For the final running order click here

Sound: Nat Sot
Duration: 87 mins 33 secs

LEBANON

10:00:30

A major conflict between Israel and Lebanon 's Hezbollah erupted in July after the guerrillas from the organisation captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. Israeli air strikes on southern Lebanon ensued, as did widespread clashes along the Lebanese-Israel border. Hassan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah Member of Parliament, said the action had been taken to help free Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.

Hezbollah fighters operate with almost total autonomy in southern Lebanon and the Lebanese government has no control over their actions. The Lebanese government has long resisted international pressure to disarm the group as any attempt to disarm the group by force could lead to sectarian conflict.

Israel responded by sending its warplanes, tanks and gunboats to strike targets in southern Lebanon as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called Hezbollah's action "an action of a sovereign state" and vowed a potent response. " Lebanon is responsible and Lebanon will bear the consequences," he said.

The capture of the two soldiers opened up a second front in Israel 's fight against Islamic militants and comes as it waged an offensive in the Gaza Strip aimed at freeing another Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was seized on June 25 by fighters linked to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The Lebanese government rejected blame for the capture of two Israeli soldiers and distanced itself from the Hezbollah operation, but that didn't stop Israel 's military response. Southern Lebanon was pounded relentlessly and villages along the border areas destroyed in an attempt to pin down Hezbollah fighters. At least two Israeli missiles struck farmland on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon .

In the village of Dweir , near Nabatiyeh, a funeral was held for one of those killed in an earlier Israeli bombardment. According to Lebanese officials, a family of 10 and another family of seven were killed in their Dweir homes in the attacks. Israel also targeted the runways of Beirut 's international airport, forcing its closure and the diversion of incoming flights to Cyprus . Shells pounded craters into all three runways, though the main terminal building remained intact.

10:00:41
489516
AP Television
Lebanon - 12 July 2006
Fax of Hezbollah statement

10:00:46
489538
AP Television
Jerusalem , Israel - 12 July 2006
SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Ehud Olmert, Israeli Prime Minister:
" Lebanon is responsible and Lebanon will bear the consequences."

10:00:52
489576
AP Television
Israeli side of Lebanon border - 12 July 2006
Israeli tank firing shell (AUDIO: firing)

10:01:09
489694
AP Television
Outskirts of Sidon, southern Lebanon , 13 July 2006
Wide shot fields, AUDIO of explosion, plume of black smoke rising
Dweir, southern Lebanon , 13 July 2006
Mourners touching body as it is laid on bier
Various of prayers at funeral

Israel 's fighter bombers targeted the city's infrastructure, attacking residential buildings in the southern suburbs, igniting fuel storage tanks and cutting the main highway to Syria . Israeli warplanes continued to blast the runways of Beirut's airport setting fuel storage tanks ablaze - the third attack on Lebanon's sole international airport since Israel launched a military offensive 72 hours before. The airport remained closed, effectively shutting down Lebanese airspace and costing the nation (m) millions of dollars a day.

Hezbollah's headquarters and its leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah's house in southern Beirut were also targeted. Nasrallah responded by saying his group was ready for "open war" with Israel, whose gunboats sped up the coast into Lebanese waters firing shells, apparently targeting the coastal highway north of the port city of Sidon.

Israel shelled targets across the border into Lebanon as it continued its offensive. The firing came from a position near the border town of Zarit . Hezbollah has launched several rockets across the Blue Line towards positions of the Israel Defence Forces near Zarit and at the town itself.

Beirut international airport, 13 July 2006
Various of runway being hit, two plumes of smoke rising, AUDIO of explosions

10:01:19
489782
AP Television
Beirut , Lebanon – 14 July 2006
Missile is fired at runway of the Beirut international airport, plume of black smoke appears, shockwave causes jump in tower
Wide shot of smoke and flames rising from area where shell just hit, planes in foreground

10:01:25
489823
AP Television
Beirut - 14 July 2006
Beirut 's international airport
Explosions and plumes of smoke on runway

10:01:35
489819
AP Television
Near Sidon , Lebanon - 14 July 2006
Lebanese army firing anti-aircraft guns

Off the Lebanese Coast
Shot of sea and coast from onboard gunboat, zoom into Lebanese coast
Gunboat opening fire, pan to smoke on coast

10:01:43
489882
AP Television
Zaura, 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel – 15 July 2006
Wide shot of Israeli tank firing towards Lebanon
Tanks firing towards Lebanon .

10:01:54
489889
AP Television
Tyre (Sour) - 15 July 2006
Various of injured children in hospital

10:02:02
489900
AP Television
Zarit – 15 July 2006
Wide shot of tanks

Israel focussed much of its offensive against Beirut 's southern suburbs and eastern Lebanon , hitting buildings used by Hezbollah and Hamas militants. Hezbollah's Al Manar television reported that Israeli air strikes targeted the Hezbollah stronghold of Haret Hreik in the capital, destroying the headquarters and residence of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Nasrallah was unharmed, Al Manar Television said. The office of Hamas official Mohammed Nazzal was also destroyed, but Nazzal was in Damascus at the time.

Israeli warplanes also bombed the Jiyeh power plant, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of the Lebanese capita. Firefighters in the area said they didn't have enough water to put out the blaze, and appealed on Lebanese radio for people who own water tankers in the area to rush to help. The station provides electricity to large areas in southern Lebanon . The heavy bombardment marked the fifth day of Israeli air and sea strikes that have killed more than 100 people, mostly civilians, and damaged much of its infrastructure.

"Everyday we are dying. We have been dying for the past five days," said one angry resident in Tyre , south of Beirut .

