Weekly Round Up: "Is He Alive Or Isn't He?" & "We Worked Hard To Kill Him!"

It’s been another hectic week in the world of politics. The major news story was whether Ossama Bin Laden was dead or alive? It really doesn’t matter because the world faces thousands of Bin Ladens. We also had Europes victory against the Americans in the Ryder Cup. Well done to Ian Woosnam's boys and also credit to Tom Lehman for being very sporting towards the European win. Also in the news was the Venezuelan official that was was kept in detention in JFK, we expect more from Venezuela in the near future! Here are all the other stories…

North America
US Senate backs terror trial bill
The US Senate has passed controversial legislation endorsing President George W Bush's proposals to interrogate and prosecute foreign terror suspects. The 65-34 vote followed Thursday's backing by the House of Representatives for almost identical legislation.

Under the new legislation, special tribunals will be set up to question and try suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"As our troops risk their lives to fight terrorism, this bill will ensure they are prepared to defeat today's enemies and address tomorrow's threats," President Bush said in a statement on Thursday.

Senate approves $70B for war spending
The Senate unanimously approved $70 billion more for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan Friday as part of a record Pentagon budget.

The bill, now on its way to the White House for President Bush's signature, totals $448 billion. It was passed by a 100-0 vote after minimal debate.

Approval by a comfortable margin came despite intense partisan divisions over the course of the Iraq war, which is costing about $8 billion a month. Another infusion of money will be needed next spring.

Congress has now approved $507 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan and heightened security at overseas military bases since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to the Congressional Research Service. The war in Iraq has cost $379 billion and the conflict in Afghanistan now totals $97 billion.

US diplomat denies threat to bomb Pakistan
The US did not threaten to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age", the man who allegedly made the remark said. The former US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, said he thought it likely that his message had been misunderstood by the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf.

He said Mr Armitage told the intelligence chief to "be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age" . However, speaking at a security conference in South Korea, the former deputy secretary of state insisted that version of events was wrong.

"This conversation never happened," Reuters quoted him as saying. "I had a very strong conversation with the intelligence chief. I told him that for Americans this was a black or white issue. Pakistan was either with us or against us. "I have no doubt that the intelligence chief was quite inflammatory in the language he used with President Musharraf." Mr Armitage suggested an alternative reason for the Pakistani leader's allegations, made while he was in the US to promote his memoirs.

Bill Clinton defends bin Laden handling
In a combative interview on "Fox News," former President Clinton defended his handling of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden, saying he tried to have bin Laden killed and was attacked for his efforts by the same people who now criticize him for not doing enough.

"That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now," Clinton said in the interview. "They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try." Clinton said he "worked hard" to try to kill bin Laden. "We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody's gotten since," he said.

Pakistan to Canada: Stop griping about troop deaths
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf bluntly told Canadians to stop complaining about the number of soldiers they were losing in Afghanistan, saying Canada's death toll was far less than Pakistan's.

Canada has 2,300 troops based in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. In the last three months, 20 soldiers have been killed in clashes with Taliban militants, prompting calls for the mission to be brought back home. Musharraf told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that if Canada was worried about soldier fatalities, it should not be in the war-torn country.

Mexican leader knocks U.S. crime rates
Mexican President Vicente Fox said that violence was a problem on both sides of the border and that U.S. officials need to work on their own rising crime rates.

U.S. officials have criticized the high murder and kidnapping rates in Mexican border cities and the danger they pose to Americans.

"I saw that crime rates in the United States increased 3.5 percent so far this year. So they have their own problems," Fox said. "And with numbers of homicides, it's better we don't speak about them, because, even though they show up on the front pages every day, there are many fewer here than there."

Mexico's Calderon rips border wall plan
Mexican President-elect Felipe Calderon slammed U.S. plans to build more fences on its southern border, saying it would not solve illegal immigration.

"We are worried ... about the actions that the United States is discussing concerning building a border wall and tightening restrictions on migrants," Calderon said after meeting with Mexico's foreign secretary.

The U.S. Senate is debating legislation to build 700 miles of fence on the U.S.-Mexico border along with other security measures, which the House has already passed.

