Sadr bloc quits Iraqi government
Haniya: Barghouthi on prisoner list
Sudan agrees to UN peacekeepers
Iraq conflict spawns refugee crisis: agency
Thousands of Iraqis protest against governor
Report on Gaza journalist's death is 'rumour': BBC
Syria tells Israel to choose peace talks or 'resistance'
Haniya calls for Israel to free all Palestinian prisoners
British coroner mounts fresh attack on US for lack of help
Palestinians say no proof BBC reporter killing claim is true
Beirut journalists hold protest for kidnapped BBC reporter
Attacker of US embassy in Yemen 'hated American policies'
Gaza 'chaos' a key factor in BBC reporter's abduction: Palestinian official
New humanitarian crisis looms as more than three million Iraqis displaced by war - Amnesty International
Sadr bloc quits Iraqi government
The political movement led by Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr has pulled out of the Iraqi government to protest against the continuing US presence in the country.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/281E4222-26FC-426D-BAC0-7279D406C62F.htm
Haniya: Barghouthi on prisoner list
The Palestinian prime minister has confirmed that Marwan Barghouthi, a Fatah leader from the West Bank, is on a list of prisoners the Palestinian want freed in exchange for a captured Israeli soldier.
Ismail Haniya's comments came after Azzam al-Ahmad, the Fatah deputy prime minister, said the popular intifada leader was left off the list.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8257A7E5-5EE8-40E8-8E8F-91964E003D83.htm
Sudan agrees to UN peacekeepers
More than 3,000 United Nations troops will be allowed into Darfur, according to Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6559897.stm
Iraq conflict spawns refugee crisis: agency
GENEVA (AFP) - Iraq and its neighbours face a fresh humanitarian crisis over the millions displaced by the conflict there, the Norwegian Refugee Council said Monday ahead of a UN-sponsored conference in Geneva.
The council said that almost half of the four million people forced to flee their homes in 2006 were displaced by the violence in Iraq or the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon.
"The massive scale of forced displacement in recent months adds to the dramatic worsening of the humanitarian situation in Iraq," the council's secretary general Tomas Archer said.
He warned that the situation could broaden the sectarian divide and redraw the Iraq's ethnic and religious map.
The Norwegian Refugee Council's permanent representative in Geneva, Paul Nesse, said relief agencies had to ensure their own efforts did not end up reinforcing sectarian displacement.
"We have to shape up our own awareness as NGOs, to acknowledge when somebody is trying to use us and humanitarian assistance to their own advantage, which happens often," he told journalists.
While coalition forces in Iraq have a responsibility to protect the civilian population, Nesse warned that by blurring the lines between military action and humanitarian aid, they endangered the neutrality of relief agencies.
"Iraq unfortunately has been a prime example of mixing military efforts with humanitarian assistance. It is not the work or the duty, it should not be the function of military forces to provide humanitarian assistance, their function is to provide security," he said.
"The negative effects of that is experienced by us as humanitarian agencies because we are seen as being part of the same group as the military forces," Nesse added.
Thousands of Iraqis protest against governor
BASRA, Iraq (AFP) - Thousands of Iraqis protested on Monday in the unruly southern oil city of Basra to demand the resignation of a provincial governor whom they accuse of corruption.
A large crowd of men, women and children gathered in front of the Grand Basra mosque in the heart of Iraq's second largest city under the banner of a new movement called Jamahir al-Basra (People of Basra).
Report on Gaza journalist's death is 'rumour': BBC
LONDON (AFP) - The British Broadcasting Corporation said Monday it remained "highly concerned" for the safety of its kidnapped Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston after a Palestinian group said it had killed him.
"The BBC has still had no independent verification of rumours concerning Alan Johnston," it said in a statement.
"We continue to be highly concerned for his safety and are working closely with the Palestinian and British authorities to seek urgent clarification."
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said: "People on the ground... are actively engaged into looking into (the reports of Johnston's execution).
"We continue to work extremely closely with the Palestinian Authority and we are urgently seeking information through them and other sources on these reports."
BBC director-general Mark Thompson has been keeping staff updated on developments with a regular e-mail.
On Monday he said: "Everyone across the BBC will be deeply concerned at the latest report."
"At this stage we're treating this as rumour."
Syria tells Israel to choose peace talks or 'resistance'
DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syria on Monday repeated its desire for peace talks with Israel which it said would face "the alternative of resistance" if it continued to reject Arab initiatives.
"Syria is favourable towards relaunching the peace process in the presence of Russian and American mediators," Information Minister Mohsen Bilal told journalists.
"Syria wants to reach a just and comprehensive peace. If Israel rejects the Arab peace initiative and principle of land for peace, then the resistance will continue the alternative to get back the Golan Heights," he said.
"Resistance is the right of people who live under occupation, whether it be in Lebanon, Palestine or Iraq," Bilal said, calling for "all occupied Arab territory to be liberated."
Israel has repeatedly rejected peace overtures by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in recent months.
Haniya calls for Israel to free all Palestinian prisoners
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Prime minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas on Monday called for all Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli jails as the territories marked annual Prisoners Day.
"All the prisoners should be released, not only those who are included in the exchange" for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Haniya said.
"No country has stopped talking about Shalit," Haniya said. "His name is one of the most famous. But who knows the names of... our prisoners in the prisons of the occupation?"
