INDISCRIMINATE: Many security contractors, which number in the tens of thousands, have been criticized for firing at US and Iraqi troops, and for shooting Iraqis to death
Iraq's interior ministry has ordered a probe into a shootout in Baghdad involving a US diplomatic convoy which killed at least eight people and wounded 13, a senior official said yesterday.

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Senate Democrats are confident they can pass legislation to give troops more rest between Iraq deployments, a measure aimed at pressing the US President George W. Bush administration to change its war policy.

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NOMINATION: Some legal conservatives and Republican activists have expressed reservations about Michael Mukasey's legal record and past endorsements from liberals
Michael Mukasey, US President George W. Bush's pick to replace Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, is not expected to prompt the confirmation battle that Senate Democrats threatened to wage if a more partisan nominee was chosen.

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COWGIRLS: `Coleo' originated over two centuries ago as a means of capturing runaway cattle without a rope. Now women are showing they too are up to the task
The crowd screams as a raging bull bursts from a trapdoor and dashes down a gated track. Within seconds, a rider gallops alongside the beast, grabs its tail and yanks, sending the 136kg animal tumbling to the ground.

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Representatives of 190 countries were to meet in Montreal yesterday for talks aimed at the twin goal of combating global warming and restoring the ozone layer.

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Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, for years an inscrutable seer on the economy, is causing a stir by alleging in his new memoir that "the Iraq war is largely about oil."

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OUTSOURCING: The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership aims to make enriched uranium available for energy needs, thereby reducing the risk of nations producing atomic arms
Eleven more nations backed the concept of a US-initiated project that aims to reduce the dangers of nuclear proliferation and control radioactive waste, while acknowledging that they were far from achieving such goals.

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DAMAGING: Costas Karamanlis of the New Democracy party was re-elected with a slimmer majority after a financial scandal and runaway fires blackened his image
Greece's conservative prime minister won re-election with a diminished majority in parliament after a financial scandal and devastating forest fires that killed more than 65 people last month.

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Pakistan's Supreme Court was set to hear a slew of petitions against President General Pervez Musharraf yesterday in a new challenge to the US-allied leader at a court that has already shaken his authority.

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CAUSE CELEBRE: Actors, models, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and playwright Tom Stoppard were among those calling for a solution
Protesters held demonstrations in several countries on Sunday to urge world leaders and the UN General Assembly to work harder to end the crisis in Darfur.

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China's government has protested what it said were inaccurate foreign media reports about riots among demobilized soldiers assigned to retraining institutes run by the Railway Ministry.

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China's official Catholic church will install a Vatican-approved bishop of Beijing possibly as early as this week, a top Chinese church official said yesterday.

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