Israeli warplanes also hit a paper factory in Sidon . Flames and black smoke billowed from the ruins. The injured were taken to nearby Hammound Hospital .

The trauma of the continued Israeli attack deeply affected children in Sidon , who drew pictures of the bombing on a blackboard.

10:02:09
489929
AP Television
Beirut , Lebanon – 15 July 2006
Various shots of huge plumes of smoke rising over the Beirut 's southern suburbs, (Israeli strikes believed to be targeting Hamas offices)

10:02:17
489981
AP Television
Beirut, Jiyeh (20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Beirut), 16 July 2006
Wide shot huge plume of smoke rising from Jiyeh power plant
Wide shot of fire engines next to smoke and fire

10:02:24
490030
AP Television
Borj Shamali, outskirts of Tyre , Lebanon - 16 July 2006
Various of collapsed houses and concrete rubble in the street
Mangled car in crater
SOUNDBITE (Arabic): Vox Pop: resident:
"Everyday we are dying. We have been dying for the past five days. We were insulted and we don't accept this situation."

10:02:41
490089
AP Television

++NIGHT SHOTS++
Beirut , Lebanon - 16 July 2006
Wide shots of Israeli shelling of Beirut international airport AUDIO: shells

++NIGHT SHOTS++
Sidon , Lebanon - 17 July 1006
Wide of burning factory
Various of factory on fire

++DAY SHOTS++
Sidon , Lebanon - 17 July 2006
Torn Lebanese flag amidst black smoke

10:03:00
490114
AP Television
Sidon, southern Lebanon – 17 July 2006
Various of children drawing picture of bombing raids on Tyre on the classroom blackboard

Meanwhile, international diplomatic efforts were stepped up to try to resolve the crisis. Vijay Nambiar, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special political adviser, said he would present Israel with "concrete ideas" on ending the conflict, and that he had achieved promising first steps in talks with Lebanon 's prime minister. Lebanese prime minister Faud Saniora called for "an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire under the auspices of the United Nations" which would allow his government to gain complete control of all Lebanese territory.

10:03:10
490160
AP Television
Beirut , Lebanon - 17 July 2006
Wide of meeting between UN delegation and Prime Minister Fuad Saniora
Various of meeting with Lebanese delegation

As the bombing campaign continued, foreign powers dispatched commercial ships to ferry their citizens out of the country. A commercial ship docked at Beirut 's harbour. The Norwegian ship "MV Hual Transporter" was chartered to repatriate foreign nationals via Cyprus . Norwegian and other foreign nationals gathered outside the Crown Plaza in Beirut , waiting for assistance in leaving the country. Evacuations have become increasingly difficult after Beirut 's only international airport was forced to shut following repeated bombing of runways by Israeli jets. Israel also instituted a sea blockade five kilometres (three miles) off shore as part of its campaign to isolate Hezbollah and Lebanon from the rest of the world.

As the evacuations continued for foreigners, civilian casualties amongst those left behind mounted as Israeli warplanes blasted targets on the southern edge of Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon . Israeli warplanes have regularly hammered Beirut 's southern suburbs where Hezbollah were headquartered.

U.S. Marines helped evacuate thousands of fleeing Americans. About 40 U.S. Marines arrived at a beach just north of Beirut in a landing craft and picked up 300 Americans, who they ferried to the amphibious assault ship USS Nashville, sailing just off the coast. Most evacuees are leaving by sea as officials from several countries deemed the overland route to Syria too dangerous and Israel knocked Beirut 's airport out of service.

10:03:20
490246
AP Television
Beirut , Lebanon - 18 July 2006
Scandinavian nationals at harbour showing their passports
Wide of ship with foreigners about to board

10:03:27
490363
AP Television
Ghaziyeh , Lebanon - 19 July 2006

++QUALITY AS INCOMING++
Various of devastation
Various of people carrying person out of rubble

10:03:42
490515
AP Television
Beirut , Lebanon – 20 July 2006
Close-up of placard reading (English) "Dubya! (US President George. W. Bush) You're pathetic"

10:03:46
490516
AP Television
++AP TELEVISION NEWS IS EMBEDDED WITH US FORCES ON THE USS NASHVILLE++
Dbaieh , Lebanon - 20 July 2006
Dinghy with American flag
Various of evacuees boarding landing craft with luggage

Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued their attacks, warning people in the south to flee as it prepared for a likely ground invasion to set up a deep buffer zone. Israel 's forces continued ground patrols along their northern border as warplanes continued to target sites from the air across the war-torn country. In Zarit, a town just inside Israel , a U.N.-run observation post was struck during fighting. The Hezbollah militia has fired hundreds of rockets at northern Israeli towns from the Lebanese border since fighting began on July 12, forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to take cover in underground shelters.

The Israeli port city of Haifa was struck, injuring more than 10 people On the Lebanese side, Israeli rockets struck Sidon , destroying a religious complex linked to Hezbollah and wounding four people. Sidon struggled to accommodate more than 35-thousand people driven from their homes in the war zone along Lebanon 's border with Israel .

Israeli also continued to pounded in and around the southern Lebanese city of Tyre , forcing many residents from the nearby village of Bazourieh to flee for their lives.

Israel has said it won't stop its offensive until Hezbollah is forced behind the Litani River , 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the border - creating a new buffer zone in southern Lebanon , which was occupied for 18 years by Israel until it withdrew in 1982.

And when Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres addressed the people of Lebanon from the Knesset in Jerusalem , he told them the current conflict was, "a war for life or death."

"It is either us or Hezbollah. You do not have a choice either, it is either you or Hezbollah," he said.

