An Italian journalist who was held hostage in Iraq has criticised a US military report into the killing of the agent who helped secure her release.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4485429.stm#


From Information Clearing House

The Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru today pledged they would make a fresh bid to impeach Tony Blair over the Iraq war after the election.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8661.htm

Weapons Inspector Ends WMD Search in Iraq

By KATHERINE SHRADER

The CIA's top weapons hunter in Iraq said his search for weapons of mass destruction "has been exhausted" without finding any. Nor did Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, find any evidence that such weapons were shipped officially from Iraq to Syria to be hidden before the U.S. invasion.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8659.htm

Shocker: 20 Percent Unemployment Among Veterans Age 20 - 24

Bush Administration Fails Veterans: In the first quarter of 2005, nationwide unemployment among males ages 20 to 24 was 11 percent, according the the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, the bureau reported veterans of the same age had a 20.4 percent unemployment rate. Are these statistics related, in any way, to the tens of thousands of wounded, injured, and ill medically evacuated from the Iraq War?

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=3110

Girls make up almost half of the 300,000 children involved in wars, according to a report which says they are abducted, raped and often used as currency among fighters.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=3108

04/27/05

Italians have reacted with outrage to news that an inquiry in the United States into the shooting of an Italian secret service agent in Iraq has cleared the American troops who killed him. ... The killing provoked outrage in Italy and threatened the relationship between the US and an ally which had dispatched 3,000 troops to Iraq. Mr Berlusconi immediately summoned the American ambassador, Mel Sembler, and gave him a dressing-down in the middle of the night. A commission of inquiry was set up, with two senior Italian diplomats as members of the panel. But according to Pentagon officials the report, which could be released today, exculpates the American soldiers. In Il Manifesto yesterday, Ms Sgrena described the report as 'a slap in the face for the Italian government.' ... Ms Sgrena has even suggested that she was deliberately targeted because of her newspaper's opposition to the war and the fact that the Italian authorities had apparently paid a ransom to her captors...

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=633336

from Independent [UK]


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://www.record-bee.com/Stories/0,1413,255~26901~2833237,00.html
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=marla+ruzicka+memorial&btnG=Search+News


Informant: sash