The White House says President Bush has delayed his announcement of a new American strategy for Iraq until next year. The plan had been expected before Christmas following the report of the Iraq study group which recommended a number of changes to US policy. In his latest talks with Iraqi leaders, Mr.Bush met the country's higest ranking Sunni Arab politian, the vice President Tareq Hashemi in Washington, from where James Kamarsomy reports.
For someone who has lost both his brother and sister to the insurgency, the Iraqi vice President sounded remarkably optimistic after his White House meeting. Tareq Hashemi praised President Bush's determination and said that while times were hard in Iraq, there was as he put it a light in the corridor. Mr.Bush said his objective remain to help the Iraqi government deal with extremists and killers. He is engaged in a flurry of meetings and briefings ahead of an address to the nation in which he is expected to outline changes to his Iraq policy. That was expected before Christmas, but according to White House spokesman Tony Snow, it is now slipped into the new year although he insists that doesn't mean that President Bush is planning any major last-minute revisions.

Iraqi police say the number of people who died in a suicide bomb attack in central Baghdad has now risen to 70, more than 230 were injured in the blast in the busy square. Reports say the attacker have pretended to be hiring casual labors and detonated the explosives after luring job searchers to his vehicle.

The United Nations and the government of Guatemala have signed an agreement to tackle illegal armed groups. The international commission will initially have a 2-year independent mandate to investigate the Kurdistian security groups which emerged following the end of Guatemalan civil war in 1996. Our America's editor Amiliar Sompatrol reports from Miami.
The newly formed international commission against impunity in Guatemala will have an initial 2-year mandate and will be led by a commissioner to be named by the UN Secretary General. Guatemala's decades long civil war which claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people ended in 1996, but the country remains an extremely violent one with thousands of people have died in recent years at the hands of armed gangs. Human rights groups have been pressing the Guatemalan President Oscar Berger to create a commission to deal with the clandestine armed groups for several years, many of which they say have links to the Guatemalan security forces, saying it would demonstrate he possess the political will to end the culture of impunity.

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The funeral of the late Chilean military ruler Augusto Pinochet has taken place in the capital Santiago. His daughter Lucia Pinochet Hiriart called on his supporters to keep alive what she called the flame of freedom of his rule. But opponents hold a protest vigil in the central square in honor of S. , a civilian President who was killed when general Pinochet overthrew him in 1973. The general's daughter said that the media would not understand why people mourned her father's passing.
"Dear father, today the international press will clearly not understand how hundreds of thousands of well-informed compatriots democratically without pressure of any kind, without prices or plaudits are capable of demonstrating their gratitude and of action for the man that press has described in the worst possible terms anyone can address to a humanbeing."

Scientists in the United States say that a pair of orbiting satellite which has been surveying the earth water resources in unpresented detail show sharp decreases in parts of Africa over the past 5 years. Survey has found that over a 3-year period water storey along the Congo river basen has decreased significantly.

Police investigating the deaths of 3 prostitutes in eastern England say they found 2 more bodies. It fears that they are the victims of a serial killer. The Police had already been looking for 2 prostitutes who had been reported missing. Steve Evens reports.
The bodies of the 2 missing women were found close together in woodland and police have sealed off the crime scenes to search for clues. There are also trying to trace the movements of 5 murdered women to work out who they've been in contact with. The assumption is that the killer is a lone man, though the involvement of more than one person has not been completely ruled out. [] psychiatrists are trying to build up a profile of who might be responsible. One warned that the shortening space between murders indicated the murderer might be finding it increasingly difficult to control his compulsions.

A court in Ethiopia has convicted the former ruler Mingesto Hily Marian of genocide for atrocities he is accused of committing while in office. Mr.Mingesto was convicted in his absence at the end of a trial that has lasted the 12 years.