10:03:56
490646
AP Television
Northern Israel (exact location unavailable) - 21 July 2006
Various of Israeli forces firing

Zarit, northern Israel - 21 July 2006
Israeli soldiers walking
Sign: "border ahead"

10:04:13
490647
Haifa - 21 July 2006
Wide shot Haifa and port, zoom into smoke over area where second rocket hit
Various of scene, emergency workers, cordon

10:04:28
490666
AP Television
Beirut , Lebanon – 21 July 2006
Various of extreme damage to buildings, cars and roads in neighbourhood

10:04:45
490836
AP Television
Sidon , Beirut - 23 July 2006
Wide of destroyed mosque
Man climbing on dome and placing flag on top

10:04:54
490838
AP Television
Tyre , 23 July 2006
Road sign among debris reads " Tyre welcomes you"

10:04:59
491007
AP Television
Southern suburbs of Beirut - Haret Hreik (Hezbollah stronghold) - 24 July 2006
Damage to buildings

10:05:03
491118
AP Television
Jerusalem – 25 July 2006
SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Shimon Peres, Israeli Vice Premier:
"It is either us or Hezbollah. You (addressing the Lebanese people) do not have a choice either, it is either you or Hezbollah. As far as we are concerned this is a war for life or death."

As Peres made his statement, at least four heavy blasts shook Beirut . The next day the damage was clear - mountains of rubble smouldered on the streets of Beirut 's southern Dahiyah suburb on day 15 of the Israeli bombardment of its northern neighbour.

Israeli warplanes destroyed the offices of Hezbollah's south Lebanon commander. The building was empty, but 12 people nearby were injured. The explosions in the centre of the city raised a giant pall of smoke over Tyre , and electricity was knocked out in some areas. The target was seven-storey building housing the office of Sheik Nabil Kaouk, the Hezbollah commander in south Lebanon . The building was heavily damaged, the top floors lay on top of each other.

Meanwhile, the funeral of 32 Lebanese civilians killed in and around Tyre took place in the southern port city. Hospital staff and soldiers unloaded the bodies, which arrived in a refrigerated truck. They were already badly decomposed due to the high temperatures and soldiers and residents carried the bodies in coffins to the mass grave, where prayers were heard. Afterwards, a bulldozer pushed earth on top of the coffins. Tyre authorities ordered the bodies to be buried in a mass grave, but each coffin bore a number and the victim's name in case families decide to hold private funerals at a later date.

10:05:34
491113
AP Television
Beirut , Lebanon - 25 July 2006
Several huge explosions, clouds of smoke rising, AUDIO of blasts

10:05:57
491202
AP Television
Dahiyah, southern suburb of Beirut , Lebanon – 26 July 2006
Various of damaged building and rubble from recent Israeli attack
Various of smoke coming out of rubble
Various of destroyed apartment blocks

10:06:13
491271
AP Television
Tyre , 26 July 2006
Various of smoke rising from building
Various of aftermath
People running from scene

10:06:27
491550
AP Television
Beirut , Lebanon - 29 July 2006
Lebanese flag on top of rubble
Wide shot of badly damaged area
Close-up of cartoon showing man in front of US flag, kicking book entitled "International Law"

10:06:39
491567
AP Television
Tyre , 29 July 2006
People laying coffins side-by-side
Bulldozer pushing earth onto coffins
Onlooker wearing mask, observing bulldozer

Then, after almost three weeks of fighting, up to 50 civilians, including many children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the village of Qana in southern Lebanon . It was the worst single attack in the 19-day-old fighting between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israel . The Israeli army said it targeted the village because the militant Hezbollah group has repeatedly launched rockets from the area on Israel . The bodies of at least 27 children were found in the rubble, according to a civil defence official at the scene. Israel said it issued warnings several days ago telling civilians to leave the village. Hours later, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora called Israel 's attacks against Lebanon "heinous crimes" and called for an international probe into the killing of civilians in the Israeli offensive.

The response by angry Lebanese was prompt, as protesters broke into the main UN building Beirut , burning UN and American flags. Around 500 protesters massed outside the building, which was empty. Some pushed through a police barricade, smashed windows and broke into the building. Outside, demonstrators chanted slogans against Israel and the United States and denounced Arab governments for not doing enough to stop Israel 's bombardment of Lebanon .

A week later, Israel carried out airstrikes near a funeral procession in south Lebanon , sending 1,500 mourners wailing through the streets and killing at least six people in nearby buildings. Missiles slammed into a building in Ghaziyeh, a Shiite town southeast of the port city of Sidon , where 15 people died in Israeli attacks a day earlier.

10:06:57
491629
AP Television
Qana, 30 July 2006
Man, woman and child walking, UPSOUND: (Arabic) Man and woman: "This is genocide"
Another man, woman and child walk into same shot, UPSOUND: (Arabic) Man: "More than 25 children have been killed."
Man removing blanket to show body of dead child
Foot and leg sticking out of the rubble

10:07:14
491639
AP Television
Beirut , 30 July 2006
Close-up of protester holding poster, reads (English): "We will destroy you murderers", tilt down to protester
Protester holding poster of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah
Protesters chanting

10:07:21
492613
AP Television
Sidon - 8 August 2006
Injured woman with medic wiping blood off her face
Injured man holding his hand in a V-sign meaning peace
Various of injured woman

Israel deployed its anti-missile defence system in northern Israel to combat the threat of Katyusha rocket fire from Lebanon . The deployment was in response to Hezbollah's barrage of rockets at towns and villages in northern Israel .

The next day the residents of Beirut woke up to the sight of more devastated buildings as Israel again struck the Lebanese capital's southern suburbs. However a United Nations ceasefire went into effect at 8 am (0500GMT) on 14 August, but there was no comment from the government and no public order from the Hezbollah leadership to silence guns in the 34-day conflict that has taken more than 900 lives on both sides.

