] The Hasan Akbar that his California friends knew was a
] quiet, studious young man who avoided conflict and earned
] double degrees in engineering from UC Davis before
] enlisting in the U.S. Army.
]
] But the Sgt. Akbar portrayed by military officials and
] reporters in Kuwait is entirely different. He is
] suspected of rolling three grenades into the tents of his
] military supervisors and shooting a fellow soldier in the
] back, killing him. Killed was Capt. Christopher Scott
] Seifert; 15 others were wounded, including three
] hospitalized in serious condition.

Background on Akbar.

The Sacramento Bee | From UCD graduate to GI killing suspect

] The first gulf war of 1991, which kicked off the
] cable-news mini-series form, pioneered this sort
] of hype, but the coverage of the current war has
] taken it to a new level. "The characters are the
] same: the president is a Bush, and the other guy
] is Hussein," Erik Sorenson, president of MSNBC,
] told USA Today. "But the technology — the
] military's and the media's — has exploded." He
] likened the change to "the difference between
] Atari and PlayStation," and added that "this may
] be one time where the sequel is more compelling
] than the original."

] Though some television teams with the troops
] provided us with remarkable scenes of the war,
] giving us unprecedented glimpses of fighting as it
] unfurled in real time, such images were rarely
] situated by producers in any meaningful context.
] Glimpses of firefights, shot in the green Kryptonite
] glow of night vision, ran on the cable networks
] like outtakes from one of those car chases that
] routinely run on local television in California,
] and many cable channels kept split-screen shots of
] Baghdad on for the better part of the day,
] determined not to miss the dropping of a single
] photogenic bomb.

More on Iraq media coverage.

Shock, Awe and Razzmatazz in the Sequel

"Last time around, the attorney general announced that he was sending up a bill and that he expected Congress to enact it within three days," the ACLU's Timothy Edgar said of Ashcroft's post-9/11 push for the first PATRIOT Act in an interview with Salon. "They ended up taking six weeks, but they still didn't have a single hearing, and members were unable to obtain a complete text of the legislation even after they voted on it."

Everyone should be watching this.. When the next act comes, they are going to try to ram it through fast..

'Shut Your Mouth'

] U.S. soldiers confiscated the prisoners' weapons and
] military equipment. The guns were old, but the gas masks
] weren't.
]
] "It looks like a regular chemical protection mask," said
] Sgt. Jennifer Raichle. "It was made in 2002. Brand new."
]
] The gas masks were indeed brand new, as were the
] decontamination kits, and atropeine -- used to treat
] exposure to nerve agents.
]
] "I would guess they were planning on using chemical
] warfare. They may or may not use it, but they were ready
] for it," Raichle said.

Elonka: Newly-issued gas masks, to troops with old guns? And the next question in my mind is, where were these gasmasks manufactured? Iraqi-made? If so, where's the factory? And if not made in Iraq, then which country has been selling such recently-made gas masks to Iraq??

Iraq Chemical Warfare Clues

Al Jazeera has launched an english web site.

There is a banner saying that its a "temporary site dedicated to special coverage on Iraq".. Also, in the title "objective and balanced global news coverage and analysis". We shall see..

Also, its _very_ slow right now, and when I try to pull up stories, I'm getting blank stories.. It also appears to be running IIS and built using ASP, which likely explains a part of the reason why.. I'm guessing that they over estimated the demand for an english version of their site.. They must be getting slammed already.

Its hosted in the US.. Jersey.

Al Jazeera English Webpage

First section of this article is about the change in tone between Saturday and Sunday in the mainstream TV and print media war coverage. Second section is about the rise of the warblog..

] Even if Sean-Paul Kelley, the mastermind and
] lightning-fast typist behind the Weblog at agonist.org,
] had changed his mind about the war in recent days, his
] rapidly growing audience would not know it. In a shift
] that appears to reflect a growing distrust of mass media,
] the most popular Web journals to emerge in recent days
] are simply reporting the news.
]
] "My readership has grown 350 percent over the last five
] days, and I really think it's a function of the fact that
] I am providing the news without the media hype of CNN and
] Fox," said Mr. Kelly, 32, of San Antonio, who has devoted
] the past week to transcribing news from dozens of sources
] and posting it nonstop on his Web site. "The most
] important thing is that people know what is going on."

agonist.org is really, really, really great.

] Until now, Weblogs, or blogs, have mostly been platforms
] for their owners to spout their opinions on any given
] subject.

Reporting Reflects Anxiety & Weblogs: Facts Are in, Spin Is Out

] Suspected guerrillas gunned down 24 Kashmiri Hindus in
] this small hamlet in Shopian in south Kashmir late on
] Sunday night. The victims included 11 women and two
] children, aged two and three.
]
] Eyewitnesses told Daily Times that over a dozen armed
] men, dressed in army uniforms, barged into the village
] around 10.30pm, disarmed half a dozen policemen on
] security duty at the main entrance of the village, saying
] soldiers were looking for militants hiding in the
] village. The gunmen then ordered the Pandit families to
] come out and assemble under a Chinar tree, in an open
] field. They then shot them with automatic weapons. 24
] people were killed and five injured. Before fleeing from
] the scene, the gunmen took away guns and a wireless set
] from the policemen.

(Pakistan) Daily Times | 24 Hindus massacred in Kashmir

] The following is a copy of Mary (Ann) Wright’s letter
] of resignation to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
] Wright was most recently the deputy chief of mission
] at the U.S. embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. She
] helped open the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan,
] in January 2002.

More background on Wright:

] I have been a diplomat for fifteen years and the Deputy
] Chief of Mission in our Embassies in Sierra Leone,
] Micronesia, Afghanistan (briefly) and Mongolia. I have
] also had assignments in Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan,
] Grenada and Nicaragua. I received the State Department's
] Award for Heroism as Charge d’Affaires during the
] evacuation of Sierra Leone in 1997. I was 26 years in
] the US Army/Army Reserves and participated in civil
] reconstruction projects after military operations in
] Grenada, Panama and Somalia. I attained the rank of
] Colonel during my military service.

Key Points:

] I disagree with the Administration’s policies on Iraq

] I disagree with the Administration’s lack of effort in
] resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

] I disagree with the Administration’s lack of policy
] on North Korea

] I disagree with the Administration’s policies on
] Unnecessary Curtailment of Rights in America

More high level resignations...

Message base (arabic language, I can't read it) with higher resolution shots of the soldiers from the IraqTV/Al-Jazeera video. You can clearly make out their faces in these.

Screen captures, IraqTV/Al-Jazeera Video

Picture gallery of pics from IraqTV/Al-Jazeera video.

Not pretty stuff..

aljazeera caps; dead american soldiers, pow's