From the ABC

Sister of Iraq's vice president shot dead
Iraqi Sunni vice president Tareq al-Hashemi's sister was shot dead by gunmen today in a southern Baghdad neighbourhood, an interior ministry official said.

Mayssun Hashemi was travelling in her car in Baghdad's Al-Ilam neighbourhood when "gunmen ambushed her car and sprayed it with bullets, killing her and her driver," the official said.

Earlier this month Mr Hashemi's brother, Mahmud, was also shot dead by gunmen in Baghdad.

Mr Hashemi was elected as Iraq's new vice president last week, along with Jalal Talabani as president and Adel Abdel Mahdi as the other vice president.

He is the head of Iraqi Islamic Party, a key party in Iraq's Sunni-led National Concord Front, a major parliamentary bloc in the country's 275-member parliament.

The Front holds 44 seats in the assembly.

Mr Hashemi hit headlines recently when US journalist Jill Carroll was dropped outside his party office by her captors after three months of captivity in Iraq.

He later handed her over to the US military.

read more at the ABC

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From Al jazeera

US troops backed by a helicopter and jets struck a suspected safehouse of foreign insurgents, killing 12 militants and a woman, the US military said on Wednesday.

In Baghdad, a bomb ripped through a minibus carrying passengers home to their Shia neighbourhood, killing four, and police found 10 bodies dumped in Baghdad and elsewhere, the apparent victims of sectarian killings.

The violence came as Iraq's Shia, Sunni and Kurdish politicians haggled over forming a new government.

read more at Al Jazeera
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From Al Jazeera
Four soldiers killed in Iraq blast
Thursday 27 April 2006, 10:36 Makka Time, 7:36 GMT

Four soldiers, three Italian and a Romanian, have died when an explosion ripped through their convoy in southern Iraq.

The Italian defence ministry said a fourth Italian was seriously wounded in Thursday's attack.

The Italian news agency Apcom, citing government sources, said many more were injured.

The bomb targeted a four-vehicle convoy on its way to relieve troops at the local Iraqi police station in the city of Nasiriyah.

read more at Al jazeera

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and from Al Jazeera again

Canada media ban sparks anger

Wednesday 26 April 2006, 16:52 Makka Time, 13:52 GMT

The Conservative government has banned the media from showing live images of the flag-draped coffins of four Canadian soldiers when their bodies return from Afghanistan.

This has provoked anger among political opponents and some family members.

Ottawa has also stopped lowering the flags to half-staff on Parliament Hill each time a Canadian soldier is killed, prompting Liberals to accuse Stephen Harper, the prime minister, of trying to whitewash the growing human cost of the Canadian mission in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

A roadside bomb blast killed the four men on Saturday in southern Afghanistan in the deadliest attack against Canadian troops by hostile forces since they deployed there in 2002.

read more at Al Jazeera
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And why not more from the real news at Al Jazeera
Corruption, smuggling threaten Iraq oil
Tuesday 25 April 2006, 20:45 Makka Time, 17:45 GMT

Corruption and smuggling in Iraq's oil industry have become the biggest threat to the country's economy, a report says.

The report, prepared by the office of the inspector general of Iraq's oil ministry, said the only solution is a crackdown by Iraq's government.

"The corruption in the oil sector and smuggling of oil products to neighbouring countries are the most important reasons behind the loss of billions of dollars, and these two problems are the biggest threat to Iraq's economy," the report said.

Corruption and smuggling, combined with frequent attacks on oil pipelines in the north by insurgents, have prevented Iraq from rebuilding its battered oil infrastructure, said the report, released by Assem Jihad, the spokesman for the inspector general's office.

"For example, about 20 percent of the oil products that Iraq imported last year, worth US$4.2 billion, were smuggled to neighbouring countries," the report said.

"Crude oil produced in Iraq also was stolen from its pipelines."

Read more for real news on Iraq...

From the Washington Post

Pain at Pumps May Be Felt at Polls
As Gas Prices Soar, Voters Want to Send a Message to Lawmakers
By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 27, 2006; Page A01

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., April 26 -- One of the soaring bridges to the beach here is named for longtime Republican congressman E. Clay Shaw Jr., and at its foot is a gas station where drivers on Wednesday were filling up, wincing at the tally and wondering whom to blame.

Gasoline prices have reached $3 a gallon in the area, and for Shaw, a former mayor and a political institution here, the rising bipartisan disgruntlement at the pumps is a troubling sign. Here and in other swing districts across the country, the Democratic challenger is attacking the Republican incumbent for inaction -- or worse -- on gas prices and other energy woes.
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and

Projected Iraq War Costs Soar
Total Spending Is Likely to More Than Double, Analysis Finds
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 27, 2006; Page A16

The cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill currently before the Senate, and that total is likely to more than double before the war ends, the Congressional Research Service estimated this week.

The analysis, distributed to some members of Congress on Tuesday night, provides the most official cost estimate yet of a war whose price tag will rise by nearly 17 percent this year. Just last week, independent defense analysts looking only at Defense Department costs put the total at least $7 billion below the CRS figure.

Read more at the Washington Post