AP Television showed weary Israeli soldiers, some carrying Lebanese and Hezbollah flags, trophies from the battlefield, crossing back into Israel from South Lebanon shortly after daybreak.

10:07:29
492701
AP Television
Israeli-Lebanese border - 8 August 2006
Sequence of Israeli anti-missile defence system firing missile at border

10:07:43
492713
AP Television
Beirut , Lebanon - 9 August 2006
Various of devastated buildings in south Beirut suburbs

10:07:59
492745
AP Television
Beirut , Lebanon – 9 August 2006
Wide of body bags on ground
Wide mourners

10:08:07
493162
AP Television
Northern Israel , 14 August 2006
+++IMAGES SHOT FROM ISRAELI SIDE OF BORDER+++
Wide of soldiers holding Lebanese and Hezbollah flags
SOUNDBITE: (Hebrew) No name given, Israeli soldier:
"It was exciting and hard but we are over it now, ceasefire".

Over a month after the ceasefire, h undreds of thousands of Lebanese packed into an open square in Beirut 's bombed out southern suburbs for a "victory rally" organised by Hezbollah. The crowds waited in eager anticipation for the highlight of the event, a speech by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, in what was his first public appearance since the end of Hezbollah's conflict with Israel .

The crowd, waving hundreds of yellow Hezbollah flags, cheered ecstatically when Nasrallah appeared.
In his first public appearance since the start of his group's summertime war with Israel , Nasrallah thanked God for what he called a "divine victory" against the Jewish state. Nasrallah paid tribute to the role of the Lebanese people in ending the conflict.

He also said he would not release two captured Israeli soldiers except in an exchange for Lebanese prisoners.

10:08:19
497329
AP Television
Beirut , Lebanon – 22 September 2006
Wide of Hezbollah 'victory' rally
Close-up of yellow Hezbollah flags
Nasrallah on stage greeting crowd

ISRAEL/PALESTINE

In January, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive, life-threatening stroke. Some Israelis came to the Jerusalem Western Wall to pray for his health. Doctors placed Sharon on a respirator and were trying to save his life just hours before the overweight, 77-year-old was scheduled to undergo a procedure to seal a hole in his heart that contributed to a mild stroke on December 18.

Israel Radio quoted an unnamed Israeli health official as saying Sharon 's prospects of a full recovery from the 4 January stroke were slim. Sharon underwent emergency surgery after a brain scan revealed a rise in intracranial pressure and some bleeding in his brain.

Sharon 's health crisis comes at a time of upheaval among Palestinian factions in Gaza and in the midst of both Israeli and Palestinian election campaigns.

10:08:55
471543
AP Television
Jerusalem , Israel - 5 January 2006
Man praying in front of western wall, standing, rocking and chanting. Zoom in to mid shot.

10:09:00
471685
AP Television
East Jerusalem , Israel - 6 January 2006
Wide of Jerusalem 's Western Wall, also known as Wailing Wall (with Al-Aqsa mosque, also called Dome of the Rock, in background)
Various of people praying at wall

Jerusalem
Close-up of newspaper headlines

Three weeks earlier, as 2005 drew to a close, Israel denied a British newspaper report that it had plans to attack Iran in March 2006, though officials conceded that they would not rule out a military strike if Iran advanced its efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

London 's Sunday Times that said Israel has a plan for a combined air and ground attack on targets in Iran if diplomacy fails to stop the Iranian nuclear programme. Sharon 's inner Cabinet authorised the attack, the newspaper said. Vice Premier Ehud Olmert, a close confidant of Sharon , called the report "ridiculous."

Olmert became prime minister after Sharon suffered his stroke.

Israel has identified Iran as the greatest threat to the Jewish state and rejects Iran 's claims that its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes.

10:09:13
469555
AP Television
Jerusalem , 11 Dec 2005
Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon opening meeting
Wide shot of Israeli cabinet; Vice Premier Ehud Olmert next to Sharon

The Islamic militant group Hamas has won a huge majority in parliamentary elections in January, winning 76 seats in the 132-member parliament, as Palestinian voters rejected the long-time rule of the ailing Fatah Party. Hamas' sweeping victory dramatically shook up the political landscape of the Middle East, propelling the Islamic militant group, which has sustained a bloody military campaign against Israel, and in turn had its last two leaders and countless other activists assassinated by the Jewish state, into government.

The Hamas victory reflected popular discontent with Fatah, the secular party that has led the Palestinian Authority since its creation 12 years ago and has been accused of widespread corruption and mismanagement.

In response, Israel halted crucial monthly payments to the Palestinian Authority, though it did not immediately block millions of dollars in humanitarian aid that moves through Israeli banks. In Gaza , Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, accused Israel of inflicting ongoing collective punishment on the Palestinian people.

Commenting on the halt in Israeli funds, Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas leader from Gaza who has been nominated as the movement's parliamentary faction leader, said the group would not allow Israel to "strangulate or starve" the Palestinian people.

There are three and a half (m) million Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem .

10:09:25
473551
AP Television
Jerusalem , Israel – 25 January 2006
Sunrise over the Al Aqsa Mosque

Balata Refugee Camp, Nablus, West Bank
Gunmen handing over weapons before entering polling station
Interior polling station, man casting his vote

Azariya village, West Bank
Hamas flags on mosque minaret

10:09:43
473629
AP Television
Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip - 26 January 2006
Wide shot thousands of Hamas supporters marching in streets, with green Hamas flags and Palestinian flags
Hamas supporters chanting "Hamas"
Hamas supporters chanting slogans holding rifles

10:09:56
475670
AP Television
Gaza City , Gaza Strip - 17 Feb 2006
Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, talking to media
Hamas member of parliament arriving
Interior shot of members of parliament in meeting with Haniyeh
Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader from Gaza at the news conference


In April, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up near a fast food restaurant in a bustling commercial area of Tel Aviv during the Jewish holiday of Passover, killing six people and wounding at least 35 others. A security guard posted outside the restaurant, which had been the target of a previous suicide bombing last January, prevented the bomber from entering the building, police said.

It was the first suicide bombing in Israel since the Hamas militant group recently took over the Palestinian government. Hamas and other militant groups have been observing a cease-fire with Israel for more than a year, though the new Hamas-led Palestinian leadership has refused to condemn attacks against Israelis.

The bomber struck the same restaurant, "The Mayor''s Felafel," that was hit by an attacker on January 19. In that attack, 20 people were wounded.

Later that day, police stopped a car with three suspected Palestinian accomplices the West Bank . They were filmed handcuffed and stripped down to their underpants in the Ofer camp on the West Bank side of the pre-1967 border, which is presently part of municipal Jerusalem .

The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing. In a phone call to the Associated Press, the group identified the bomber as Sami Salim Mohammed Hammad and later they released a video showing the purported suicide bomber reading a statement.

In response to the bombing, Israeli aircraft attacked an empty metal workshop in Gaza City , causing no injuries. The army said the workshop was used by the Popular Resistance Committees militant group to manufacture homemade rockets to launch at Israel .

10:10:16
481017
AP Television
Tel Aviv , Israel – 17 April 2006
Various of damaged restaurant, sirens
Wide of damage

10:10:32
481025
AP Television
Ofer Camp, municipal Jerusalem – 17 April 2006
Various of arrested men, stripped down to underpants, under Israeli soldiers'' guard

10:10:38
481045
MILITANT VIDEO - QUALITY AS INCOMING
++PLEASE NOTE: AP TELEVISION CANNOT VERIFY THE CONTENT, DATE OR LOCATION OF THE MILITANT VIDEO FOOTAGE++
Date and location unknown
1. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Sami Salim Mohammed Hammad, purported suicide bomber
"In the name of God, I would be a martyr. My name is Sami Salim Mohammed Hammad. I am the son of the Jerusalem Brigades of the Islamic Jihad.

10:10:48
481082
AP Television
Gaza Strip – 18 April 2006
Various of people searching through rubble
Man showing pieces of missile

A month later, Hamas gunmen traded heavy fire with Palestinian police near the parliament building in Gaza City , killing the driver of Jordan 's ambassador in Gaza . The diplomat's car was hit by three bullets fired into the windshield. The ambassador was not in the vehicle when it came under fire. The Hamas gunmen, holed up in an abandoned building during the battle, fired a rocket-propelled grenade and threw two hand grenades at the police, witnesses said.

Security officials said the incident began when members of a new Hamas militia stopped a car carrying members of the Preventive Security Service, a branch loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Preventive Security officials said Hamas militiamen fired at the car.

10:11:01
484341
AP Television
Gaza City , 22 May 2006
Wide shot of Gaza city
White Car stops in road, driver appears injured
Men surround Jordanian embassy car with bullet hole on windshield

Also in May, the funeral of assassinated Hamas security chief Abu Samhadana took place as hundreds of gunmen escorted his body from the morgue in Gaza to his house for a leave taking ceremony. No mosque could accommodate the tens of thousands expected to attend the funeral prayer in the Rafah refugee camp where Samhadana had lived, so a makeshift mosque was set up at the local stadium.

Palestinian militants vowed to avenge Israel 's assassination of Samhadana, an attack that threatened to ignite large-scale violence between the two sides. Hours after his death, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired two rockets into Israel , hitting a building in the southern town of Sderot , but causing no casualties, the military said.

Samhadana's appointment as Hamas' top enforcer helped to set the stage for recent Palestinian infighting that has killed 16 people and raised the spectre of all-out conflict between Hamas and the long-ruling Fatah movement it swept aside in January parliamentary elections.

10:11:31
486160
AP Television
Rafah, 9 June 2006
Masked gunmen marching
Masked gunmen on top of vehicle
Close shot, body of Jamal Abu Samhadana

In June, thousands of Palestinians joined the funeral procession of seven civilians killed when an Israeli artillery attack tore into a beachside picnic in Gaza . The mourners at the funeral procession in Beit Lahiya chanted "revenge, revenge" and "destroy Israel , destroy America " as they made their way through the town's narrow streets, carrying the victims' bodies.

The Israeli army said it had targeted areas in the northern Gaza Strip used by Palestinian militants to fire homemade rockets at Israel , but said that one artillery strike appeared to go off course. The beach attack prompted the military wing of the Islamic group Hamas to call off a 16-month-old truce with Israel .

10:12:01
486299
AP Television
CLIENTS ARE ADVISED THIS ITEM CONTAINS FOOTAGE SOME CLIENTS MAY FIND DISTURBING
Gaza beach, near the city of Beit Lahyia , Gaza Strip - 9 June 2006
Cars at beach
Plastic toys on beach
Child lying on hospital bed

Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, 10 June 2006
Woman crying
Various of dead bodies wrapped in Hamas' flag in mosque
Funeral procession
Man carrying dead body of baby in procession

In a separate incident, hundreds of Palestinian security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas went on a violent rampage against the Hamas-led government. They riddled the parliament and Cabinet buildings with bullets before setting them alight to protest an attack against their comrades in the Gaza Strip by Hamas gunmen, who had attacked a Preventive Security installation. The attack set off daylong clashes that left two people dead and 14 wounded.