President Vicente Fox, of Calderon's conservative National Action Party, has called the plans "shameful" and said the fence would be like the Berlin Wall. Calderon succeeds Fox on Dec. 1. There are an estimated 11 million Mexicans in the United States, about half of whom are illegal. Last year, Mexican migrants sent home more than $20 billion in remittances.

South America
Chavez: "Bush Has Called Me Worse Things"
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez who denounced President Bush as "the devil" in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly, and during a visit to Harlem the following day, calling him an "alcoholic." Said that Bush has called him worse things: “tyrant, populist dictator, drug trafficker, to name a few," Chavez said. "I'm not attacking Bush; I'm simply counterattacking. Bush has been attacking the world, and not just with words, with bombs. I think the bombs he's unleashed on Baghdad or Lebanon do a lot more harm than any words spoken in the United Nations."

He also referred to his past threats that he could cut off oil exports to the U.S. if it tries to oust him. "Believe me, if I were to decide tomorrow to stop sending oil to the United States ... the price would go up to $150, $200 a barrel. But we don't want to do it, and we aren't going to do it," Chavez said. "We ask only for respect."

Chavez lambasted the U.S. government for trying to block Venezuela's campaign for a seat in the U.N. Security Council. U.S. officials regularly call the Venezuelan leader a destabilizing force, and Bush has said he sees Chavez as a threat to democracy. The United States has backed Guatemala's bid for one of the seats reserved for a Latin American nation. Chavez has called Bush a "devil" in the past.

Ecuador candidate defends Chavez ties
A tough-talking leftist economist and presidential front-runner who rattles foreign investors said he is proud to call Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez his friend.

Rafael Correa also said he would not extend the U.S. military's use of the Pacific coast Manta air base as an operational site for drug surveillance flights when the treaty runs out in 2009.

But Correa denied accusations from conservative political rivals that Chavez is financing his presidential run in a field of 13 candidates ahead of the Oct. 15 election.

He also said "Calling Bush the devil is offending the devil". He said "the devil is evil, but intelligent. I believe Bush is a tremendously dimwitted president who has done great damage to his country and to the world,"

Europe
Blair 'turned blind eye to Iraq intelligence' in Bush meeting
Tony Blair turned "a blind eye to intelligence" and failed to challenge George Bush over claims that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons, according to new claims published this week.

A note of a private meeting between Mr Blair and President Bush in January 2003 shows that Tony Blair failed to confront Mr Bush when he claimed Saddam Hussein had tried to buy aluminium tubes for nuclear weapons production.

Mr Blair did not contradict the President despite having received "private briefings" which indicated that the aluminium tubes were more likely to be for conventional weapons, according to the new edition of a book by the international lawyer Philippe Sands. The claims in a new US edition of the book, Lawless World, will raise fresh questions about whether Mr Blair played a secondary role to President Bush.

'One-sided' Middle East policy attacked by Labour Arab group
Tony Blair's "shoulder-to-shoulder" support for the Bush administration has been attacked by a Labour-affiliated body.

The 300-strong Arab Labour Group has accused the Prime Minister of adopting a one-sided approach to the Middle East crisis because of Washington's strong support for Israel. It has launched a campaign to persuade Mr Blair's successor to adopt a more balanced policy.

The group says it feels "let down" by the Government in the wake of the conflict in Lebanon."Unfortunately, Mr Blair has failed to treat both sides equally. Instead he has bowed to pressure put on him by Israel backed by George Bush," it says. The group, most of whom are Labour members, includes Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Its chairman, said: "We have been overlooked and neglected, treated as second-class citizens. It seems to me there is a very big Zionist lobby in the party. In Lebanon, our government took the same stand as America. If we had had an immediate ceasefire, fewer people would have been killed."

New Trident system may cost £76bn, figures show
The true cost of replacing and operating the Trident nuclear missile system would be at least £76bn, according to estimates. The figure is based on calculations made by the Liberal Democrats from parliamentary answers and is backed up by independent Commons researchers.

The £76bn figure is based on the value the government has put on the cost of the existing Trident system - £14.9bn - plus the percentage of the £30bn defence budget now devoted to Trident for 30 years.

