Relatives of the three soldiers of the British Black Watch regiment killed in Iraq have lashed out at the UK government's decision to send them into a more dangerous zone.
The younger brother of Private Paul Lowe, 19, a Black Watch soldier himself who only recently returned from Basra, said his "brother, comrade and friend" had died in a war over "oil and money" and demanded his regiment return home.
Private Scott McArdle's uncle condemned Tony Blair and George W. Bush for sending the troops into a "death trap."
Privates Lowe and McArdle, 22, and Sergeant Stuart Gray, 31, were killed by a suicide car bomber as they inspected vehicles by the roadside a few miles from their new camp south of Baghdad on Thursday. They had been there just a few days and had been due to fly home last month after serving six months in the area.
Martin McArdle said he feared the situation would become another Vietnam and that the conflict was "George Bush's war." Of Blair, he said: "I just hope he can live with himself."
Private Craig Lowe, 18, said: "I think we should get them all out of there anyway, if not there's going to be a lot more of them like this and there's going to be a lot more upset people. Paul told us he would hopefully be home for Christmas but now we are just going to have to try to deal with what happened."
The UK defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, was furious at a claim he had been duplicitous in his justification of why British troops were being sent further north into the American zone. He added he did not believe the families' anger at their relatives being deployed in the more dangerous so-called Sunni "triangle of death" was justified.
Blair sent the families his "deep sympathy and condolences."
"I would also like to express my pride and gratitude to the Black Watch for the extraordinary and heroic job they are doing there, which is of crucial importance to making sure democratic elections can go ahead in Iraq," Blair added.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks of Vietnam’s unique modern script, in part a legacy of French colonial rule. The history of romanized Vietnamese, or Quoc Ngu, links the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, colonization by the French and the rise to power of the Communist Party of Vietnam. It is now reflected in the country’s “bamboo diplomacy” approach of seeking strength through flexibility, or looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers. A month after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visited,
RSS