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US President George W. Bush says he has no regrets about the unpopular war in Iraq despite the "high cost in lives and treasure" and declared that the United States was on track for victory.
Marking the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion with a touch of the swagger he showed early in the war, Bush said in a speech at the Pentagon, "The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable."
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With less than 11 months left in office and his approval ratings near the lows of his presidency, Bush is trying to shore up support for the Iraq campaign, which has damaged US credibility abroad and is sure to define his legacy.

But he faced the challenge of winning back the attention of war-weary Americans more preoccupied with mounting economic troubles and increasingly focused on the race to pick his successor in the November election.

Bush's Democratic critics used the anniversary to press accusations that Bush launched the invasion based on faulty intelligence, mismanaged the war and failed to put together an exit strategy.

"Five years into this battle, there is an understandable debate over whether the war was worth fighting, whether the fight is worth winning, and whether we can win it," Bush told an audience of top military officers and about 200 Defense Department employees.

"The answers are clear to me: Removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision, and this is a fight America can and must win," he said.

Rejecting calls from Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for a timetable for early troop withdrawal, Bush touted the security gains from a troop buildup or "surge" he ordered early last year and said those needed to be consolidated.

He insisted that "retreat" would embolden al Qaeda and Iran and put the United States at risk.

"The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around -- it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror," Bush said, hailing increased cooperation of Iraqi Sunnis in fighting al Qaeda.

Such an assertion could come back to haunt Bush if the situation deteriorates. War critics have roundly mocked Bush for his premature declaration in May 2003 that "major combat operations" in Iraq were over as he stood on the USS Abraham Lincoln under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished."

UPBEAT BUT TEMPERED ASSESSMENT

Possibly mindful of that, Bush stopped short of promising outright victory in Iraq, as he had earlier in the war before sectarian violence brought the country to the brink of civil war.

"No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure, but those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq," he said.

Not all anniversary assessments were as upbeat as Bush's. A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the war was not worth waging.

Told about the poll result in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America," Vice President Dick Cheney, in Oman after a visit to Iraq, said: "So?" He added: "I think we cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations of the public opinion polls."

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "The cost to our national security has been immense -- our military is stretched thin and our reputation in the world is damaged. And now, the war in Iraq has become a threat to our economy."

The war has cost the United States $500 billion. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and millions displaced. Nearly 4,000 US soldiers have been killed, as well as 175 British troops and 134 from other countries.

Bush -- a Republican who had huge public support after the attacks on the United States by al Qaeda militants on September 11, 2001 -- has long described Iraq as a central front in the battle against Islamic extremists.

But Democrats say his administration has been distracted from what they see as a more vital struggle in Afghanistan.

In his speech, Bush hailed the increased role of Iraqi Sunnis in the fight against Sunni Islamist al Qaeda as the "first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his murderous network."

A number of Sunni tribal chiefs have joined against al Qaeda, responsible for many of the worst attacks, but progress remains slow bridging the national sectarian divide.

Violence across Iraq has dropped 60 percent since 30,000 extra US troops became fully deployed in June. But a recent spate of attacks showed that Iraq was far from safe and Bush noted that "the gains we've made are fragile and reversible."

Bush's speech was the second in the lead-up to the next status report that Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker will give to Congress in early April.

The US military is on track to complete the withdrawal of about 20,000 troops by July, leaving about 140,000 in Iraq.

Bush reiterated any decision on bringing more troops home would depend on recommendations from commanders on the ground.

Reuters

[OMEN]

President Robert Mugabe's supporters have used violence to intimidate opponents before next week's Zimbabwe election, Human Rights Watch said.

However, the head of a Southern African Development Community (SADC) observer mission said it believed the political environment was conducive to a free election.

Mugabe faces the strongest challenge to his 28-year rule in presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections on March 29 because of defections by senior officials of the ruling ZANU-PF party and a deepening economic crisis.

"As in previous elections, local government authorities, ZANU-PF supporters, and security forces including the police and central intelligence, are the main perpetrators of the violations. . .," Human Rights Watch, a US-based rights group, said in a report released in Johannesburg.

Opposition groups have accused Mugabe, who has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980, of rigging previous elections, allegations he denies.

"Despite some improvements on paper to the election regulations, Zimbabweans aren't free to vote for the candidates of their choice," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director of Human Rights Watch.

"While there are four candidates running for president and many political parties involved, the election process itself is skewed."

The head of the SADC mission said the voters' register was published late "and there could be other irregularities".

"SADC does not operate on the principle of all-or-nothing basis because no election process can ever be perfect," Jose Marcos Barrica told a news conference.

Barrica said his SADC team did not believe that statements by two senior security officials they would not accept an opposition victory represented the official position.