More than 9,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently being held in Israeli jails.
British coroner mounts fresh attack on US for lack of help
LONDON (AFP) - The US military authorities are failing to cooperate with yet another probe into the deaths of British troops in Iraq during the US-led invasion in 2003, an investigating coroner said Monday.
"It seems to me inexcusable that witnesses could come to assist this inquest but are not allowed to do so," Andrew Walker told the hearing in Oxford, south central England.
It is not the first time Walker has criticised the United States for failing to co-operate with hearings into the deaths of British troops in Iraq.
In March, he repeatedly expressed his frustration at the Pentagon's failure to provide vital information and witnesses into the death of a British soldier, who died after two US jets mistakenly fired on his clearly-marked convoy.
The "friendly fire" death was a criminal breach of the international law of armed conflict, he said, ruling the soldier was killed unlawfully.
Walker's latest complaint came at an inquest into the deaths of eight British troops killed aboard a US helicopter which crashed south of the Kuwaiti border on March 21, 2003.
He told a packed courtroom that Washington had failed to grant his request for access to infrared tape taken by command aircraft which he believed held radio transmissions before and after the crash.
He also said footage filmed by an embedded crew from US television outlet Fox News was also being withheld.
Walker said the United States was again refusing to provide any American witnesses to give evidence at his hearing despite "strenuous attempts" by his office and Britain's defence ministry.
"We are again at the beginning of an inquest without the necessary answers to the questions from the US service personnel," he said.
Sharon Hehir, the widow of Sergeant Les Hehir, 34, one of the victims of the crash, found it "inexplicable" that Washington had failed to help more, according to lawyer Philip Spencer, representing the family.
"It's a matter of deep regret and anger on her part that the Americans have refused to co-operate," he said.
With nods of agreement from other families in the court, he added: "It gives the impression of a cover-up."
Dying along with four US troops on a US Marine Corps helicopter, Hehir and seven other servicemen became the first British casualties of the Iraq war.
Palestinians say no proof BBC reporter killing claim is true
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Palestinian officials said on Monday they still had no confirmation of a claim by an obscure Islamist group that it had killed kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston in Gaza, as his parents said they were desperately worried about him.
Kataeb al-Jihad al-Tawheed (The Brigades of Holy War and Unity), claimed in a statement on Sunday to have killed the 44-year-old reporter, whose whereabouts have remained unknown since he was forced at gunpoint from his car in Gaza City five weeks ago.
But Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas said there was no proof that the claim by the little-known group was true.
"We don't have any information that can confirm the authenticity of the statement," Haniya said. "We are following this affair. We are examining all avenues to confirm the authenticity of this information, but for the moment it is not confirmed."
"We were told by the interior minister that the information published yesterday is just a rumour and that we've had no new information on this case over the past 48 hours," information minister Mustafa Barghuti told reporters in Ramallah.
Beirut journalists hold protest for kidnapped BBC reporter
BEIRUT (AFP) - Journalists staged a protest in Beirut on Monday calling for the release of Alan Johnston, a BBC reporter kidnapped in the Gaza Strip where a Palestinian group has claimed to have killed him.
Dozens of journalists, Lebanese and foreign, gathered in front of the Lebanese press syndicate headquarters, carrying pictures of Johnston with the March 12 date of his kidnapping in Gaza.
"We call on those who are holding him to release him immediately," BBC reporter in Beirut Nada Abdel Samad said during the protest.
"Our colleague continued to work professionally despite being aware of the dangers" of covering news in the increasingly lawless Palestinian territory, she added.
Journalists in Beirut were also planning a similar protest later on Monday for Sudanese Sami al-Haj of the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera, who was arrested by the Pakistani army on the Afghan border in December 2001 and has been held without charge at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba since June 2002.
Attacker of US embassy in Yemen 'hated American policies'
SANAA (AFP) - A man who fired shots at the US embassy in the Yemeni capital did so because he loathed American policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, a court in Sanaa heard at the start of his trial on Monday.
The motives which drove Saleh Alawi al-Amari, 19, to fire at the embassy last December 5 included his "resentment of US policies in Iraq and Afghanistan" and of Washington's "support for the Israelis in Lebanon and Palestine," according to the prosecutor, citing the defendant's confession.
Gaza 'chaos' a key factor in BBC reporter's abduction: Palestinian official
BRUSSELS (AFP) - The "chaos" caused by the destruction of the central authority in the Palestinian territories is a key factor behind the kidnapping of BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston, a Palestinian spokeswoman said Monday.
"We have been witnessing the destruction of the central authority of Palestine in recent years and the result is chaos," Palestinian representative in Brussels Leila Shahid said at the rally.
"This is a situation which, like Iraq, is a situation of occupation and absence of central authority and the destruction of all the means of the Palestinian Authority, to practice its responsibility to ensure the security of the very honourable profession" of journalism, she added.
For that responsibility to be adequately carried out "we need our sovereignty," she said, adding that the Palestinian Authority was nonetheless doing its best to secure Johnston's release.
New humanitarian crisis looms as more than three million Iraqis displaced by war - Amnesty International
Amnesty International today warned that the Middle East is on the verge of a new humanitarian crisis unless the European Union, US and other states take urgent and concrete measures to assist the more than three million people forcibly displaced by the conflict in Iraq.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE140222007