Archive - Jun 2009

• US troops withdraw from Iraqi towns and villages
• Iraq auctions oil fields
• Ousted Honduras President vows to return home
• Pakistan´s refugee crisis strains host families and the internally displaced

• Yemenia airplane crashes off African east coast with 153 passengers on board
• Minnesota Supreme Court rules for Al Franken in senatorial contest
• EPA reveals locations of 44 toxic coal ash “ponds”
• UN wraps up testimony from Gazans regarding January incursion, Free Gaza boat detained
• On Stonewall anniversary police raid Texas gay bar

An explosion in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk killed at least 25 people today. The car bomb was set off in a highly populated commercial market and the attack came as US forces withdrew from Iraqi towns and villages.
For the first time since the 2003 invasion, Iraq has control of its own security. President Nouri Al-Maliki declared today a national holiday, calling it “National Sovereignty Day.” Video footage and photos show many Iraqis celebrated in the streets of Baghdad, and other cities, as the US continues to scale down its forces and makes the transition from combat operations to training Iraqi military and police.
To find out more about Iraqi civilians´ reactions to Tuesday´s events, FSRN spoke with Baswa Alkhateeb, an Iraqi mother living in Bagdad.

As the US claims it has handed Iraq over to the Iraqis, multi-national oil companies are staking claim on Iraq´s most precious resource.  Exxon Mobil, Chevron, British Petroleum and dozens of others are participating in an auction of Iraq’s robust oil fields. FSRN’s Karen Miller reports.

There is growing international support to return Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to power after Sunday´s military coup.  More than 20 nations have pulled their ambassadors out of Honduras with the United Nations and all continental and Latin American organizations of nations condemning the coup.
But the de facto government of Honduras has ignored their calls to return Zelaya to the Presidency. Nevertheless, Zelaya said yesterday that he will return to Honduras on Thursday with the Secretary General of the Organization of American States.  FSRN´s Nan McCurdy reports.

A powerful faction of Taliban fighters has pulled out of a peace deal with the Pakistani military saying that US drone attacks and military operations forced them to cancel the 2008 peace accord.
The fighters resumed attacks against Pakistani military in North Waziristan Tuesday, killing at least seven. This comes on the heels of an attack in which 27 soldiers were killed in an ambush.
Pakistan´s military is staging a campaign to oust Taliban militants from the country´s northwestern tribal belt and millions have fled their homes in order to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
Most people who have been displaced by violence in the Swat Valley, Lower Dir and Buner districts, have been living with host families or in communal buildings like hospitals and schools. But these internally displaced persons are now realizing that the hospitality of their host families is declining with every passing day.
Nathan Moore reads for FSRN´s Gabe Matthews who sent us this report from Northwest Pakistan.

• Coup ousts Honduras President Manuel Zelaya
• Colombia´s Uribe visits President Obama
• "Special Report" Pro-government militias conduct nighttime raids against Iranian dissidents
• US Supreme Court backs reverse discrimination case
• Crucial ruling on banks´ lending practices