The security men stormed the two-building Cabinet complex, where they smashed furniture, water coolers and air conditioners, destroyed computers and scattered documents. No casualties were reported.

When a fire engine approached the scene, one gunman lay on the road in front of it, preventing it from reaching the building. The Cabinet fire was eventually extinguished, but the crowd then set the second floor of the parliament building on fire.

10:12:38
486487
AP Television
Ramallah, 12 June 2006
++Night shots++
Gunmen shooting in the air
Exterior of PLC building
Broken windows scattered on ground
People at entrance to building, shots fired
Gunman on balcony of building
Palestinian security forces entering building

In Northern Gaza, Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a car in the crowded Jebaliya refugee camp, killing a teenage girl and two young children and wounding eight people. The Israeli military reported the car was carrying militants from the Al Aqsa martyrs' Brigades, affiliated with the Fatah movement of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

It was at least the second Israeli military action against militants in recent weeks to claim civilian victims.
An air strike in early June killed eight civilians, in addition to the two militants it targeted. About 100-thousand Palestinians live in the Jebaliya camp, just north of Gaza City , making it the largest refugee camp in Gaza . Funerals were held the following day.

10:13:08
487305
AP Television
Gaza City , Gaza Strip – 20 June 2006
Car targeted by Israeli missile surrounded by people
Various of wounded children on stretcher
People gathered around body of boy killed in attack

10:13:24
487383
AP Television
Jebaliya, near Gaza city, Gaza Strip – 21 June 2006
Various of bodies of children carried by crowd through the street UPSOUND: gunshots and chanting
Men carrying dead bodies on stretchers

Israeli troops entered southern Gaza and planes attacked three bridges and a power station, knocking out electricity in most of the coastal strip, stepping up the pressure on Palestinian militants holding a 19-year-old Israeli soldier captive.

Israeli troops began taking up positions in two locations east of the Gaza town of Rafah under the cover of tank shells, according to witnesses and Palestinian security officials. Palestinians dug in behind walls and sand embankments, bracing for a major Israeli offensive.

Israel said only freedom for the captive soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, could defuse the crisis, not a political agreement.

Shalit was captured on 25 June 2006 in an attack on an army base in southern Israel by militants affiliated with the Palestinians' ruling Hamas party. The Palestinian government has called for the soldier's release, but Israel thinks the group's Syria-based leaders ordered the operation.

Palestinian groups say the attack and subsequent capture of Shalit was a response to several Israeli airstrikes that killed a number of their civilians.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army bombed a house in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, described by locals as a factory used by Palestinian militants to make and store rockets for use against Israel . According to eyewitnesses at the scene, an unmanned aerial vehicle fired a guided missile into a building.

The building is just a few kilometres (miles) from where an Israeli armoured column has pushed into Gaza and taken up positions at an abandoned airport, to try and force the release of Shalit. At Nahaloz, on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza , Israeli tanks were seen firing shells. Major General Yoav Galant, a commander in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), said Israeli forces were "activating" in a few places in the Gaza Strip in an effort to secure the release of the soldier.

The ground offensive was Israel 's first since pulling all of its soldiers and settlers out of Gaza over the summer (2005).

Israeli forces arrested Palestinian deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shaer as part of their operation find Shalit. Shaer had criticised Israel 's operations: "There is a real disaster in Gaza now." The arrest of the seven Hamas cabinet ministers and 20 lawmakers is seen by some observers as an Israeli attempt to use them as bargaining chips to win the release of the soldier.

Israeli tanks in Nahal Oz, South Israel, launched artillery attacks on Gaza , partially destroying the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

10:13:34
488020
AP Television
Kerem Shalom Gate (border of Israel and Gaza ), 1.5 miles (two kilometres) south of Kerem Shalom – 28 June 2006
Wide of Israeli tanks

10:13:38
488098
AP Television
Rafah, Gaza Strip – 28 June 2006
Pan of firemen hosing wreckage of burning house

Nahaloz , Israel - near Gaza border
++DUSK SHOTS++
Various of tanks firing shells

10:14:01
488179
AP Television
Ramallah, West Bank, 28 June 2006
Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shaer
SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Nasser Shaer, Palestinian deputy prime minister:
"There is a real disaster in Gaza now."

10:14:10
488460
AP Television
Exterior of office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Hanyieh
Damage to structure
Interior - various of damage

Meanwhile, Israeli troops raided a Palestinian hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus , looking for a wanted man wounded in an earlier operation. The soldiers shot stun grenades and tear gas as they stormed the hospital, and once inside, put the doctors and nurses on one floor, they said. The target of the Israeli operation was a Palestinian wounded in an Israeli raid on the nearby Balata refugee camp in mid June, but it was not clear if he was in the hospital at the time. In Gaza , Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned overnight Israeli air-strikes, after a meeting with the UN special envoy to the Middle East .

10:14:22
488504
AP Television
Gaza – 2 July 2006
Various of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh walking through rubble at Haniyeh's damaged office

Nablus, West Bank
Israeli troops running to the front of the hospital
Injured man being rushed from shop across the street to the hospital
Israeli soldier rushing people and press out of the hospital

As the search for a captured Israeli soldier continued, Israeli aircraft hit several targets around the Gaza Strip, including a building in Gaza City where the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has an office, Palestinians and the military said. The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades are a violent offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.

A missile struck the second floor of the two-story building, setting it on fire. No one was in the office at the time of the attack, after midnight. The strikes by the Israeli military followed a earlier warning from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that he instructed the army to do all it could to free the captured soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit.

