NEW DEMOCRATIC IRAQ

Informationclearinghouse: John Pilger On Iraq And The Future
America will wake up to the deaths of their children in Iraq'
Campaigning journalist John Pilger has vehemently opposed the Bush-Blair ‘war on terror’. With power due to be handed to the Iraqi people on Wednesday, Torcuil Crichton asked for his thoughts on that country’s future, and the prospects for world peace

Aljazeera: Foreign Hands Behind Iraq Blasts Say Experts
Iraqi experts accused 'foreign hands' of being behind the deadly string of random attacks in the war-torn country in an attempt to stir unrest ahead of the handover of power to Iraqis
The vicious cycle of violence will give reason to the overstay of the US-led occupation in the country after the power handover, he said.

YAHOO News: Iraqi Militants Kill US Soldier - Report
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi militants killed an American soldier they have held hostage for nearly three months, saying the killing was because the U.S. government did not change its policy in Iraq, Al-Jazeera television reported Tuesday.
News of the killing of Spc. Keith M. Maupin, 20, of Batavia, Ohio, came hours after the United States returned sovereignty in Iraq to an interim government. The report did not say when Maupin was killed.

Independent: Another Bloody Day In Iraq As US Transfers Power By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad and Leyla Linton
Two car bombs in the city of Hillah that killed at least 23 civilians and a rocket attack that left dead two children who were playing on the bank of the Tigris River in Baghdad have raised the political temperature before Wednesday's transfer of sovereignty.

A further 58 people were injured in the blasts in Hillah, south of Baghdad, including Noor Ahmed, a two-year-old whose right arm had to be amputated.

Yesterday's rocket attack in Baghdad, which came as President George Bush posed for a photograph with other Nato leaders in an Ottoman palace in Istanbul, was followed by the seizure of a US Marine. The hostage, like three Turks whose capture was announced on Saturday, has been threatened with beheading.