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Can anyone tell me if this channel is available in Canada, and if so where. This is probably a question only Canadian Freepers will be able to answer. Link : http://www.pentagon.gov/news/Feb2005/n02082005_2005020805.html

BAGHDAD, Feb. 6 -- With a hero who gave his life for the elections, a revived national anthem blaring from car stereos and a greater willingness to help police, the public mood appears to be moving more clearly against the insurgency in Iraq (news - web sites), political and security officials say. In the week since national elections, police and Iraqi National Guardsmen say that they have received more tips from the public, resulting in more arrests and greater effectiveness in their efforts to weaken the violent insurgency rocking the country. None of the officials said they believed the violence...

BAGHDAD—Coalition troops and Iraqi security forces may be responsible for up to 60 per cent of conflict-related civilian deaths in Iraq — far more than are killed by insurgents, the BBC reports. Data from the beginning of July, 2004, through the end of the year covers all conflict-related civilian deaths and injuries recorded by Iraqi public hospitals. The figures exclude, where known, the deaths of insurgents, the BBC says. The figures reveal that 3,274 Iraqi civilians were killed and 12,657 wounded in conflict-related violence during the period. Of those deaths, 60 per cent — 2,041 civilians — were killed by...

NEW YORK -- Police arrested state Sen. Kevin Parker on Thursday after he allegedly punched a traffic agent who was writing him a ticket. The Brooklyn Democrat was charged with third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, police said. He was being held at the 67th Precinct stationhouse. Witnesses told police the dispute began at about 3 p.m. after the agent found Parker's car double-parked on a Brooklyn street. When the agent started to write a ticket, the senator allegedly grabbed it, crumpled it up and threw it in his face. During an ensuing struggle, Parker allegedly punched the agent. Police officers responding...

WHILE insurgents draw on deep wells of fury to expand their ranks in Iraq, the US military is fighting desertion, recruitment shortfalls and legal challenges from its own troops. The irritation among the rank and file became all too clear this week when a soldier stood up in a televised session with Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, to ask why the world’s richest army was having to hunt for scrap metal to protect its vehicles. The same night, interviews with three soldiers who are seeking refugee status in Canada, where they have become minor celebrities, dominated prime time television....

JIDDA, Saudi Arabia - The kingdom's highest religious authority today condemned as a "grand sin" the deadly shooting rampage at a U.S. consulate, and local newspapers reported one of the slain assailants was a former employee of the country's religious police. The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh reopened today, two days after militants stormed the U.S. Consulate in Jidda, killing five people. Four of the attackers were killed. U.S. officials warned more attacks were possible, and the injured spoke of assailants opening fire and hunting for victims with shouts of "Where are the Americans?" Grand Mufti Abdul-Aziz al-Sheik said in a...

Property owned by The New Republic senior editor and well-known political pundit and Internet blogger Andrew Sullivan is now on the town of Provincetown's tax title list. (Scanned article. Click link for more info).

The UN should be reformed to make intervention in failing states easier, a commission is set to recommend. The panel, which has examined how the UN could respond better to global threats, also calls for the Security Council to be enlarged, the BBC has learned. The report has been called the "biggest make-over" of the UN since 1945. It is thought that if the UN shows greater readiness to act, unilateralism by member states would be less likely. A year ago, in the wake of the international divisions over Iraq, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned the UN was at...

Much has been made of the unprecedented sum of money spent by the presidential campaigns and political advocacy groups on the 2004 election. But as Democrats found out, what's important is not so much the amount of money spent, but how it is spent. A critical component of the Democratic Party's strategy were so-called "527" committees. Named after a section of the IRS tax code, a 527 group can accept unlimited donations for spending on ads, voter mobilization efforts and other activities as long as it doesn't directly coordinate with a political party or candidate. While Republican national party groups...

Abidjan - French troops fired "directly" at the crowd without warning during an anti-French rally outside an Abidjan hotel earlier this month, an Ivorian police colonel charged on Sunday. Georges Guiai Bi Poin, commander of the Abidjan police academy, who was in charge of about 60 police officers on duty outside the Ivoire hotel to stop demonstrators from storming the building, told AFP that "French troops fired directly into the crowd. "They opened fire on the orders of their chief, colonel D'Estremon. Without warning." Throughout the night Guiai Bi Poin was at colonel D'Estremon's side in the hotel lobby. Almost...