In his presidential address to the governing body of the Church in Wales yesterday, the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, said money spent on Trident could be better used fighting child disease, the Press Association reported. Referring to a possible replacement cost of £25bn, he said: "With that money we could prevent 16,000 children dying every day from diseases caused by impure water and malnutrition."

EU chief: Bulgaria, Romania and no more
The European Union's chief called for a halt to further expansion of the bloc after Romania and Bulgaria join, saying the EU had to resolve the stalemate over its proposed constitution before it could accept new members.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the 25-nation bloc was limited in its capacity to absorb more members without new rules to make an expanded EU work more effectively. He said the draft constitution answered those problems and needed to be salvaged.

Croatia and Turkey started entry talks last year, and Croatia was expected to finish its membership negotiations by 2009. Turkey's talks were expected to last decades.

Del Ponte says Serbs not doing enough on Mladic
U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte said on Friday she was "not satisfied" that Serbia was carrying out its own action plan to arrest and extradite Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic.

In an assessment sinking Serbia's dwindling hopes of resuming suspended membership talks with the European Union this year, she said Belgrade was still "far away from full cooperation" with the war crimes tribunal.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said after hearing an informal briefing from Del Ponte in Finland that he had heard nothing to prompt him to revive the frozen talks on closer ties. "There are no new elements that we are aware of, and there is no sign of progress from the Serbian side," Rehn told Reuters.

Negotiations were frozen in May because of Serbia's lack of progress in trying to catch Mladic, who is charged with genocide for atrocities by his army in the 1992-95 Bosnia war.

Pope doesn't dwell on remarks in meeting
Pope Benedict XVI told Muslim diplomats that Christians and Muslims must work together to guard against intolerance and violence as he sought to soothe anger over his recent remarks about Islam.

The pontiff also quoted from his predecessor, John Paul II, who had close relations with the Muslim world, calling for "reciprocity in all fields," including religious freedom. Benedict spoke in French to diplomats from 21 countries and the Arab League in his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo near Rome.

Georgia charges 4 Russians with spying
Georgia has charged four Russian military officers with spying, while Russian planes evacuated dozens of diplomats and their relatives as the diplomatic dispute worsened between Moscow and the former Soviet republic.

Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said Russia had redeployed troops closer to its border and that the Russia Black Sea fleet was expected to start maneuvers in the next few days.

Georgian police maintained their positions around the Russian military headquarters in Tbilisi, hoping to detain another officer accused of spying. Russian Ambassador Vyacheslav Kovalenko said Moscow would not hand him over. The Tbilisi City Court ruled that two of the four detained officers can be held for another two months, a spokesman said. It was to consider the cases of the other two later in the day, Ilya Gergedava told The Associated Press.

Berlin opera pulled over Muhammad scene
A leading opera house canceled a 3-year-old production of Mozart's "Idomeneo" that included a scene showing the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), unleashing a furious debate over free speech.

After its premiere in 2003, the production by Hans Neuenfels drew widespread criticism over the scene in which King Idomeneo presents the severed heads not only of the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon, but also of Muhammad (PBUH), Jesus (PBUH) and Buddha. The disputed scene is not part of Mozart's original staging of the 225-year-old opera, but was an addition of Neuenfels' production, which was last performed by the company in March 2004.

"We know the consequences of the conflict over the (Muhammad) caricatures," Deutsche Oper said its statement announcing the decision. "We believe that needs to be taken very seriously and hope for your support."

Middle East
Israel Releases Hamas Official
An Israeli military court on Wednesday released the Palestinian deputy prime minister, Nasser al-Shaer, one of more than 30 Hamas lawmakers and cabinet ministers who have been detained by the Israelis over the past three months.

Mr. Shaer, who was the highest-ranking official held, was arrested on Aug. 19 but was not charged with any crime, and the court cited a “lack of evidence” in ordering his release.

However, the court said that for the next two weeks, Mr. Shaer would not be allowed to go to Ramallah, where his office is located and which serves as the Palestinian political headquarters in the West Bank.

