Tom Brune WASHINGTON BUREAU. Earl Lane contributed to this story from Montgomery, Ala. Knut Royce is a special correspondent. October 26, 2002 Washington - The car used by the two suspects in the Washington-area sniper attacks was stopped "at least five times" at roadblocks thrown up immediately by police after many of the shootings, according to a senior federal law enforcement official. But because the officers were unaware that the car, a 1990 blue Chevrolet Caprice, was the vehicle used in the shootings and...

Did anybody else watch this press conference? Did you all hear the same thing I did, which was: Questioner: You're saying the tail-light, the cream-colored Astro van, the firearm, and the description are "not credible." What DO we have, that people might look for? Moose: Again, we will not be releasing any uncorroborated information. Translation: We got nothin'.

Japan quakes as bad loans taskforce moves in By George Trefgarne, Economics Editor (Filed: 04/10/2002) The Nikkei index in Japan plunged below 9,000 to its lowest level for 19 years yesterday, as bank shares dived. The index closed down 112.90 at 8,936.43, a level last seen on August 12, 1983. The trigger for the fall was the appointment of a taskforce set up by the new head of the Financial Services Agency to deal with the massive bad loans held by Japanese banks. Some Japanese fear a radical solution that will see widespread bankruptcies, although this would be resisted by...

On 20 July the US 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Division, which had been operating the brigade-sized Task Force Rakkasan out of Bagram and Kandahar in Afghanistan under the aegis of Operation ‘Enduring Freedom’, handed over command to the 82nd Airborne Division’s Task Force Panther, which will take over security and combat operations in the region. US and coalition forces continue to operate throughout Afghanistan to ensure Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces do not present a danger to US, coalition and friendly Afghan troops. The 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Division arrived in Afghanistan in January 2002 and worked alongside units such as...

<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A wildlife surveyor for the Mescalero Apache Tribe pleaded innocent Friday to setting a fire on an arson-plagued reservation parched by drought and torn by political infighting.</p> <p>Paul James Valdez, 27, of Tularosa, who worked for the tribe helping take the census of federally protected Mexican spotted owls, was arrested Wednesday on charges of setting the half-acre Lower Cooley Fire on June 2.</p>

<p>MESCALERO, N.M. (AP) — A Mexican spotted owl survey taker employed by the Mescalero Apache Tribes natural resources agency was arrested Wednesday for arson.</p> <p>Paul James Valdez, 27, was charged with intentionally starting a fire on the southern New Mexico reservation on or about June 2. He was also charged with furnishing false information to a federal agent.</p>

Key CIA Task Force Leader Moved May 17 — As the Bush administration defends its actions over information it had on possible terror attacks before Sept. 11, ABCNEWS has learned that the chief of the CIA's counterterrorism center has been moved out. The center, led by Cofer Black for the past three years, is the lead CIA team tasked with finding indicted terrorist Osama bin Laden. Sources tell ABCNEWS' Claire Shipman there will be more changes coming among the top figures in the CIA but President Bush still has faith in both George Tenet, the head of the CIA, and...

The Bush administration turned over thousands of documents Monday related to Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, including some showing industry's attempt to influence the direction of the administration's energy plan. But most of the papers, released in response to court orders, were blanked out and provided little substantive information. This prompted critics to accuse the administration of continuing to hold back vital information surrounding development of President Bush's energy plan a year ago. Among the papers, however, were documents from the Environmental Protection Agency revealing an oil industry push to ease state regulation of so-called "boutique" gasoline blends...

The Air Force may keep selected aircraft and weapons on alert as part of a strike package aimed at responding quickly against terrorist targets, according to a draft service briefing obtained by Inside the Pentagon. The "Global Response Task Force," or GRTF, is one of seven task forces around which the Air Force will soon plan nearly all its requirements, operations and acquisition, ITP was the first to report Jan. 31. Other packages will assemble Air Force capabilities for: Global Strike; Homeland Security; Humanitarian Relief or Non-combatant Evacuation; Joint Space Command and Control/Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; Nuclear Response; and Air...