Berlin - A scandal in Germany surrounding the alleged abuse of army recruits by their officers widened on Friday when the government revealed it had been informed of at least one other case. A total of 20 non-commissioned officers and a captain are already under investigation by prosecutors in the western city of Muenster, accused of mistreating 80 of their charges at a barracks in Coesfeld, at least half of whom were doing national service. But the army's representative in the Bundestag lower house of parliament, Willfried Penner, has been informed of more accusations of mistreatment, his spokesperson Guido Large...

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has entered the fray over the Defense Department's relationship with the Boy Scouts of America, endorsing in a letter to the House speaker continued support of Scout troops who meet on military bases. At least three conservative Republican lawmakers have sent letters to Mr. Rumsfeld protesting a Bush administration partial legal settlement of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union's Illinois chapter. The Justice Department, representing the Pentagon, agreed to warn military commanders not to officially sponsor Scout units. The ACLU contends the government sponsorship violates religious freedoms since the Boy Scouts require...

KHARTOUM, SUDAN - Prime Minister Paul Martin's motorcade struck and injured a young girl as it was leaving a displaced person's camp near Khartoum, Sudan on Thursday. The girl was taken to hospital by ambulance and X-rayed but has reportedly not suffered serious injury. She was hit as the crowd pressed forward toward the vehicles as they left the camp. Martin plans to visit the girl in hospital. The injury occurred just after the prime minister had delivered a speech offering a message of hope to those living in the camp, home to more than 200,000 people. Martin arrived in...

Lt Malcolm was a good chess player. He looked like any other young marines officer: skinny, shaven-headed, although with a quite beaky nose. Marine peers through machinegun scope during Falluja assault Alpha Company suffered heavy losses in the Falluja assault Anyway, you could always pick him out. He would be the one with the chess board placed on an up-ended box of MREs (Meal Ready to Eat), working out moves. I got to know him a little bit, as his bunk was opposite mine. I would watch as he gave chess tips to those of his men who had not...

Just had a look at this petition and it just topped 200 000 signatures. That's awesome. In case you have yet to sign, here's the link : http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?as123

(CNN) -- Fifty-five percent of Americans like the way President Bush is handling his job, while the approval rating for his Iraq policies is slightly lower, according to the first full CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll following the November 2 presidential election. Forty-two percent of those polled don't believe Bush is doing a good job. Sixty percent have a positive opinion of Bush, versus 39 percent with the opposite view. Many of the poll questions targeted foreign affairs, especially the U.S. performance in Iraq. The responses showed that Bush's positive approval rating does not necessarily translate into a perception of military success,...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen on Monday assassinated a member of an influential Sunni clerics' group that has called for a boycott of national elections, just a day after Iraqi officials announced the balloting would be held Jan. 30 in spite of rising violence in Iraq. Sheik Faidh Mohamed Amin al-Faidhi, a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars (search), was shot by gunmen at his home in northern Mosul (search) — a sign of the continuing violence that wracks the country. Iraq's first elections since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship are scheduled for Jan. 30, and Iraqi authorities said...

CAIRO, Egypt — Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's (search) cousin has been released by his kidnappers, the Iraqi leader's office said Saturday. Ghazi Allawi (search), 75, had been abducted by gunmen from his Baghdad home on Nov. 9, along with his wife and his pregnant daughter-in-law. The prime minister's office had no other details on his release. The two women were released on Nov. 15. At the time, Al-Jazeera (search) television quoted sources saying they had been freed in Baqouba in central Iraq. Their kidnappers, who identified themselves as the militant group Ansar al-Jihad, had threatened to behead them unless all...

UN Secretary General Koffi Annan admitted Friday there was clear evidence that civilian staff and a small number of troops in its peacekeeping force in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had committed sexual abuse, saying he was outraged by the incidents. Annan said in a statement released in Nairobi that he had received a "detailed briefing... about the investigations which the UN initiated some time ago into allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by both civilian and military peacekeeping personnel in the DRC." "I am afraid there is clear evidence that acts of gross misconduct have taken place. This is...

New York - France has launched a campaign on Wednesday to brush up its battered image in the United States (US) and attract more foreign investment in its economy. The three-year drive to encourage outside business investors eventually will be extended to Britain. Japan, Germany and China, French officials told a news conference. Relations between Paris and Washington were badly damaged in 2003 when France led opposition in the Uinted Nations (UN) Security Council to a resolution that would have given a green light to the US-led invasion of Iraq. But Jean-David Levitte, the French Ambassador to the US, said...