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A new intelligence report paints a bleak picture of Iraq
A new assessment of Iraq by U.S. intelligence agencies provides little evidence that the American troop 'surge' has accomplished its goals and predicts that the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will become 'more precarious' in the months ahead. A declassified summary of the report released Thursday said that violence remains high, warns that U.S. alliances with former Sunni Muslim insurgents could undercut the central government and says that political compromises are 'unlikely to emerge' in the next 12 months. Perhaps most strikingly, U.S. intelligence analysts concluded that factions and political players in and outside Iraq already are maneuvering in expectation of a drawdown of U.S. troops - moves that could later heighten sectarian bloodshed.

Mystery trader bets market will crash by a third
An anonymous investor has placed a bet on an index of Europe's top 50 stocks falling by a third by the end of September, as world equity markets plunged for a third day and volatility hit a three-year high. The mystery investor has bought put option contracts on the DJ Eurostoxx 50 index that will result in a profit if it plunges to 2,800 or below by the end of September. Based on the 2,800 strike price, the position covers a notional €6.9bn, and potentially even more using a market price of about 4,100 when the trades were done on Tuesday and Wednesday. The identity of the investor is unknown but market sources speculated it was either a large hedge fund hedging itself against deepening losses, or a long-only fund manager pressing the panic button to protect its gains. The investor has bought a total of 245,000 put options on the index. The September put option with a 2,800 strike was the most popular DJ Eurostoxx 50 contract yesterday, according to data from Bloomberg. See also

Maliki accuses US politicians of meddling in Iraq
The Iraqi Prime Minister delivered a stinging rebuke to Hillary Clinton yesterday, telling her to stop meddling in the affairs of his country as though it was part of America. Nouri al-Maliki said Ms Clinton, the leading Democratic contender for the US presidency, and the Democratic senator Carl Levin should 'come to their senses'. The bald assertion by Mr Maliki that US politicians are behaving like colonial overlords is the latest in a series of bad-tempered exchanges between officials from both countries. 'There are American officials who consider Iraq as if it were one of their villages, for example Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin,' Mr Maliki said. 'They should come to their senses.'

Afghan opium crop 'at record high'
Afghanistan's production of poppies is expected to hit a record high this year and will produce nearly all of the world's opium, a United Nations report is expected to reveal. The report is also expected to criticise the international community and the Afghan government for failing to tackle the country's drug problem. It will be the sixth consecutive year that opium production has increased, despite hundreds of millions of dollars given to programmes to halt cultivation, processing and trafficking. The country is producing nearly 95 per cent of the world's opium, up from 92 per cent in 2006. Christina Oguz, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Afghanistan told the news agency: 'It is a very bad situation definitely, and the government has not been able to deal with it in the right way.' 'The same goes for the international community.'

US could be heading for recession
Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warned that the United States may be heading into recession as the biggest victim to date of the sub-prime mortgage debacle was humiliatingly sold for a token sum in Germany. Traders are braced for another week of turmoil after the near breakdown of America's $2,200bn (£1,100bn) market for commercial paper. 'It would be far too premature to judge this crisis over,' Mr Summers said. 'I would say the risks of recession are now greater than they've been any time since the period in the aftermath of 9/11.' In Germany, it emerged that the state-bank SachsenLB may have accumulated $80bn of exposure to risky assets through a set of Irish funds kept off balance sheet.

Disguised Canadian police upset peaceful protesters
A video recently posted on YouTube documents a strange occurrence at a recent protest during the recent Montebello Summit in Québec, Canada, which has activists questioning the motives of police, and suspicious that the orders came down from the Prime Minister's office. Masked men were spotted near the riot police, who held back despite one man holding a large rock, himself and two others appearing to attempt an incitement to riot. The three were confronted by other attendees and eventually handcuffed and taken away. During the confrontation, one of the three appears to be talking directly to one of the officers. Union President Dave Coles at a recent news conference: 'The Communications, Energy and Paper Workers Union of Canada believes that the security force at Montebello were ordered to infiltrate our peaceful assembly and to provoke incidents.' See also

'Accidental' US fire kills Iraqi cops
Four Iraqi police officers were killed and eight were wounded by US fire on Sunday in what was called a 'mistake,' police sources from the north-eastern city of Khanaqin said. According to Sirwan Shukr, a local official, four US helicopters struck a police centre 'by mistake.' 'Perhaps the US forces suspected that the centre belonged to terrorist groups,' said Shukr, who added that the US military had not provided an explanation yet. The victims are all police officers belonging to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces. In another incident, at least 97 suspected terrorists were captured in the early hours of Sunday. According to Khoshid Mahmoud, a senior policemen in Kirkuk, 250 kilometres north of Baghdad, the city's police troops rounded-up the suspects during a 'massive operation' targeting militants, especially those who fled from Diyala province.

