download

Homework

It’s 10:00 Universal Time. Here is the news from the Voice of America. I’m Carmen English from the VOA News Center in Washington.

Delegates in the major International Conference on Iraq are to discuss ways to combat violence in the country on the second and final day of the meetings today. The Conference at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh brings together senior officials from some 50 countries including all of Iraq’s neighbors and the five permanent UN Security Council members. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke Thursday for about half an hour with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on a sidelines of the conference, say it was the first high-level contact between the two countries in more than two years. Rice later said she raised the issue of foreign fighters entering Iran from Syria. She described the talks as professional and businesslike. Muallem called the exchange frank and constructive. The United States says it wants to see Iran and Syria increase controls over their borders and stops supporting militias and insurgents in Iraq.

There has been an initial reaction on Capitol Hill to the meeting. VOA’s Dan Robinson reports.

The Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrat Tom Lantos says it has been calling for step-up contacts between the Bush administration and Syria and Iran for sometime. In a statement issued after news first arrived of the Secretary Rice’s 30-minute meeting with Syria’s Foreign Minister Lantos called it, in his words, a mark improvements in the administration’s outrage policy approach. Lantos also described the meeting is a tested mission that the administration was wrong when it criticized Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat Speaker of the House for visiting Damascus during a regional tour earlier this year. Lantos accompanied the House Speaker on her visit to Syria. During a news conference Thursday Republican House minority leader John Bater said that the Secretary Rice believed there could be some common ground and wanted to meet the Syrian official then, in his words, it was her choice. Dan Robinson, VOA News, Capitol Hill.

In other news, Iraqi security officials say at least five policemen were killed when their patrol in a roadside bomb at Baghdad neighborhood today. Two other policemen were wounded in the blast in A district, the site of frequent clashes between Shiite and Sunni communities. The US military said a separate roadside bomb struck a US troop patrol south of Baghdad killing one American soldier. A separate military statement said coalition forces detained 16 suspected terrorists during raids in a mainly Shiite Sadr City district of the capital. It said intelligent report indicated the men were involved in smuggling arm effusing bombs from Iran. The military also displayed pictures of a / Iranian-made weapons that it said coalition forces discovered during earlier operations in the Mahmoudiyah region south of Baghdad.

On Thursday, the US military says it killed a senior leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who was involved in the kidnappings of several westerners. Iraqi officials also announced two other high- profile al-Qaida deaths in recent days. But VOA’s B. N. reports officials say those deaths are unconfirmed.

US military spokesman Major William Caldwell says al-Qaida in Iraq’s Information Minister Muharib Abdul Latif al-Jubouri was killed May 1st during a US-led operation in Taji north of Baghdad. While US officials were waiting to confirm Jubouri’s death, Iraqi officials reported on May 1st that al-Qaida in Iraq’s leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri was killed also in Taji. Iraqi officials have produced no evidence to back up the claim. The US military released Jubouri’s body on Wednesday to a member of his family in Baghdad. But the military says Iraqi forces have detained the family member and the body at a Baghdad checkpoint. Interior Ministry spokesman brigadier general Abudul H say Iraqi forces identified the body as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the leader of the insurgent group The Islamic State of Iraq. US and Iraqi officials have been unable to explain the discrapency in the report of death. B.N. VOA News, /, Iraq.

Japan’s stock market was closed today for a national holiday. The dollar has weakened slightly against the Japanese Yen. In Hong Kong the price of gold rose 5.5 dollars.