International: British Expect Iran to Begin Release of 15 Captive Sailors, Marines 'Within Hours'
British officials late Wednesday night said they expected Iran to make good on its promise to release 15 British sailors and marines, and hoped their journey back to London would begin "within hours." Hear all about it here
PAPER: NEW AL-QAIDA LEADERSHIP IS EMERGING As al-Qaida rebuilds in Pakistan's tribal areas, a new generation of leaders has emerged under Osama bin Laden to cement control over the network's operations new leaders rose from within the organization after the death or capture of the operatives that built al-Qaida before the Sept. 11, 2001...(developing at Drudge)
British team grows human heart valve from stem cells
A British research team led by the world's leading heart surgeon has grown part of a human heart from stem cells for the first time. If animal trials scheduled for later this year prove successful, replacement tissue could be used in transplants for the hundreds of thousands of people suffering from heart disease within three years. Read the whole story here.
The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.
A British research team led by the world's leading heart surgeon has grown part of a human heart from stem cells for the first time. If animal trials scheduled for later this year prove successful, replacement tissue could be used in transplants for the hundreds of thousands of people suffering from heart disease within three years. Read the whole story here.
The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.
Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.
In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment. Read more
National
GOP Gets Swamped in Money Hunt
In the much-watched first quarter of presidential fundraising, the Democratic candidates raised significantly more than their Republican counterparts, creating a huge gap that is putting added pressure on a party already struggling to regroup after the November elections.
In the much-watched first quarter of presidential fundraising, the Democratic candidates raised significantly more than their Republican counterparts, creating a huge gap that is putting added pressure on a party already struggling to regroup after the November elections.
According to preliminary fundraising numbers released by the campaigns this week, the combined Democratic field raised about $80 million, compared with roughly $50 million collected by their GOP adversaries.
White House advisor Karl Rove was the target of a protest on the American University campus Tuesday night, News4 reported.
Rove was on the campus talking to the school's Young Republicans club for about an hour. Afterward, when Rove got outside, more than a dozen students began throwing things at his car, an American University spokesperson said.
Bush says war bill endangers troops
"In a time of war, it's irresponsible for the ... Democratic leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds." Read more
In Other News...
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is delaying his formal entry into the presidential campaign to deliver a “major speech on Iraq” on April 11 at the Virginia Military Institute. McCain “now faces a forest of hurdles, including continued skepticism from the party’s conservative base and mocking coverage of his televised assertions that Iraq is safer than portrayed by the media.”
While President Bush has focused much of his opposition to the Iraq redeployment on the earmarks attached to it, the Washington Post reports that "such spending has been part of Iraq funding bills since the war began, sometimes inserted by the president himself, sometimes added by lawmakers with bipartisan aplomb."
The House Armed Services Committee has said it will stop using the phrase “global war on terror.” A memo for the committee staff, circulated March 27, says defense policy should be specific about military operations and “avoid using colloquialisms.”
“In March, a total of 2,762 Iraqi civilians and policemen were killed, down 4 percent from the previous month, when 2,864 were killed. The number of Iraqi policemen killed across Iraq nearly doubled from 171 in February to 331 in March, according to Interior Ministry statistics.”
“The Bush administration has begun to step up its efforts to build a controversial missile defense system in eastern Europe, launching a public push in recent weeks "to overcome fears of a new arms race elsewhere on the continent,” the LA Times reports. The move “could escalate a simmering diplomatic issue into a significant international dispute.”
From The Right: Dick Morris and Eileen McGann: Dems' Next Debacle: More War-Funding Follies Democrats in Congress are heading into a game of chicken with the Bush White House akin to the Gingrich-Clinton government shutdown battle of 1995-96. The roles are reversed this time - so the Republicans are likely to prevail.
From The Left: William Rivers Pitt: And Then, Something Went Bump When the new Democratic majority successfully attached a troop withdrawal deadline to the $124 billion supplemental Iraq spending bill in late March, the newspapers described it as a stunning development.
Quote Of The Day: "The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. ... We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto," Newt Gingrich
April 4, 2007 Today is the 39th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., fatally shot in 1968 while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
(Sources: FOXNews, ThePolitico, DrudgeReport, Guardian, Independent, NBCNews4, FOXNews, WashingtonPost, TownHall, WashingtonTimes, NYTimes, MilitaryTimes, LATimes, ConsortiumNews, ChicagoTribune, TruthOut, CenterForAmericanProgress)
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