American Airlines - AA flights on 9/11 didn't exist
According to the website WikiScanner, somebody whose IP address was traced to American Airlines changed the company's page on wikipedia to inexplicably deny that the two AA flights on September 11th existed. It does acknowledge that the planes which were hijacked were American Airlines but the edit, presumably by an AA employee, curiously adds, 'Neither flight 11 nor 77 were scheduled on September 11, 2001. The records kept by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (www.bts.gov/gis/) do not list either flight that day.'

Trafficked women auctioned in pubs and locked up in brothels
A major police operation to crack down on the trafficking of women has discovered that some victims are being 'sold' at auctions in pubs before they are forced to work in brothels. In the largest operation of its kind, police in Cambridgeshire have raided 73 suspected brothels in the past few months. They have already rescued seven women, some with serious injuries sustained as they tried to escape. The scale of the abuse has horrified the officers and other agencies working with them, who have found women being forced to work in the sex trade in houses in villages as well as city centres, being unable to go out and having sex with up to 60 men a day, earning thousands of pounds for the gangs.

Arrests over Russia writer murder
Ten people have been arrested in Russia over the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Russian TV showed prosecutor general Yuri Chaika telling President Putin of the arrests, informing him that those held would soon be charged.
Mr Chaika said 'serious progress' had been made in the investigation into the killing, which was widely condemned. The journalist, a harsh critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead at her Moscow apartment block in 2006. At the moment there is no information about the identity of the suspects. Anna Politkovskaya was killed as she left for work. Closed circuit television footage showed a single gunman carried out the murder.

Police tear-gas farmers in clash over French GM crops
Growing tensions in France between opponents and supporters of genetically modified crops have led to violent confrontations. Gendarmes used tear gas and batons to prevent pro-GM farmers from invading a picnic for militant opponents of genetically modified maize at the town of Verdun-sur-Garonne in south-west France over the weekend. Hardly a day has gone by this summer without opponents of GM maize - both environmental campaigners and small farmers - invading fields and trampling or cutting down crops. Tempers have risen to boiling point since the suicide earlier this month of a farmer in the Lot département who had agreed to plant a small section of GM maize. He took his life a few days after he had been warned that anti-GM protesters planned to hold a picnic on his fields.

British retreat descends into chaos as Shia militia occupy police centre
Shia militia loyal to the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have scuppered an attempt by British forces to hand over the Basra joint police command centre to Iraqi police. Iraqi police reportedly left when the Shia fighters arrived and began emptying the facility. According to witnesses, they made off with generators, computers, furniture and even cars, saying it was war booty - and were still in the centre yesterday evening. The embarrassing episode, which comes as the British in Basra are preparing to move their remaining soldiers to the city airport as part of a planned withdrawal, once again highlights the strength of the militia in the city.

US pressure forces move to reconciliation
Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, and fellow leaders in the country have reached consensus on key areas of national reconciliation, under mounting US pressure to demonstrate political progress on the eve of a key report to Congress on the Baghdad security 'surge'. The Shia prime minister appeared on television flanked by Jalal Talabani, the country's Kurdish president, and the Sunni vice-president, Tareq al-Hashemi, to announce a deal on easing restrictions on former members of the Ba'ath party joining the civil service and military. Easing de-Ba'athification laws passed after the 2003 US invasion has long been seen as a vital step if disenchanted Sunnis, who formed the backbone of Saddam Hussein's regime and, since its fall, of the insurgency, are to be persuaded to take part in Iraqi political life.