As part of the operation to free Shalit, Israeli forces launched three attacks near Khan Younis in southern Gaza , killing two people and wounding several others. In one attack, an Israeli aircraft attacked a group of Palestinian militants, killing two people who were later identified as members of armed Palestinian groups.

The army confirmed it had carried out an airstrike in Khan Younis after Israeli forces were attacked with seven anti-tank missiles and a rocket. Palestinians were also injured in two other purported attacks near Khan Younis, though no further information was currently available about the incidents. The attacks come as Israel expanded its operation in Gaza . Officials decided to step up the offensive, after Palestinian militants from the ruling Hamas party fired two upgraded rockets into the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon .

10:14:21
488521
AP TELEVISION
++Night shots++
Gaza City - 3 July 2006
Various wide shots of explosions in the city (AUDIO: explosions)
Ambulance at scene of explosion
Pan across to fire burning on second floor of building
Fire in building

10:15:18
488873
AP TELEVISION
Khan Younis, 6 July 2006
Wide top shot of buildings, AUDIO of gunfire
Long shot of smoke rising from Israeli tank on cleared land
Masked gunmen walking past, one armed with rocket-propelled grenade launcher
Israeli helicopter firing missiles overhead, AUDIO of gunfire
Various of gunmen on the street, bystanders taking cover behind buildings

In October, frustrations boiled over in Gaza City as militiamen from the ruling Hamas party used guns and clubs to break up police protests over unpaid government salaries. Since Hamas won elections in January, Israel and the West have withheld tax payments and foreign aid in an effort to force Hamas to recognise and stop attacking Israel .

Two people were killed, including a 15-year-old boy, and at least 32 were wounded, including three schoolchildren and a TV cameraman for the Arab satellite TV station Al-Arabiya. After the crowd of protesters there swelled to include hundreds of police and civilians, Hamas militiamen rush in swinging clubs and firing in the air. Militiamen and security personnel - including members of Abbas' elite bodyguard unit - began trading fire on two of the main streets of Gaza City near parliament, and gunmen from both sides took positions on rooftops near the legislature.

In retaliation dozens of supporters from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party ransacked and torched the empty Council of Ministers building in the West Bank city of Ramallah , the seat of the Palestinian government.

Some of the militants set an office on the second floor on fire, and soon the entire floor was engulfed in flames. The militants threw files out the windows and witnesses could see pieces of furniture being thrown about.

10:16:01
498238
AP Television
Gaza – 1 October 2006
Wide shot Gaza skyline, audio of gunfire
Wide shot crowd at street, Hamas militiamen trying control the crowd
Various shooting by Hamas militiamen, people running away
Hamas militiamen beating one of protestors

10:16:57
498279
AP Television
Fatah protesters climbing the Palestinian Cabinet building
Fatah protesters storming the Cabinet building
Various of Fatah members smashing windows and equipment in building
Fatah guards standing outside the Cabinet building while protester smashes a window
Smoke pouring from building
Fire seen through barred window
Cabinet building and guards

IRAQ

In November Iraq's High Tribunal found Saddam Hussein guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to hang for the 1982 killing of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail. The visibly shaken former leader shouted "God is great!" Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of the former Revolutionary Court, were sentenced to join Saddam on the gallows for the Dujail killings after an unsuccessful assassination attempt during a Saddam visit to the city 60 kilometres (35 miles) north of Baghdad.

Saddam and his seven co-defendants had been tried by the Iraqi High Tribunal over a wave of revenge killings carried out in the city of Dujail following a 1982 assassination attempt on the former dictator. After the verdict was read, a trembling Saddam yelled out, "Long live the people, and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!"

He initially refused Chief Judge Raouf Adbul-Rahman's order to rise to hear the verdict and sentence. Two bailiffs lifted Saddam to his feet, and he remained standing but turned to one guard, telling him to stop twisting his arm. Two other defendants Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of former Revolutionary Court and Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother were also sentenced to death by the court.

Saddam faces additional charges in a separate case over an alleged massacre of Kurdish civilians. It wasn't clear when a verdict would be announced in that other case, or when Saddam's sentence would be carried out.

The death sentences automatically go to a nine-judge appeals panel which as unlimited time to review the case. If the verdicts and sentences are upheld, the executions must be carried out within 30 days.

Iraqi Shiites broke into wild celebrations in Najaf and Basra and similar celebrations were reported in other Shiite districts of the capital, Baghdad .

However the death sentence drew anger and defiance from his hometown of Tikrit, where about one-thousand people demonstrated in support of the former dictator. Armed men joined the rally, parading through the streets. Police joined the rally in a convoy of security vehicles, firing weapons into the air in apparent encouragement.

10:17:04
501980
POOL
Baghdad – 5 November 2006
Chief Judge Raouf Adbul-Rahman addressing Saddam Hussein (overlaid with pictures of Saddam)
Chief Judge: "Keep standing... We are going to read the verdict keep standing."
Saddam Hussein: "What?"
Chief Judge: "Keep standing we are going to read the verdict, listen to the verdict standing."
Saddam Hussein: "I will listen to it."
Chief Judge: "Yes Standing."
Saddam Hussein: "No, sitting."
Chief Judge: "Stand... Make him stand" (speaking to the guards) NOT PICTURED
Chief Judge: " Leave him, leave him. The court decided to sentence Saddam Hussein Almajid to death."
Saddam Hussein: "Long live the people, long live the nation, down with the traitors, down down the invaders ..Allah Akbar...(God is great).”
Barzan Ibrahim, defendant and Saddam Hussein's half brother, listening
Defendant, Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of former Revolutionary Court , standing before the judge
UPSOUND (Arabic) Chief Judge :
"The court sentences Awad Hamad Al-Bandar to death."
Taha Yassin Ramadhan, former Vice President and Saddam's deputy, standing in court as chief Judge sentences him to life in prison UPSOUND (Arabic) Chief Judge:
"The court decided to sentence Ramadhan to life in prison."
Ali Dayih Ali, Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid and his son Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid (Baath party officials from Dujail) in dock