The statements have generated controversy in a largely peaceful election campaign for the March 29 votes. Mugabe hopes to fend off challenges from long-time rival Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the biggest faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and former finance minister Simba Makoni, who was expelled from ZANU-PF.

Zimbabweans are suffering from the world's highest inflation rate – officially put at more than 100,000 per cent – and chronic shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency.

The government has used state-subsidised food and farming equipment as a tool to gain political advantage, Human Rights Watch said.

Prices of some basic goods, including the staple maize meal, bread, cooking oil and soap, have risen by up to 300 per cent since the start of this month.

Mugabe blames the country's economic troubles on Western foes, especially former colonial master Britain.

Addressing a rally in Chinhoyi, west of Harare, on Wednesday, Mugabe gave businesses a one-week ultimatum to reduce prices or face a government crackdown.

"Those who have raised prices must bring them down quickly. Otherwise we will bring both the prices and those profiteering down," Mugabe told supporters in a packed stadium.

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[OMEN]

Convicted serial killer Steve Wright has sought permission to appeal the life sentence he was handed last month for murdering five prostitutes in his hometown of Ipswich.

Wright, 49, formally applied for permission to challenge the sentence, handed down by a judge after a jury at Ipswich Crown Court deliberated for two days, less than a month into his sentence, a spokeswoman for the Suffolk police said.

"We have been informed by the Crown Court that he has put in an application for leave to appeal against his convictions," she said, but declined to comment further.

Wright, a former forklift truck driver and worker on the QE2 cruise liner, killed the five drug-addicted women during a six-week campaign of violence in late 2006.

He was sentenced to a whole life term without the prospect of parole, meaning he will never be released, for crimes the judge said had revolted the public.

"It is right you should spend your whole life in prison," Justice Peter Gross told Wright, whose father disowned him after the convictions were handed down.

Wright, labelled the "Suffolk Strangler" by the media, murdered the women while his 63-year-old partner Pamela was working night shifts.

Their bodies were found in the space of just 10 days around the city, two of them arranged in a cruciform pose with arms outstretched.

Media reports have said police are now set to question Wright over the unsolved murder of estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, who is believed to have died more than 20 years ago.

She went missing in July 1986 after leaving her office in Fulham, west London, to meet a mysterious "Mr Kipper". She and Wright had worked together on the QE2.

The spokeswoman declined to comment on whether police had interviewed Wright in relation to other crimes.

Reuters

[OMEN]

The last time a high-profile Dutchman made a film critical of Islam he paid for it with his life.

Stabbed to director Theo van Gogh's lifeless chest by his Dutch-Moroccan killer was a note warning other critics of Islam they would be similarly "silenced".

Three and a half years on the Netherlands is bracing for another film on Islam, made by a right-wing Dutch lawmaker who says multiple death threats could not deter him from his mission to expose the dangers of Islam.

Long contentious at home for his anti-Muslim populism, 44-year-old Geert Wilders has now generated global uproar, triggering a fury among Muslims thousands of miles away that has seen the Dutch flag join the Danish on protesters' fires.

In the months before the film's release, Wilders has sat back and watched as protests spread and temperatures rose, to the alarm of the Dutch government.

Meanwhile support for his Freedom party has grown among an electorate wary of the consequences of the film but largely supportive of his right to free expression.

"Wilders sets the agenda and has others eating out of his hand," said political scientist Andre Krouwel of Amsterdam's Free University. "He is a very clever politician."

Having first appealed to Wilders not to show the film, then considered banning it, the Dutch government has been forced to marshal European support for the likely fall-out, and plan both an overseas charm offensive and campaign of damage limitation.

While the government braces for a repeat of the violence sparked in 2006 by the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, an indignant Wilders has washed his hands of all responsibility and blamed the prime minister for his panicked response.

Wilders, who has warned of a "tsunami of Islamisation" in a country which is home to almost 1 million Muslims, is expected to air the film at the end of the month on the website www.fitnathemovie.com, making it available to audiences worldwide.

He has given few details about the content of his 15-minute film, which no television broadcaster is prepared to air, leaving people to infer it will take a similar tone to his earlier pronouncements on Islam.

"Islam is a violent religion. If Mohammad lived here today I could imagine chasing him out of the country tarred and feathered as an extremist," Wilders said in an interview with De Pers daily last year.

Wilders' love of the limelight and appetite for political controversy first brought him to prominence at home five years ago as he tapped into unease in Dutch society about Muslim integration and slammed the impotence of the political elite.

Stepping into the shoes of anti-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn, killed by a leftist activist in 2002, the strikingly tall man with a shock of dyed-blonde hair rapidly found a following as he began a series of audacious campaigns.

