79-year old Pope Benedict XVI, who had just sent the Muslim world up in rage 2 months ago, stood silent in prayers along side Muslim clerics facing Mecca in one of the world's most important mosques, the Blue Mosque in Turkey, in an attempt to reconcile Christians and Muslims.

Pope Benedict is now the second pope to set foot in a mosque following the footsteps of his predecessor Pope John Paul II. All in all, there have only been 2 Popes to do so in 2000 years.

Now we all know that when a VIP goes to a foreign country, he makes sure he's well protected. The Pope is going to make visit Turkey, his maiden voyage to a Muslim country. Usually, he's use the “Popemobile” but since the big boys at the Vatican are taking no chances, he's going to travel military style!

He will go in an armour-plated car, with several similar vehicles used as decoys, a spokesman, said.
There are even plans for him to wear a bullet-proof vest!
As for the Turks, they don't want to be embarrassed if anything goes wrong, so they're not taking any chances either. They've planned a huge security operation including rooftop snipers, Special Forces, helicopters and navy speedboats.

Donald Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary of the US, who has been criticized for his miss handling of the Iraq war, resigned yesterday.
It's about time for a change of management at the head of the Pentagon.
The resignation of Rumsfeld marks the end his career as one of most deplored defense secretaries in America’s history, a longstanding champion of the aggressive & horrible foreign policy of Bush.

This morning Israeli tanks fire attacked Palestinians in their homes in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. The Irony, is that this attack comes a day after Israeli troops pulled out of the town after a week-long offensive in which dozens died.
As usual, Israel apologized for the massacre that left 19 killed & pools of bloodstained water outside the houses of innocent families ... But what's in an apology!?
They said: "The Israeli military does not intend to harm civilians - that is never our aim. But in the framework of such things, incidents like these happen." Ya .. Ya .. We heard that hundreds of times before!

It's official, the much awaited Al-Jazeera English channel will be launched next week.
The launching of this English channel offers the chance to reach out to a new & huge audience that is used to hearing the name of Al-Jazeera without being able to watch it or understand the language.
The director of Al-Jazeera Network, Wadah Khanfar announced that the new channel will provide the same ground-breaking news & balanced journalism to the English-speaking world.

We've all seen many movie stars, producers, directors, writers and so on insulting the US President's intelligence but it's never been done by a senator and 2004 presidential nominee.

Massachusetts senator John Kerry told a California audience: "Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Yes, it's happening again.
Last year's riots in Paris were remembered in a flamy anniversary as youths burned hundreds of vehicles across the country.
The violence exposed yet again the sharp division between poor North African immigrants and the rest of the French society. And apparently, not much action has been taken to solve last year's problem.

In the southern port city of Marseille, a bunch of teenagers set a bus on fire seriously wounding a passenger and injuring others. Police said that two other public buses and 277 vehicles around the country were burned overnight.

As the heat is turned way up, North Korean leader Kim Jong II has shown regret about his country’s nuclear test. “If the U.S. makes a concession to some degree, we will also make a concession to some degree, whether it be bilateral talks or six-party talks,” he said.

Kim told a Chinese delegation that “he is sorry about the nuclear test,”
Kim also said that “we have no plans for additional nuclear tests,”

The U.S. military announced the deaths of nine more American troops killed in bombings and combat in Iraq, raising the death toll half way through October to 67.

Eight U.S. soldiers and one Marine were killed by roadside bombs and enemy fire in and around Baghdad on Tuesday, the military reported.

The highest death toll in one month was in November 2004 during the famous battles in Felluja when 137 U.S. troops died.
October's death toll would make this month the deadliest for American forces since then if it continues in this way. At least 2,779 members of the U.S. military have died and estimates say more than 18,000 injured since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

So that's about 3 thousand Americans and 650 thousand Iraqi who lost their lives as President Bush brings his democracy to Iraq. Isn’t this looking more and more like a sick joke?

A coroner ruled Friday that U.S. forces unlawfully killed a British television journalist in the opening days of the Iraq war. Terry Lloyd a 50 year-old veteran reporter for the British television network ITN was shot in the back by Iraqi troops who overtook his car, then died after U.S. fire hit a civilian minivan being used as an ambulance and struck him in the head.

"Terry Lloyd died following a gunshot wound to the head. The evidence this bullet was fired by the Americans is overwhelming," the coroner said. " There is no doubt that the minibus presented no threat to the American forces. There is no doubt it was an unlawful act of fire."

Gunmen stormed into a new Sunni television station in Baghdad and fatally shot 11 people including technicians, two guards and the head of the station's board of directors, police said.

The station moved into the building in July and has not yet gone on the air. The raid on the southeastern Baghdad offices of Iraq's Shaabiya satellite station came at around 7 a.m., police Maj. Mahir Hamad said.

Remember in July when Castro was sick for what was claimed to be abdominal surgery? Well, Cuban officials have maintained that the country's leader will return to his post. "We will again have him leading the revolution," said Foreign Minister Felipe Roque just two days ago.
But U.S. officials tell TIME Magazine that many in the U.S. government are now convinced that Castro, at 80 years old, has terminal cancer and will never return to power.

George Bush, the guy who has all the nukes and bombs in the world, has sharply criticized North Korea for conducting a nuclear test today saying it was a threat to international peace.
"The transfer of nuclear weapons to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States," Bush said. "And we would hold North Korea fully accountable to the consequences of such action."
Pretty noble of him isn’t it?

More blasts rocked Baghdad, more people dead in Iraq's worst week for bombings since the US invasion!!!

And as American casualties continued to mount, four more soldiers were killed on Wednesday in southwest Baghdad when their unit was attacked by gunfire and mortars.

Since Monday, 14 American soldiers have been killed, mostly in Baghdad, in a spike in casualties that brought the number killed since March 2003 to 2,729, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.
Please note, that’s ‘Pentagon figures’! The actual number may never be known!