Alarm as police offenders keep jobs in force
More than 30 police officers serving in forces throughout Yorkshire were convicted of criminal offences last year, it has emerged. Revelations that so many law enforcers, most of whom are still in post, have turned law-breakers were dubbed 'deeply worrying' by a road safety campaigner. The disclosures - made under the Freedom of Information Act - showed that of the four forces in Yorkshire, West Yorkshire had the highest number of serving officers convicted between January 2006 and April 2007. Fourteen of the convictions were for motoring offences. The force would not disclose what the other convictions were for, but last year an exclusive Yorkshire Post report prompted outrage when it was revealed 10 of its serving officers had been convicted of assault.

Surfers Stop Superferry in Hawaii
The Coast Guard helped clear protesters who briefly disrupted the second voyage of Hawaii's first-ever passenger ferry service among the Hawaiian islands, but the fight over the ship's environmental impact is far from over. The Hawaii Superferry made two packed trips Sunday - two days ahead of schedule - after the state's Supreme Court ruled last week that the state should have required an environmental report before the ferry launched. A dozen protesters on surfboards blocked the ship for more than an hour from docking at Kauai's Lihue harbor Sunday, but the Coast Guard cleared them away. Hundreds more protesters onshore beat drums and chanted in support of the surfers.

New bird flu cases discovered on German farm
Bird flu was discovered on Friday at a farm near Erlangen in Bavaria, local authorities in the southern German state said. A three kilometre exclusion zone has been set up around the farm. The H5N1 virus was found in several chickens at the farm containing 44,000 animals. Analysis is being carried out at a laboratory to establish the exact strain of the virus, authorities said. The contaminated birds had been delivered around four weeks ago from Lower Saxony. At the beginning of August dead ducks carrying the H5N1 virus were found in Bavaria. In total, more than 50 wild birds carrying the virus have been found dead since the beginning of the summer in different German regions including Bavaria, Thuringia and Saxony.

Fishermen 'discard two-thirds of catch'
Devastating new evidence of the wastefulness of modern commercial fishing techniques has been revealed in a study by Government scientists. The fishing industry is trying to reduce the proportion of discards The study of the amount of the catch in British waters that is “discarded” because it is too small or the wrong species found that almost two thirds of the fish caught are thrown back over the side dead. Scientists estimated that a total of 186 million fish weighing 72,000 tons was caught by English and Welsh commercial fishing vessels in the English Channel, Western Approaches, Celtic and Irish Seas between 2002 and 2005. Of this total catch, 63 per cent of the fish, weighing 24,500 tons, were thrown back over the side. Few if any of these fish would survive because trawling ruptures their swim bladders.

Wildebeest migration at risk from Serengeti airport plan
The Tanzanian government has approved plans to build new roads, an airport and a handful of hotels in an attempt to drastically increase the number of tourists visiting the Serengeti National Park. Environmental groups, including the country's national parks authority, have expressed their concerns over the plans, arguing that the new infrastructure could do lasting damage to one of the world's most stunning reserves. It could also disrupt the one of nature's greatest wonders - the wildebeest migration. Both sides cite the Masai Mara, just over the northern border with Kenya, to back their arguments. The government points to the huge amount of tourism revenue it brings Kenya, while environmentalists argue the Mara has been damaged by mass tourism and insist the Serengeti should not go the same way.

City trader vanishes prompting fears of another Nick Leeson
A city trader has gone missing after quitting his job, prompting fears of a financial crisis at one of Britain's biggest banks.Edward Cahill, 33, walked out of Barclays Capital following the collapse of investment schemes under his control worth millions of pounds. His disappearance has revived memories of the trader Nick Leeson, who infamously fled Barings Bank in 1995 after losing £830million of the firm's money, leading to its collapse. Mr Cahill resigned on Thursday and has not been seen since at the £1million flat in London's Docklands he shares with his brother Michael, 28, a graphic designer.

Why saving Earth is not the BBC's job, by Newsnight boss
The editor of Newsnight hit out yesterday at the BBC's stance on climate change.Peter Barron said it was 'not the corporation's job to save the planet'.
He said the BBC was going beyond its remit by planning an entire day of programmes dedicated to highlighting environmental worries. In remarks that will embarrass his bosses, Mr Barron said: 'If the BBC is thinking about campaigning on climate change, then that is wrong and not our job. 'People are understandably interested in this, but it is absolutely not the BBC's job to save the planet. There are a lot of people who think that, but it must be stopped.'