Hussein's vice president sentenced to death

Taha Yassin Ramadan, Saddam Hussein's vice president, has been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity. "The condemned Taha Yassin Ramadan shall be sentenced to hanging until death for committing deliberate killing crimes," Judge Ali al-Kahachi said, after the Iraqi High Tribunal met to review an earlier life sentence.

"This is in accordance to the higher criminal court and the penal court law," the judge added, according to AFP. Following the verdict, Ramadan shouted Monday: "I swear to God I am innocent. May God support me. May God take revenge against everyone who rendered me injustice."

Head stay on? head fall off? it's all so gripping!!

Islamic schoolbook

The British government is to investigate a school funded by Saudi Arabia's government involved in a row over textbooks allegedly describing Jews as "monkeys" and Christians as "pigs,"

The King Fahad Academy in west London has already said that it will remove the disputed chapters from the books in question, which it said were used as "secondary sources."

It claims that the controversy arose from a misinterpretation of the Koran-based material and stresses that it does not teach hatred.

Yeah, obviously they hadn't read one of the hidden verses in the Koran entitled "Love thy pig and monkey"

Iran supplies bombs?

The Iranian embassy in Baghdad angrily dismissed Sunday's claim by an anonymous group of US defense officials that its agents had smuggled hundreds of sophisticated bombs to Shiite groups fighting US forces in Iraq.

"It's not true. It's not fair. Iran did not supply those weapons. It is like America's former statements against Saddam Hussein about the weapons of mass destruction," an Iranian diplomat said.

On Sunday, an anonymous group of US defense officials showed journalists what they said was proof that Iranian agents have smuggled weapons to Iraq, including "explosively formed penetrators [EFPs]," a form of roadside booby-trap.

These bombs, they said, have killed 170 American and allied troops since May 2004. The defense officials refused to allow reporters to name them or record their briefing, but released pictures of alleged Iranian arms.

Baghdad bombs

Devastating bomb attacks today ripped through two popular central Baghdad markets, killing at least 67 people in a lethal response to the embattled Iraqi government's latest security plan.

The blasts appeared timed to mark the end of a national 15-minute pause for reflection called by Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki on the first anniversary of the demolition of a Shiite shrine by Sunni bombers.

Bombs also struck Shiite districts in the heart of the capital on a day when Maliki's security forces had launched a massive security sweep designed to halt just this kind of apparently sectarian massacre.

Security and medical officials said at least 67 people were killed and more than 155 wounded by the explosions. "We expect that number to rise; we're checking the hospitals," said a defense ministry official.

Boycott Israeli products

The labor movement and the Stop the Wall Campaign issued an appeal on Sunday to international and Arab trade unions to boycott Israeli goods until the ongoing assaults on the Palestinian people come to an end.
At a press conference in Al Bireh City just outside of Ramallah, labor official Haider Ibrahim said, “The unions and the popular campaign appeal for an inclusive boycott of Israeli products and for continued resistance to the Apartheid Wall.”
He said that the Wall has nothing to do with the security claim with which the Israelis have sold the idea, but is rather part of a larger political project.
Ibrahim asked that Palestinian workers escalate their boycott of Israeli materials to include all of those available on the market.
He appealed to the Arab League to support the nonviolent action against occupation.

Perhaps Israel contemplated a similar boycott of muslim related 'materials' but quickly realised that they didn't want their wife beating sticks anyway.