These included calls to ban the burqa and halt Muslim immigration and the building of mosques, and Wilders questioned the loyalties of the Netherlands' first Muslim ministers, suggesting they be forced to relinquish their dual nationality.

Over the last year the Koran has become Wilders' particular bugbear – he has compared it to "Mein Kampf", urged Dutch Muslims to ditch it, and suggested it be banned because it is an incitement to violence.

The film is just a logical next step for a man seeking to gain political capital and raise his international profile by exploiting liberal anxiety over the boundaries of free speech, his critics say.

It also stirs painful memories in the Netherlands of the 2004 murder of Theo van Gogh, who together with Somali-born lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali made a film critical of Islam's treatment of women.

That murder unleashed an unprecedented period of violence and social tension in the country traditionally viewed as a paradigm of tolerance.

Although calm was swiftly restored, Wilders has kept tapping away at latent anti-Muslim sentiment, timing his announcements and campaigns to reap maximum media exposure.

What motivates him, he says, is his desire to uphold traditional Dutch freedoms such as freedom of speech and to shake-up political culture, although he does not wish to enter government himself.

"He is transforming Dutch politics and it is fascinating to watch. The traditional parties are flabbergasted and they don't have an answer which is the most dangerous thing," said Krouwel.

Clearly Wilders' message has struck home. The public voted him "Politician of the year" in 2007.

In the last general election in 2006, his newly created Freedom party took nine seats of the 150 available – according to latest opinion polls he could now take 15.

Wilders' political roots are on the moderate right. He entered parliament in 1998 for the VVD Liberals, also the former party of Hirsi Ali, but left in 2004 after repeated clashes over his opposition to Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

He continued in parliament as an independent before forming the Freedom party.

Little is known about the private life of the man who hails from the Catholic South of the Netherlands, and who has been subject to life under close guard since 2004. He was even forced to live in a prison cell when he first went into hiding.

Dutch media say his wife is of dual Dutch-Hungarian citizenship and he lists his hobbies only as "reading and writing".

Reuters

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[OMEN]

A New Zealand man will stand trial after his four-wheel drive allegedly mounted a footpath and struck three pedestrians in Sydney's Chinatown, killing one of the victims.

Poasa Logova, 30, of Punchbowl in Sydney's south-west, appeared in Downing Centre Local Court charged with dangerous driving under the influence causing death and two counts of dangerous driving under the influence causing grievous bodily harm.

Police said Logova's Landcruiser 4WD mounted a footpath in Sussex St on June 23 last year and hit three pedestrians, killing a 35-year-old woman and injuring a 61-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman.

Defence lawyer Michael O'Connor entered a plea of not guilty on behalf of Logova today, saying he would waive his right to a committal hearing and stand trial later this month.

Magistrate Julie Huber accepted Logova's application and committed him to stand trial in Sydney's Downing Centre District Court next Friday.

He was granted conditional bail.

AAP

[OMEN]

Chinese demands that Mount Everest be closed so it can be used in their Olympic torch plans has left Nepalese in a dire situation, New Zealand expedition leader Guy Cotter says.

He has arrived in Khatmandu ready to lead one of the 32 expeditions scheduled to climb the world¹s highest peak over the next couple of months.

But China, ahead of the Olympic Games, has closed their side of Everest and has pushed Nepal to close their side.

In a statement from Katmandu Cotter said the situation for the Nepalese and the expeditions had become dire.

"I urge the international community to collectively encourage China and Nepal to offer an immediate resolution to the issue and to recognise that a lot more than a few crampons scratching the summit of Mt Everest is at stake here," he said.

"I have appealed to the NZ Government to step into the Chinese-Nepalese closure of Mt Everest."

He said his company's situation was becoming desperate as they were about to receive all the clients for the expeditions but cannot get going until climbing permits are issued.

"The Nepalese Ministry of Tourism said today there is no closure on Everest which is totally incorrect because they are not issuing permits for Everest.

"The responsibility for delaying the decision has been passed on to the secretary (for the ministry) so the minister does not have to be held responsible for not opening the mountain and issuing permits for Everest."

The Sherpa climbing community is already in a state of shock after the 11th hour closure of expeditions to Tibet and the "non opening" of expedition peaks within Nepal will only exacerbate the issue.

Hundreds, if not thousands of climbing Sherpas will lose their annual income they derive from their intense but relatively highly paid efforts on Mt Everest, Cotter said.

"The fault lies firstly with China for placing such pressure on Nepal so it can have a well publicised spectacle on Everest with the Olympic torch carrying procession.

"But this situation shows that for the two seconds of television coverage they are prepared to allow many people to lose their livelihood."

This is the first time since Nepal opened its borders to foreigners in 1951 that climbing Mt Everest has been closed.

Fairfax Media