Israel began rounding up the Hamas legislators in the West Bank after Palestinian militants, including the armed wing of Hamas, seized an Israeli soldier on June 25 and took him into the Gaza Strip. The soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, is still being held, despite an Israeli military incursion in Gaza and the crackdown on Hamas lawmakers.

4,000 fighters killed, 'al-Qaida in Iraq' tape claims
The new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq has admitted that more than 4,000 foreign fighters have been killed in the country since the US-led invasion in 2003, according to an internet recording.

Abu Hamza al-Muhajir - also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri - said: "We have spilled the blood in Iraq of more than 4,000 foreigners who came to fight."

The Arabic word he uses indicates he is speaking about foreigners who joined the insurgency in Iraq, not coalition troops. It is believed to be the first major statement from insurgents in Iraq about their losses.

In the recording, which has not been verified as authentic, the voice thought to be Masri's urges Muslims to make the holy month of Ramadan a "month of holy war". Ramadan began last weekend.

Israel Sentences Jewish Settler
In another development, an Israeli court sentenced a Jewish settler to four life sentences for a shooting spree that killed four Palestinians in the West Bank.

The settler, Asher Weissgan, killed the four Palestinians in an industrial zone in Shiloh on Aug. 17, 2005, the day that the Israeli military began forcibly removing all Jewish settlers from Gaza.

Prosecutors said that Mr. Weissgan carried out the killings in an attempt to prevent the Gaza withdrawal from taking place. Mr. Weissgan was convicted of the killings earlier this month.

Israel backs off plan to kill Nasrallah
Israel has quietly backed off its plan to assassinate Hezbollah's leader because of the international condemnation that his killing would create, the Israeli daily Maariv reported.

During the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah that ended Aug. 14, Israel had targeted Hassan Nasrallah for assassination, security officials said, according to Maariv. Nasrallah went underground, though he repeatedly recorded videos from his hiding place that were broadcast on Lebanese television.

When the war ended, the army recommended that the efforts to kill Nasrallah be called off because his assassination would lead to international criticism of Israel and would ignite an even more violent war, Maariv reported. However, the government declined to call off the hunt, the newspaper reported.

Nasrallah emerged from hiding on Sept. 22 to address a massive rally in Lebanon celebrating Hezbollah's fight against Israel. Israel army officials determined they could assassinate him with an airstrike during the rally, but dozens of bystanders also would be killed, Maariv reported.

The government decided an airstrike was not worth the risk, and accepted the army's recommendation that it should abandon efforts to kill Nasrallah for the time being, the newspaper reported. However, the government did not make a formal decision regarding Nasrallah.

Jewish Group Snatches Girl in West Bank Raid
Members of a Jewish group this week snatched a 6-year-old girl who was born to a Jewish mother but lived with her Palestinian father in the West Bank.

The members of Yad L'achim, an organization that describes its aim as rescuing ``Jewish souls,'' snatched the girl during a night-time raid on a house in Tulkarm, in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv said.

``We turned to the police and other services, but none of them was able to help us. So we used one of our undercover units,'' Mati Dushenski, a spokesman for Yad L'achim, told Reuters, confirming Wednesday's operation.``We have done many similar operations in the past,'' he said.

A Palestinian newspaper reported that the Jewish gunmen had long beards and had worn Arab headdresses in an apparent effort to disguise themselves as locals.

The girl's father was quoted in Ma'ariv as saying that he and the girl's mother met seven years ago, fell in love and married. The mother converted to Islam and moved to Tulkarm where he had another wife and five children. The mother was said to be preparing a legal suit to maintain custody of the child.

Bullish Iran calls for a fresh start with Britain
Iran's leaders are calling for a new relationship with Britain, at a time when Tehran's international clout has been strengthened by events in Lebanon and Iraq.

"We are now at a new beginning," said Iran's new ambassador to London, Rasoul Movahedian. "The world has been changed, the region has been changed, and it is time for us to think of a new modality of our relationship. There are grounds of common interest for both Iran and Great Britain to work together."

Iran is "concerned about the role played by the British Government in the Lebanon war," Mr Movahedian says. "It has damaged [the] reputation of Britain in the Middle East in general." As for Mr Bush: "We know that Americans are a great nation and they deserve a wiser president.

