Iraq
Saddam Hussein discusses mobilizing Iraqis against U.S.
Saddam Hussein and his senior aides met Sunday to discuss a general mobilization of Iraqis against a possible U.S. strike, the official Iraqi News Agency reported.
President Bush recently warned Saddam there would be consequences if Iraq did not resume co-operation with U.N. arms inspectors, who have been barred from Iraq since 1998.
On Sunday, Saddam chaired a meeting of the two most powerful bodies in his regime the Revolutionary Command Council and the Regional Command of the ruling Baath party to discuss ways to improve a mobilization of Iraqis, INA said.
The meeting discussed means to "confront the malicious, hostile plans that the rulers of America are brandishing against our people, and how to thwart them," the agency added.
Saddam has previously said Iraq will not be caught off guard by a U.S. strike.
U.N. arms inspectors are charged with verifying that Iraq has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction and the means to produce them one of the conditions for the lifting of sanctions imposed since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Philippines
More U.S. troops arrive
U.S. military cargo planes on Sunday brought more troops and equipment to the southern Philippines amid growing protests against American involvement in the government's efforts to quash Muslim guerrillas.
Three U.S. Air Force C-130s arrived at an air base in the southern port city of Zamboanga carrying several soldiers, a forklift, a power generator, engineering equipment and a truck loaded with communications gear.
Hundreds of leftist activists used protests on the first anniversary Sunday of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's rise to power to demand American troops leave the country.
Outside the presidential palace in Manila, protesters hurled tomatoes at a giant effigy of Arroyo on a mock throne adorned with American flags.
A Muslim guerrilla group is holding Martin and Gracia Burnham, a missionary couple from Wichita, Kan., hostage.
London
Britain wants U.S. to explain Guantanamo prisoner photos
Britain asked the United States on Sunday to explain photographs from the Guantanamo prison that show al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners kneeling on the ground in handcuffs.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sought the explanation after the photos were prominently displayed in many British newspapers and on television. The Mail tabloid ran the headline "Tortured" over one of the photos asserting the pictures "show use of sensory deprivation to soften suspects for interrogation."
There is mounting concern in Britain about American treatment of the 100 prisoners, three of whom say they are British.
Officials say nearly one third of the detainees, now totaling 144, have sustained battle wounds, mainly gunshots in the arm and leg.
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