17 patients killed in shooting at Mexican drug rehab center

Gunmen shot and killed 17 patients and wounded two others in a drug rehabilitation center in northern Mexico late Wednesday, the mayor of Ciudad Juarez said Thursday. Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said authorities believe a rival drug gang attacked the men at the El Aviane rehab facility.

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Possible body of British hostage handed over in Iraq

A body that may be that of a Briton taken hostage in Iraq two years ago has been handed over to Iraqi authorities, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced Wednesday. The disclosures reported by the country’s official news agency were highly unusual

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Saudis reveal details of attempted assassination of minister

Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry has identified the suicide bomber who attempted to assassinate the country’s assistant interior minister last Thursday and released details of a phone conversation between the two men prior to the attack. The disclosures reported by the country’s official news agency were highly unusual

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2 George Washington Bridge guards fired for sleeping on job

Two George Washington Bridge security guards photographed sleeping on the job have been fired, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. A bicycle tour operator who commutes daily over the bridge from New Jersey to New York snapped photos of the two guards on different occasions, and the photos were published on a New Jersey local news Web site. In one set of photographs by commuter Joey Lepore, taken during a Wednesday rush hour at 7:15 a.m., a guard tilts his head downward and dozes

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‘Deviant hazing’ alleged at U.S. embassy in Kabul

Some private security guards hired to protect the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan say their contractor has allowed widespread mistreatment, sexual activity and intimidation within their ranks, according to the watchdog group Project On Government Oversight (POGO).

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British PM pays surprise visit to Afghanistan

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown paid a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Saturday, thanking his nation’s fighting forces for a job "well done." “This has been the most difficult summer in Afghanistan because the Taliban have tried to prevent the elections taking place and I think our forces who I’ve been meeting today have shown extraordinary courage during this period,” Brown said in a televised interview, taped in Afghanistan and aired in Britain. Brown dropped by Camp Bastion in Helmand province, where the country’s service members are based in Afghanistan

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The Air Force Seeks a Low-Tech Alternative to the F-22

The Air Force spent years fighting to keep building the $350 million F-22 fighter, an airplane crammed with so much gee-whiz technology there’s a law barring it from being sold to any other nation. But since no other nation is building such a plane to challenge it, the F-22 has become a costly investment with an uncertain payoff, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates just killed it. That sent an unmistakable message to the two new top Air Force officials Gates recently appointed, and now the service is seeking 100 slower, lower-flying and far cheaper airplanes — most likely prop-driven — that it can use to kill insurgents today and use to train local pilots — such as Afghans or Iraqis — tomorrow

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Iraq says ex-Baathist confesses to Finance Ministry attack

Iraqi officials Sunday released what they called a confession from a man identified as a former Baathist police official, who says he helped organize one of last week’s attacks on government buildings in Baghdad. In the videotaped statement, the man identified himself as Wissam Ali Kadhim Ibrahim, a former police chief in executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s government. Ibrahim said he received orders for the bombing of the Finance Ministry building from a member of Hussein’s Baath Party now living in Syria

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