Middle Orient News

SYDNEY (AP) — Australia will review its troop deployment to Iraq by the end of this year, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said Wednesday — the first time the Australian government has signalled a possible timeline for withdrawing its troops.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — One of Saddam Hussein’s main lawyers was shot dead on Wednesday after men in police uniform took him from his home, relatives said, the third defence attorney to be killed since the trial opened in October.

EL FASHER, Sudan — Myriam Ibrahim, a tall quiet 28-year-old clad in a bright blue robe, thought she had seen it all. Three years of violence since the Darfur conflict erupted during which her town was invaded twice.

CAIRO — The true identity of Abu Ayyub Masri, the man said to have succeeded the slain Abu Musab Zarqawi as leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, remains an enigma in his reported homeland of Egypt.

EL FASHER (AP) — The only rebel leader to have endorsed the Darfur Peace Agreement threatened to pull out of the deal geared at ending three years of war if the international community does not move to support him fast.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The story of the Iraq war can be told in stark numbers and mournful milestones as the death toll for US troops reached 2,500 and the price tag rose to $320 billion.

Chinese president Hu Jintao expressed his delight in the way things between China and Russia have been evolving in diplomatic terms, just before an important regional security forum summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, due for June 15th in Shanghai.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Opposition Democrats on Tuesday used President George W. Bush’s secret visit to Iraq as an opportunity to renew their calls for speedy end to America’s military involvement there.

BEIRUT — The identity of Abu Hamza Muhajir, named to succeed Abu Mussab Zarqawi as leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, has mystified outsiders wondering if he will replicate the bloody tactics of his slain predecessor.

BAGHDAD (AP) — The judge declared an end the defence phase of Saddam Hussein’s trial on Tuesday, shrugging off protests from the former Iraqi leader’s lawyers that they haven’t had a fair chance to present their case and want to put more witnesses on the stand.