Army News Blog @newzblogz.com

PARIS (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is closing a 2-day visit to Paris with an effort to boost Lebanon's fragile government.

Rice met today with Prime Minister Fuad Saniora (foo-AHD' sah-nee-OHR'-uh) as Lebanon faces its most serious political crisis since the end of the 1975-90 civil war. Parliament is not functioning and the government just barely, after a quarter of Cabinet members resigned. Opposition supporters have been holding a sit-in outside Saniora's office since December First, calling for his resignation and the formation of a new government.

Saniora, backed by the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, the United States and the West, has refused to step down.

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit

KABUL, Afghanistan --U.S. military officials opened an investigation into allegations that American and Afghan soldiers threatened to drag an Afghan detainee from a car earlier this month, NATO said Monday.

The German news magazine Focus reported Sunday that two of its journalists embedded with troops from the 82nd Airborne Division in Ghazni province witnessed the alleged incident on June 10.

The magazine said the suspect was detained during the search of a village by a patrol led by an Afghan soldier. When the suspect refused to talk, the platoon leader tied one end of a rope to the his foot and the other end to a vehicle, then threatened to drag the man, the magazine said.

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit

JISR DIYALA, Iraq (AP) -- Newly arrived U.S. troops southeast of Baghdad are destroying boats on the Tigris River and targeting networks bringing powerful roadside bombs from Iran as the military cracks down on Sunni and Shiite extremists from all directions. But a top U.S. commander warned on Monday that three or four times more Iraqi security forces are needed to sustain the progress in clearing the area and stanching the flow of arms and makeshift bombs into the capital. Maj. Gen. Rick Ly...

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A House committee is expected to endorse a resolution urging Japan to apologize formally for coercing thousands of women to work as sex slaves for its wartime military. Approval by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which its Democratic chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos of California, predicted would happen easily on Tuesday, would allow the measure to be considered by the full House. Lantos has added his name to a list of more than 140 lawmakers from both political parties who ...

Link to full article

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg This | Post to Reddit