U.N. expert: Iraq torture may be worse
Torture in Iraq may be worse now than it was under Saddam Hussein, with militias, terrorist groups and government forces disregarding rules on the humane treatment of prisoners, the U.N. anti-torture chief said Thursday.

Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special investigator on torture, made the remarks as he was presenting a report on detainee conditions at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay as well as to brief the U.N. Human Rights Council, the global body's top rights watchdog, on torture worldwide.

Reports from Iraq indicate that torture "is totally out of hand," he said. "The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein."

Saudis plan long fence for Iraq border
Saudi Arabia is pushing ahead with plans to build a fence to block terrorists from crossing its 560-mile border with Iraq - another sign of growing alarm that Sunni-Shiite strife could spill over and drag Iraq's neighbors into its civil conflict.

The barrier, which hasn't been started, is part of a $12 billion package of measures including electronic sensors, security bases and physical barriers to protect the oil-rich kingdom from external threats, said Nawaf Obaid, head of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, an independent research institute that advises the Saudi government.

All of Iraq's neighbors, including the Saudis, fear the violence could spill over the borders and threaten their own security. Saudi leaders worry about Sunni extremists returning home to wage war on the U.S.-allied monarchy or Shiite militants trying to stir up trouble among the Shiite minority.

Contracts for building the fence (expected to cost about $500 million and take five to six years to finish) have not been awarded and work is not expected to begin before next year.

Family disputes U.S. raid on Iraqi house
American troops killed eight people, four of them women, after taking heavy fire during a raid Wednesday on a suspected terrorist's house northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. command said. But relatives of the dead disputed the U.S. account, saying their family had nothing to do with any terrorist group.

In all, 23 people died violently around Iraq, including at least 10 killed in a shootout Wednesday night near a Sunni mosque in Hurriyah, a northern neighborhood of Baghdad, police said. The U.S. command also announced the deaths of a Marine and a U.S. soldier, both killed in action Monday in Anbar province.

"This is an ugly criminal act by the U.S. soldiers against Iraqi citizens," Manal Jassim, who lost her parents and other relatives in the attack, told Associated Press Television News.

Brother-in-law of new Saddam judge slain
The brother-in-law of the new judge presiding over Saddam Hussein's genocide trial was killed and his nephew was wounded in a shooting Friday in Baghdad, the latest deadly violence linked to proceedings against the former Iraqi leader.

Kadhim Abdul-Hussein was fatally shot, and his son, Karrar, was wounded in the capital's western Ghazaliyah neighborhood by unidentified assailants, police 1st Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.

It was not immediately clear whether they were targeted because they were related to Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa, a Shiite Muslim who took over the Saddam trial last week, or if it was another of the sectarian attacks that have been plaguing Baghdad.

Al-Khalifa had been deputy to the original chief judge in the trial, Abdullah al-Amiri, who was removed on accusations he was too soft on Saddam. Among other things, al-Amiri had angered Kurdish politicians by declaring in court that Saddam was "not a dictator."

Africa
The African Union
The African Union said it will extend the mandate of a peacekeeping force in Sudan's Darfur region through Dec. 31, avoiding a showdown for now over Sudan's refusal to permit the United Nations to take over the mission.

Sudan's government vehemently opposes the introduction of U.N. forces in Darfur, where fighting between rebels and government-backed militias has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million since 2003. The U.N. has called it the world's worst humanitarian disaster.

Carlyle poised to bid for Libyan oil giant, says son of Gaddafi
Al-Saadi Gaddafi, the son of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the country's long-time leader, said Carlyle was one of four or five groups involved in an international tender to buy 100 per cent of Tamoil. It is thought the business will fetch close to $3bn (£2bn).

Tamoil refines, markets and sells the country's oil, and has around 3,000 petrol stations in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain, with a further 150 in Africa.

Carlyle has been known in the past for its links to prominent right-wing US politicians. These include the former US secretary of state James Baker and the former US defense secretary Frank Carlucci, as well as the former British prime minister John Major. None of the men retains positions with the company.

