No image available
/ 27 May 2008

Potato king JR Simplot, US fry innovator, dies

JR Simplot, the billionaire founder of the Boise, Idaho-based agriculture business that bears his name and who helped make French fries a staple of the American diet and waistline, died on May 25 at the age of 99. After pioneering the first commercial frozen French fry in the late 1940s, Simplot eventually became a major supplier of Idaho potatoes to McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s.

No image available
/ 30 April 2008

More than 900 killed in Iraq’s Sadr City clashes

More than 900 people have been killed in clashes between militiamen and security forces in Baghdad’s Sadr City, which broke out last month, a senior Iraqi official told reporters on Wednesday. ”There were 925 martyrs in Sadr City and 2 605 others have been wounded”, said Tehseen Sheikhly, a spokesperson for the government’s Baghdad security plan.

No image available
/ 27 April 2008

Green Zone blasted under cover of storm

Militants bombarded Baghdad’s Green Zone with rockets on Sunday, taking advantage of the cover of a blinding dust storm to launch one of the heaviest strikes in weeks on the fortified compound. The strikes appeared to defy a renewed call for a ceasefire by Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, which has seen many of his masked gunmen leave the streets of the Sadr City slum.

No image available
/ 15 April 2008

Day of bloodshed shakes Iraq

A series of bombings blamed on al-Qaeda in Iraq tore through market areas in Baghdad and outside the capital on Tuesday, killing nearly 60 people and shattering weeks of relative calm in Sunni-dominated areas. The bloodshed struck directly at United States claims that the insurgents’ power is waning.

No image available
/ 10 April 2008

US air strikes hit Sadr City, street clashes ease

United States air strikes killed 10 people in the eastern Baghdad militia stronghold of Sadr City, Iraqi police said on Thursday, but street fighting eased after four days of clashes that have killed close to 90 people. The Sadr City slum has since Sunday been the focal point of battles between black-masked Mehdi Army militiamen and security forces.

No image available
/ 6 April 2008

Clashes in Baghdad Shi’ite bastion kill 20

Clashes between militiamen and United States forces in the Iraqi capital’s Shi’ite bastion of Sadr City killed at least 20 people and wounded 52 others on Sunday, Iraqi security and medical officials said. Officials from Iraq’s security and defence ministries said women and children were among the dead and wounded.

No image available
/ 28 March 2008

Displaced Somalis loot food aid in Mogadishu

Somalis uprooted by fighting in Mogadishu looted trucks carrying United Nations food aid on Friday, peacekeepers said, highlighting what relief agencies warn is a fast deteriorating humanitarian catastrophe. Somalia now has one million internal refugees, aid workers say, and their numbers are swelled by an exodus of about 20 000 civilians each month.

No image available
/ 24 March 2008

US death toll in Iraq reaches 4 000

The number of United States soldiers to die in Iraq has reached 4 000, the US military said on Monday, just days after the fifth anniversary of a war that President George Bush says the US is on track to win. The US military said in a statement four soldiers were killed late on Sunday by a roadside bomb.

No image available
/ 23 March 2008

More than 50 die in Iraq bloodshed

A wave of attacks across Iraq on Sunday killed 51 people, while insurgents fired a barrage of mortars at Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, sending United States embassy staff scurrying into bunkers. The deadliest attack was in the city of Mosul where a suicide bomber crashed an explosives-laden truck into an Iraqi army base.

No image available
/ 22 March 2008

Fresh violence frays militia truce in Iraq

Mehdi Army fighters attacked police patrols in southern Baghdad, police said on Friday, further fraying a seven-month-old ceasefire called by Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to rein in his militia. The clashes in Baghdad’s Shurta district, which started late on Thursday and continued into Friday morning, follow outbreaks of violence in the southern Iraqi city of Kut.

No image available
/ 7 March 2008

Baghdad blasts leave nearly 70 dead

Iraqi police said on Friday 68 people were killed in coordinated bombings blamed on al-Qaeda in a packed shopping area in central Baghdad on Thursday. Another 120 were wounded when two bombs exploded within minutes of each other on Thursday in Baghdad’s mainly Shi’ite Karrada district, police said.

No image available
/ 3 March 2008

More than 20 killed in Iraq violence

At least 23 people were killed in bomb attacks and shootings around Iraq on Monday as United States troops announced the discovery of a mass grave with the bodies of 14 men bound and shot in the head. The deadliest attacks were in Baghdad, where at least 19 people were killed in two car bombings.