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HILLA, Iraq (AFP) - More than 100 members of an anti-Qaeda front in central Iraq on Saturday handed their resignations to their US military employers, accusing them of killing 19 of their group, their leader told AFP. The walk-out occurred in Juruf Sakher village near the city of Hilla, 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of Baghdad, said Sabah al-Janabi, leader of the anti-Qaeda Awakening group in the area. "The group, which comprises 110 members, resigned in protest at organised assassinations by the coalition forces," said Janabi. According to Janabi and a local police official, Ali al-Lami, three members of the...

Minister quits in Anna Nicole row News of the pictures sparked protests in the Bahamas The immigration minister of the Bahamas has resigned over a row about his involvement with the late Playboy model and actress Anna Nicole Smith. Newspaper pictures of Shane Gibson and Anna Nicole Smith embracing each other had sparked calls for him to leave. It was claimed that Mr Gibson had fast-tracked Smith's application for residency on the island. Mr Gibson apologised for any embarrassment he may have caused the country but denied any wrong-doing. 'Sorry' "I want to apologise to all persons who may in...

Israeli general quits over conduct of Lebanon war Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem Wednesday September 13, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Major General Udi Adam with Israeli soldiers on the border with southern Lebanon during the war. Photograph: EPA A senior Israeli army officer resigned today, the first high-ranking figure to quit in the fallout after the war in Lebanon. Major General Udi Adam was head of Israel's Northern Command, a key role in the war with Hizbullah, but faced criticism in the press for being overly cautious and hesitant. During the 34-day conflict he was effectively sidelined when another general was...

SAS soldier quits Army in disgust at 'illegal' American tactics in Iraq By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent (Filed: 12/03/2006) An SAS soldier has refused to fight in Iraq and has left the Army over the "illegal" tactics of United States troops and the policies of coalition forces. After three months in Baghdad, Ben Griffin told his commander that he was no longer prepared to fight alongside American forces. Ben Griffin told commanders that he thought the Iraq war was illegal He said he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" -...

MIDDLETOWN, NY -- John Simar woke up in Kuwait this morning – a 55-year-old soldier – one order away from risking his life on the bloody streets of Baghdad. His journey from civilian to soldier began with a phone call to the Pentagon's personnel office in August. Simar asked if he could do anything to help with the war effort in Iraq. He figured he might not even hear back. Four days later, his phone rang. The voice on the other end said: "We have a job for you." Just like that, Simar retired from the military more than a...

Sacramento -- State Sen. Carole Migden, who came under criticism earlier this year for pushing the voting button of a fellow lawmaker to help passage of one of her bills, abruptly relinquished her position as chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday. The San Francisco Democrat said she wanted to devote more of her time to help Controller Steve Westly in his bid for governor. But sources in the Senate who insisted on anonymity said Migden, who is known for having an abrasive style, angered many of her colleagues in the past year and that the final straw...

NEW ORLEANS - The head of the Orleans Levee Board has quit amid questions about no-bid contracts to his relatives in the days after Hurricane Katrina. The final days of board president Jim Huey's tenure also had been marred by his collection of nearly $100,000 in back pay several weeks before the storm. Huey had led the board for nine years. Huey defended the contracts and said he was legally entitled to the back pay. "Every single decision made during this crisis situation was made in the best interest of the levee district, and that will be proven in time,"...

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - New Mexico's indicted state treasurer resigned Wednesday shortly after lawmakers began considering whether he should be impeached. Robert Vigil's resignation came more than a month after he was arrested and charged with extortion in a federal investigation into an alleged kickback scheme involving state investments. Vigil, 52, announced his resignation, effective immediately, in a letter to Gov. Bill Richardson and Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron. "I have committed no crime, and the allegation made by the federal government are false," Vigil wrote. "I look forward to the day when a jury will hear all of...

California's political watchdog agency has closed 225 cases since May without finishing the investigations, a victim of a nagging backlog and budget crunch that led the agency's chairwoman last week to cry uncle. "We can't handle our caseload," Liane Randolph, chairwoman of the Fair Political Practices Commission, told the panel at its monthly meeting in Sacramento. "We're going hat in hand to the governor and the Legislature saying we need more resources to do our job," she said in a later interview. "It's a job the voters asked to be done, but our funding level just hasn't kept pace with...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who has led Germany since 1998, said for the first time on Wednesday he would not play a role in the next government, in an emotional farewell including broadsides at the United States and Britain. "I will not be a part of the next government — definitely not be part of it," a tearful looking Schroeder told a rapt audience of union members in his home city of Hanover. He quickly composed himself, hitting his stride in a passionate defense of a strong German state and lashing out at "Anglo-Saxon" economic policies favoured in...

