Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are enduring a fifth day of power blackouts. The power outages began after the European Union suspended its funding of Gaza’s main electricity plant.
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The governor of the province of Muthanna was killed in a roadside bombing, two key US senators suggested that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government be replaced if it fails in a “last chance” bid for political reconciliation, a new study found that corporate news coverage of the Iraq war has dropped sharply in the last four months, Iraq’s Prime Minister made his first official visit to Syria to discuss security issues, a July Gallop poll found that 57% of the public consider the decision to invade Iraq a mistake, and new images have been released showing hundreds of Iraqi prisoners packed into cramped wire cages. “Those who are outside are no better than you, at least you have security,” the Iraqi Vice President said to prisoners.
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A series of bombings targeting the Yazidi Kurds killed 344 people.
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The Iraqi prime minister and president announced a new alliance of moderate Shiites and Kurds in a push to save the crumbing government Thursday, saying a key Sunni bloc refused to join but the door remained open to them.
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Iraq’s most senior Sunni politician accused Shiite militias of waging an unprecedented campaign of genocide against Iraq’s Sunni population, President al Maliki called for an emergency summit to end the political deadlock which has left less than half of the cabinet attending meetings, residents of the southern Iraqi city of Diwaniya said they fear an all-out war among rival Shiite factions after the local governor and police chief were assassinated, and the U.S. military claimed it had arrested 13 arms smugglers in Baghdad allegedly linked to Iran. Local resident Abu Rasoul described the U.S. raid, “They tied our hands and made us stand against the wall and gave each of us a number written on our shoulders and after that they entered the house and searched it thoroughly. They took away with them one million Iraqi dinars and 755,000 dinars. They arrested three of our sons and one of my nephew whose father is dead and my brother and his son,” he said.
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A roadside bomb killed the governor and police chief of an Iraqi southern province, the UN voted to expand its role in Iraq, US military deaths resulting from the Iraq War were at 3,684, President Bush’s new war adviser said it “made sense” to consider a draft, and Bush said his new strategy in Iraq was producing good results.
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Former anti-war leader Cindy Sheehan announced on Thursday that in 2008 she will run as an independent candidate against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). “I dedicate my candidacy to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Sheehan said, weeping.
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The number of U.S. troops in Iraq reached a new high of 162,000.
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US air strikes reportedly killed as many as 200 civilians. According to the US military the strike hit people who had gathered to watch the Taliban hang two men accused of spying for the government; according to locals the strike killed civilians preparing for a picnic.
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Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced resolutions calling for the censure of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
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For the past 24 hours, Baghdad has had virtually no running water; it is 115 degrees.
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A US Marine was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison for the 2006 murder of an Iraqi civilian and a soldier convicted of rape and murder in an attack on an Iraqi teenager and her family was sentenced Saturday to 110 years in prison, it was estimated that 90 percent of Iraq’s artists had fled the country or been killed and Iraq’s gays were being targeted for murder, though one observer noted that the scale of sectarian violence made it difficult to say whether gays had been killed for any specific reason, at least 25 people were killed in a suicide bombing in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, of Iraq’s thirty-eight ministers, seventeen have now either left the government or suspended their participation in it, and a new public opinion poll found that 63% Iraqis oppose plans to open the country’s oilfields to foreign investment.
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Israeli civilians started launching tomatoes, eggs, cucumbers, mangoes, corn on the cob, and eggs into Palestine. “We decided to take things into our own hands,” they said.
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3% of Americans approve of how Congress is handling the war in Iraq. 24% say the same for the President.
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The House voted Thursday to give U.S. troops guaranteed time at home between deployments to Iraq, which President Bush threatened to veto if passed in the Senate.
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Robots with machine guns are now patrolling Iraq
[don’t move]
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According to current and former intelligence officials, the Bush administration has been arming Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states covertly since “at least” 2004, a year after the US-led invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. Arming Saudi Arabia in a 10-year, $20 billion dollar arms sale is a “done deal,” officials said.
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The largest Sunni Arab bloc has announced its departure from the Iraqi government citing the failure of Maliki’s government. The move leaves two Sunnis behind.
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The US Government lost 190,000 weapons it sent to Iraq.
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More than one hundred forty people were killed in violence around Iraq.
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