Asia
North Korea rejects talks, blames U.S.
North Korea rejected further talks on its nuclear program and blamed the breakdown in negotiations directly on the United States, claiming Washington wants to rule the world.

In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon said U.S. financial sanctions, imposed shortly after a joint statement was issued at six-nation talks on the North's nuclear program on Sept. 19, 2005, had convinced Pyongyang that the negotiations were not worth pursuing.

"It is quite preposterous that the DPRK, under the groundless U.S. sanctions, takes part in the talks on discussing its own nuclear abandonment," Choe said.

She drinks. She dances. She's a DJ. And she's Japan's new First Lady
She drinks, is passionate about soap operas, dances flamenco and once worked as a radio DJ. Meet Akie Abe, the new First Lady of Japan.

In Junichiro Koizumi, Japan had almost everything it could wish for in a prime minister: big, iconic hairstyles, recognition on the world stage and colourful hobbies, such as his extreme Elvis fandom. But through it all something was missing — the Prime Minister was single and Japan had no first lady to adore or abhor.

But now a nation obsessed with the clothes, jewellery and antics of its women celebrities can breathe a sigh of relief. In Mrs Abe, the vivacious 44-year-old wife of Shinzo Abe, who was confirmed as Prime Minister this week, Japan finally has a rich source of interest and glamour for those times when politics become too dull.

All 24 aboard WWF helicopter killed in Nepal
All 24 people on board a helicopter chartered by conservation group WWF in Nepal were killed after the aircraft crashed in bad weather two days ago, officials said on Monday.

The wreckage of the Russian-made helicopter was found earlier on Monday by a Nepali army team after incessant rains and fog had hampered rescue efforts.

The army helicopter found the crashed aircraft about 2 km southwest of Ghunsa, a village in Taplejung district, about 300 km (190 miles) east of the capital, Kathmandu.

Of the 20 passengers and four crew, 17 were Nepalis. Others included a Finnish diplomat, two Americans, a Canadian and a Swiss-Australian, as well as two Russians.

Thai coup leaders choose interim premier
Thailand's auditor general, Jaruvan Maintaka, told reporters late Thursday that Gen. Surayud Chulanont, 62, a highly regarded retired officer, would lead the country until promised elections next year.

But the government had not made its official announcement yet, and when telephoned Friday Jaruvan denied her comments, telling The Associated Press: "I didn't say so."

Over a 40-year career in the military, Surayud garnered a reputation for effectiveness, tact and incorruptibility. Upon his retirement in 2003, he was appointed to the Privy Council, the top advisory body to the king.

Large demonstrations early this year demanding his ouster reflected a polarized Thai society, and many Thais have greeted the coup as a resolution of a national crisis. The United States, which has decried the coup as a setback to democracy, on Thursday suspended $24 million in assistance to Thailand.

Australasia
Australian PM rejects report that Iraq war raised terror threat
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has dismissed a leaked US intelligence report that found the US-led Iraq war increased the global threat of terrorism, rather than diminishing it.

The Australian leader said terrorism was a global threat long before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in which some 2,000 Australian troops participated, pointing to the first Bali bombing in 2002, where scores of Australians died.

"I remind you that the 88 Australians who were killed in Bali were murdered before the invasion of Iraq. "And I remind you that the first attack on the World Trade Centre took place in 1993, ten years before the military operation in Iraq."

Saddam wanted foreign cash to bury Kurds
Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq wanted foreign cash to build thousands of concrete bunkers to bury dead Kurds, an Australian inquiry into abuses of the UN oil-for-food programme has heard.

The claims emerged in the sensational finale of a nine-month probe into whether Australian wheat exporter AWB illegally channelled 220 million US dollars to the regime of Saddam, who is on trial in Iraq for the genocide of 182,000 people in a 1987-88 campaign against the Kurds.

In a last-minute twist, a lawyer for the probe revealed that the wheat exporting monopoly could face terrorism-related charges if it knowingly supplied cash that could have funded human rights atrocities.

An internal document appeared to suggest that executives of AWB, which has taken a severe battering at the inquiry, knew the Iraqis wanted foreign currency in 2001 to build 2,000 concrete burial bunkers.