Nobel judge quits with a blast at winner's writing By Julian Isherwood, Scandinavia Correspondent (Filed: 12/10/2005) The Swedish Academy was shaken yesterday after one of its members resigned, describing as a farce the committee that awards the Nobel prize for literature. This year's winner will be announced tomorrow, but the selection of the Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek last year was a huge blow to the prize's credibility, said Knut Ahnlund. "It has done irreparable damage to the Nobel Literature Prize, both those who came before Elfriede Jelinek and those who come after her," said Mr Ahnlund, 82, until yesterday Chair...

Another energy career capped: Mirant (otc: MIRKQ - news - people ) said Chief Executive S. Marce Fuller will resign from the energy company, which is operating under bankruptcy protection. But she won't go empty-handed: According to a regulatory filing, Fuller will take away $3.4 million in severance pay plus other benefits. The filing does not specifically say when she will quit, or step down from her board seat. Fuller had worked at Mirant since 1992, after positions with Southern Company (nyse: SO - news - people ) and General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ). Mirant has...

Guardian calls it quits in Clark County fiasco By David Rennie in Youngstown (Filed: 22/10/2004) The Guardian yesterday ran up the white flag and called a halt to "Operation Clark County", the newspaper's ambitious scheme to recruit thousands of readers to persuade American voters in a swing state to kick out President George W Bush in next month's election. The cancellation of the project came 24 hours after the first of some 14,000 letters from Guardian readers began arriving in Clark County. The missives led to widespread complaints about foreign interference in a US election. It also prompted a surge...

GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestinians have been promised substantial U.S. aid if they ensure peace in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) should Israel end its 37-year occupation, their foreign minister said on Thursday. Nabil Shaath told Reuters in an interview that talks were going ahead on drawing Islamist militants into a body to help end violence in Gaza and further a U.S.-backed peace plan that promises statehood to Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) wants to evacuate Jewish settlers from Gaza in a unilateral move that could supersede Washington's "road map" plan, stymied by...

<p>LAS VEGAS – The head of a panel of scientists reviewing plans for a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada is quitting, telling President George W. Bush that allegations of conflict of interest are hampering the board's work.</p> <p>One Nevada lawmaker opposed to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository welcomed the departure of Michael Corradini from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, saying he "displayed a wanton disregard for impartiality."</p>

Iran's ambassador quits London Relations sour over diplomat's arrest and nuclear plans Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor Wednesday September 3, 2003 The Guardian (UK) Relations between Iran and Britain deteriorated sharply yesterday when it emerged that the Iranian ambassador to London had returned to Tehran and may not return. The Iranians are angry over two separate issues: the detention in Britain of an Iranian diplomat wanted in connection with a terrorist attack in Argentina almost 10 years ago; and western pressure on Iran over its alleged nuclear weapon ambitions. The ambassador, Morteza Sarmadi, flew home after failing to win any compromise...

High-flyer quits amid plagiarism accusations By David Usborne in New York 30 May 2003 One of the most prominent writers at The New York Times has fled the newspaper after suffering a two-week suspension pending an investigation into a feature article he wrote almost a year ago on Florida oystermen that allegedly relied too heavily on the contributions of a freelance contributor. Rick Bragg, who won a Pulitzer prize in 1996, announced his resignation, saying that staying on would "only lead to more tension". He added: "I don't want to have that tension in my life, and I do not...

A minister quits, buildings burn, rubbish rots. So much for the 'reconstruction' By Donald Macintyre in Baghdad 12 May 2003 It was just another day in the process of "getting Baghdad back to normal". Well, on this most normal of days when news was supposed to be slow, the US-appointed Health Minister finally resigned at the time of a steadily mounting public health crisis after a week of relentless pressure from doctors disgusted at his prominent past in the Saddam Hussein regime. A senior State Department official turned up at the old Iraqi Police Academy to sack in person the...

Berkeley law dean quits over rape allegations By Andrew Gumbel 04 December 2002 The head of a leading American law school has resigned over allegations that he raped a student, ending any further investigation of the incident under university rules. John Dwyer, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, submitted his surprise resignation last week. According to the lawyer representing the aggrieved student, Professor Dwyer allegedly raped one of his students. Professor Dwyer said there had been an encounter with the student two years ago, that it had been consensual, and that it did not...

<p>The director of the Governor's Office of Criminal Justice Planning resigned Friday in the wake of disclosures linking him to indicted water official Monte McFall and to San Joaquin County Sheriff Baxter Dunn.</p> <p>An FBI search warrant affidavit unsealed Thursday says N. Allen Sawyer joined McFall and Dunn in a corporation that was "permeated with fraud" and appeared to have been "created solely in order to perpetrate ... extortion and fraud schemes."</p>

Whatever there was between Lisa Belzberg and Bill Clinton, it appears to be over.Belzburg, the brainy blonde behind the PENCIL nonprofit group that helps the public school system, was rumoured to be more than friends with the former President, who lives just 10 minutes away from the mother of two in Westchester.'She's heartbroken,' says one source.But there is little chance of reconcilliation with her husband, Matthew Bronfman.The Seagram heir, who split with Lisa in February, is said to be happily dating a fashion industry executive Stacy Kaye.