REPORTS FROM THE FIELD

• US commander gives no date for Iraq prison transfer.

• Free Wheelchair Mission is working with Col. Randy Hart and his 322 Civil Affairs Brigade unit in a humanitarian effort to distribute wheelchairs to meet a desperate need in Iraq.

RECONSTRUCTION & THE ECONOMY

• Japan to offer 76.5 billion yen loan program.

• Last week's announcement that Iraq will now have to pay for its own reconstruction has left some observers wondering whether the country's yet-to-be-formed government will be up to the task.

• A group of Iraqi businessmen will arrive in Shanghai and are expected to purchase over US$1 billion of goods at a business exhibition hosted by the Shanghai International Merchandising Center later this week.

• Some 30 Iraqi companies are attending the International Cairo Trade Fair, exhibiting 200 new industrial products, said Minister of Industry and Minerals Usama al-Najafi.

IRAQI POLITICS

• Hussein likely to face genocide charges. The decision this week to charge Saddam Hussein with genocide for the death of thousands of Kurds in the late 1980s has been welcomed by Kurds across northern Iraq who had previously worried that Iraq's Shiite government would try him only for crimes against Arab Shiites.

• Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said today that the Iraqi interim government in today's meeting reviewed the upcoming talks between Iran and US on Iraqi issues.

THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

• Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw flew to Baghdad together Sunday and made a dramatic appeal to feuding Iraqi politicians to quickly form a national unity government before the country fractures further along sectarian lines.

• The U.N.-established panel that investigated the Iraq oil-for-food programme will stay open until the end of the year to allow prosecutors access to its documents.

• A "campaign of violence" is being waged against Iraqi academics, according to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Nealry 200 have been killed in the past 3 years.

• Russia has given the United States written assurance that it did not provide Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with information on US plans to invade Iraq in 2003. However, ht US is still investigating.

• Japan may delay the withdrawal of its troops from southern Iraq because of the unstable situation in that country, perhaps until as late as autumn.

ETCETERA

• An Iraqi insurgent group has claimed it downed a US helicopter south of Baghdad.

• Iraqi forces have captured a senior insurgent believed responsible for the kidnapping of an Italian journalist.

• Michael Yon is going back to war.

• Many border crossings are used to smuggle petrol out of the country, and revenues from such contraband are being used to fund terrorist activities in Iraq, according to the president of Iraq's Transparency Commission in Mosul, Dawud Baghistani.

• Do you have your GI Bracelet? Many military families fall into financial hardship when the breadwinner is injured or killed. The entire purchase price of the GI Bracelet is donated to support our troops and their families! Please join us to give back to these brave people in their time of need.

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: American, Australian, British, Canadian & Polish. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!

• Many American troops have taken it upon themselves to reconstruct schools and gather learning tools for the children of Iraq. Their efforts have been met with immense gratitude from the local Iraqis and their children. You can help too! Visit Operation Iraqi Children and get involved.

• Don't forget Chief Wiggles' Toys for Iraq drive!

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