Labour Assembly Member and the Deputy Minister for Communities, Huw Lewis, laid into the Welsh Nationalist Party Plaid Cymru at a recent session of the Welsh Assembly for “knee-jerk anti-Labourism, cloaked by the populism of knee-jerk anti-Americanism” and using “the dreadful issue of war to recruit supporters from the left, who, it feels, are disillusioned with Labour on the issue of Iraq.”
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The Independent reports that American troops killed four inmates and injured others in a riot at a prison in British-controlled southern Iraq. We agree with Bakhtiar Amin, Iraq’s human rights minister, who is quoted as saying, “If we are convinced there was no justification for the degree of force used then we want them to be tried. If there is a mistake, then those in charge should be brought to account.”
Joseph Braude at the New Republic says that election day in Iraq “must have been a rough day at the office for editors of the Arab world’s pro-government newspapers. How do you spin democratic elections in Iraq when your boss is an authoritarian ruler with a restive population?” See www.tnr.com
The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) have announced that Mr. Talib Khadim Al Tayee, the kidnapped President of the Iraqi Mechanics, Metalworkers & Printworkers Union (IMM&PU), has been released on 1 February 2005 in Baghdad.
Ann Clwyd MP gives an eye witness account of the heartwarming atmosphere on election day in Basra