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AP - It's Staff Sgt. Edgar Covarrubias' second Fourth of July in Iraq. No family barbecue, no fireworks, but Covarrubias says he'll call his mom, wife and kids to share the day anyway.

AP - As of Friday, July 4, 2008, at least 4,113 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Summary: United States is the most flagrant violator of NPT commitments, frequently intervening to prevent other NPT signatories from exercising their “inalienable rights” affirmed under the NPT to access nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, “without discrimination.” source: AntiWar.com read more

AFP - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday that she was "proud" of the US decision to invade Iraq and said the Middle East had improved since President george W. Bush took office.

President Robert Mugabe spoke at Harare airport after returning from summit of African leaders, who called for Zimbabwe to form national unity government

Agreement signed last month stipulates both armies are to fully withdraw from Abyei by June 30 to avoid a repeat of the fighting in May that displaced tens of thousands of civilians

State media say joint operation was launched June 29 to stop planned terrorist offensive in Meteban and Gura'el areas

Introduction The past few months have seen an upsurge in comment on saudi arabia in the British media at a similar rate to the upsurge in oil prices, the current cause of the country being in the news. While previous Arab Media Watch studies found that portrayals of Saudi Arabia were “often negative and sometimes openly hostile” – particularly at the time of the Saudi royal visit to Britain in November 2007, and the BAE arms deal – the current spike in media attention has a far more reasoned character to it. For this report, AMW monitored all the British national daily newspapers (except the Financial Times), as well as the Evening Standard. Blame Saudi Out of a total of 20 editorials and commentaries, just five contained comments that seemed to place blame for the current oil price crisis on saudi arabia. The Daily Telegraph’s executive foreign editor Con Coughlin argued that “as things stand, protecting their precious reserves, rather than providi

A Scots Quair by Lewis Grassic Gibbon Once you get accustomed to the invented prose idiom, the groundedness of this epic takes a grip. The architecture of the trilogy embodies a big (Marxist) picture of historical development, but it’s built out of emotional intimacy and physical immediacy. The conclusion of Sunset Song, the second volume in the trilogy, with its invocation of the sufferings of the first World War, moved me as much as anything I’ve encountered in British fiction. Poor Things by Alasdair Gray A wildly inventive yet in its own way utterly logical fictional confection. What’s great is that the bravura assemblage of voices, styles and narrative gimmicks all tend to a purpose; they’re not only immense fun, they’re fused and directed by Gray’s compassion for aspirant humanity and his contempt for power and hierarchy. This is a wonderfully partisan novel. Beyond a Boundary by CLR James This is not only by some way the best book ever written

Even as the government admits to a 10 billion black hole in its finances caused by its gifting of tax back to businesses to plug their pensions holes, it looks set to U-turn on its policy to close corporation tax loopholes costing the exchequer tens of billions more every year. Threats from major UK companies to relocate overseas or into tax havens has prompted a move to revise corporation tax rules following high-profile complaints that the UK?s taxation levels are significantly higher than elsewhere in the EU. Pharmaceuticals giant Shire recently announced it would relocate to Ireland to take advantage of the low tax regime there. While UK law stipulates a basic corporation tax of 28%, corporations on average pay closer to 22%, with some of the largest paying significantly under this figure. A simplification of the rules mooted by the treasury last year would have closed loopholes which at present allow huge levels of tax evasion. The UK has recently come under fire for itself mainta