Iraqi affiliate of al Qaeda launches online magazine
Baghdad, Iraq A new online magazine purportedly posted by al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq has launched an effort to recruit Muslims to rid Iraq of infidels and apostates – its names for Americans and their Iraqi partners.
The colorful, well-designed magazine is named Zurwat al-Sanam, Arabic for “The Tip of the Camel’s Hump” – a reference among Islamic militants to “the epitome of belief and virtuous activity.”
The inaugural 43-page issue was posted two days after al Qaeda in Iraq, the group led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for an attack Monday against police and army recruits that killed 125 people in Hillah, just south of Baghdad.
The group has also said it was behind car bombings and attacks that killed 14 police officers Wednesday. Al-Zarqawi’s organization has been blamed for many of the bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq.
China boosts military spending
Beijing China will increase spending on its military by 12.6 percent this year to $29.9 billion, a government spokesman said today. The announcement comes as Beijing expands its military to back up its frequent threats to attack self-ruled Taiwan, which the communist mainland claims as part of its territory.
Jiang Enzhu, a spokesman for China’s parliament, disclosed the budget figure at a news conference on the eve of the opening of the legislature’s annual session.
China’s total military spending is believed to be as much as several times the announced figure.
China has announced double-digit increases in military spending nearly every year for more than a decade as it modernizes the 2.5-million-member People’s Liberation Army, the world’s biggest fighting force.
Beijing has spent billions of dollars on acquiring Russian-made fighter jets, submarines and other high-tech weapons.
U.S. wants to amend U.N. declaration
United Nations The United States pressed ahead Thursday with its campaign to change the final declaration of a high-level U.N. meeting to advance the fight for women’s equality, but it did bow to pressure and drop a controversial demand for a reference to abortion in the document.
Facing intense pressure from countries around the globe, U.S. Ambassador Ellen Sauerbrey announced at a closed-door meeting that the United States was dropping part of its proposed amendment. It stated that the landmark platform adopted at the 1995 U.N. women’s conference in Beijing to achieve equality of the sexes did not include a “right to abortion.”
But Sauerbrey said the United States still wants part of the amendment added to the declaration to reaffirm that the 150-page Beijing blueprint to achieve equality for women does not “create any new international human rights.”
That provoked a string of speeches from the European Union, the African Union, the Mercosur nations of South America, and many other countries, all strongly opposing the new amendment and demanding that the declaration not be changed.
Bush to host North American summit
Washington President Bush will meet with the leaders of Mexico and Canada in Texas on March 23 to discuss trade and border security issues, the White House announced Thursday.
Bush will host working sessions with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin at Baylor University in Waco, then take the leaders to lunch at his ranch outside Crawford.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the agenda for the North American summit was still being drafted, but would center on “ways to strengthen our continent’s common security and enhance our people’s common prosperity.”
The meetings come as U.S. relations are strained with Mexico over crime and security issues along the border and with Canada over Martin’s decision to shun the United States in its development of a missile defense shield.