Iraq

BAGHDAD, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said his country would file a lawsuit in Iraqi and U.S. courts against a U.S. private security firm over the killing of Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007, his office said in a statement.
According to the statement obtained by Xinhua on Tuesday, Maliki rejected a U.S. judge's decision to drop charges against five of the U.S. Blackwater's security guards who were involved in killing unarmed civilians at a crowded intersection in western Baghdad two years ago. ...

The British computer expert was released by his captors on Wednesday morning and is reportedly in good health at the British Embassy in Baghdad.
The 36-year-old IT consultant was working for the US firm BearingPoint when he was kidnapped in May of 2007. Some 40 gunmen took Moore, along with his four bodyguards, from outside Iraq's finance ministry. Three of Moore's British bodyguards were killed and a fourth is feared dead, Miliband said.
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TEHERAN: Iran successfully test-fired a long-range, upgraded Sejil 2 missile yesterday, state television reported, a move likely to add to tension with the West.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the launch was of serious concern to the international community and underlined the case for tougher sanctions against Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.
Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the test was part of efforts to boost the country's deterrent capabilities
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Tuesday's car bombings in Baghdad were the third deadliest in Iraq's capital this year. Some 127 Iraqis were killed and hundreds others wounded in the coordinated attacks which targeted government buildings including the Interior and Finance Ministries.The attacks came just two days after an agreement clearing the way for next year's crucial national election. There was no claim of responsibility but Iraqi officials blamed Al-Qaeda and loyalists of ousted president Saddam Hussein.
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DAMASCUS - In the mid-1970s, Syrian playwright Mohammad al-Maghout authored a beautiful scene about accountability in the Arab world. In it, the mayor promises his people serious reform and change, sacking the director of real estate from his post and replacing him with the director of finance. The director of finance is thereby automatically sacked from his post, and replaced by the director of real estate. The two men simply exchange dossiers, and the fez on each other's head. ...

On Sunday 6th December an early morning action by the Norwegian police aliens section oversaw the forced deportation of 30 Iraqi nationals that had been residing in the country without permission, several of whom had criminal records. A heavy police escort, numbering some 66 officers, accompanied the immigrants to the airport where they were placed on a charter plane bound for Baghdad reports the ...