10:18:20
502007
AP Television
++Audio As Incoming++
Najaf - 5 November 2006
Television showing Saddam Hussein in dock being sentenced, zoom out as people celebrate verdict

Basra
People celebrating in the street, cars tooting horns

10:18:30
501894
AP Television
Tikrit - 5 November 2006
Pro-Saddam demonstrators march with portraits of former dictator
Demonstrators with placard reading "Down with the trial of Saddam", audio of gunfire
Various protestors shouting "With our blood we will redeem you, Saddam."

Earlier in the year, a n alliance of Shiite religious parties won the biggest number of seats in Iraq 's new parliament but too few to rule without coalition partners. Sunni Arabs gained seats over the previous balloting. Commission official Safwat Rasheed said the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance captured 128 of the 275 seats in the December 15 election, down from the 146 it won in January 2005 balloting. It needed 138 to rule without partners.

A Sunni ticket, the Iraqi Accordance Front, won 44 seats. Another Sunni coalition headed by Saleh al-Mutlaq finished with 11 seats, Rasheed said. A few other Sunnis won seats on other tickets.

That will give the Sunni Arabs a bigger voice in the legislature than they had in the outgoing assembly, which included only 17 from the community forming the backbone of the insurgency.

10:18:44
473028
AP Television
Baghdad – 20 January 2006
SOUNDBITE: (Arabic) Safwat Rasheed, member of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI): "The United Iraqi Alliance: number of votes 5,021,137 votes, 109 seats at the provinces and 19 seat in Baghdad, total 128;

Iraq''s president formally designated Shiite politician Jawad al-Maliki to form a new government in April.
The country's parliament met to launch a political process aimed at healing wounds among ethnic and religious communities and ending sectarian strife.

Parliament elected President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, to a second term. The post of parliamentary speaker was given to Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni Arab. al-Maharani's two deputies were to be Khalid al-Attiyah, a Shiite, and Aref Tayfour, a Kurd.

A month after taking office, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appealed for unity and promised to crack down on sectarian violence. Tensions have been worsening in Basra , a Shiite-dominated area, where Britain has about 8-thousand soldiers and other countries also have troops.

Standing at a podium with an Iraqi flag as a backdrop, Al-Maliki issued a strong denunciation of a wave of killings and kidnappings that Sunni religious leaders have blamed on Shiite death squads. The Shiite prime minister travelled to Basra , Iraq 's second-largest city, 550 kilometres (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad , with his Sunni Arab vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi.

In the months after the 2003 invasion, British troops enjoyed relative peace in southern Iraq compared with the restive Sunni regions further north. But violence in the region has escalated. Nearly 140 people, most Sunnis but also Shiites and policemen, were killed in Basra in May alone, police said.

10:19:02
481563
AP Television
Baghdad , 22 April 2006
Wide shot of parliament
Members of Parliament
Talabani shaking hands with new Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi

10:19:16
485216
AP Television
Basra , 31 May 2006
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Tariq al-Hashimi, Sunni Arab vice president, walking towards main table, saluting audience
Midshot of Nouri al-Maliki and Tariq al-Hashimi

A large explosion damaged the golden dome of one of Iraq 's most famous Shiite shrines in the city of Samarra , north of Baghdad . The blast occurred at about 06:55 local time (03:55 GMT) at the Askariya mosque on 22 February 2006.

The shrine contains the tombs of two revered Shiite imams, both descendants of the Prophet
Muhammad. Tradition says the shrine, which draws Shiite pilgrims from throughout the Islamic world, is near the place where the last of the 12 Shiite imams, Mohammed al-Mahdi, disappeared.

Iraqi Shiites protested in thousands over the attack, gathering gathered outside the Holy shrine of Imam al Hussein. In the Kadmiyah neighbourhood of Baghdad protests also took place near to the holy shrine
of Imam Kadim.

Shiite protesters attacked a large number of Sunni mosques across Iraq in retaliation for the bombing. The Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni political group, said at least 90 mosques were attacked, burned or taken over by Shiites.

They included more than 50 in Baghdad alone, three of which were destroyed with explosives, the party said. In the Abu Dishir neighbourhood in southern Baghdad , the Yassin mosque had its windows smashed and its dome partly destroyed.

A major Sunni Arab bloc suspended talks with Shiite and Kurdish parties on a new government after the attacks on Sunni mosques and dozens of bodies found in a wave of reprisal violence. The hardline Sunni clerical Association of Muslim Scholars said 168 Sunni mosques were attacked, 10 imams killed and 15 abducted. The figures could not be independently confirmed.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr slammed the Iraqi government and US forces for not protecting the Samarra shrine, also known as the Golden Mosque, and ordered his militia to defend Shiite holy sites across Iraq .

10:19:26
476080
AP Television
Samarra , Recent
FILE of the targeted holy Shrine of Imam Ali al-Hadi

10:19:31
476132
AP Television
Samarra , 22 February 2006
Various shots of people walking towards damaged shrine
Various damaged golden dome
Various damaged windows
People inspecting damage
Pile of debris in room at shrine

10:20:00
476131
AP Television
Karbala – 22 February 2006
Wide of demonstrators
Demonstrators carrying banners condemning the attack on the holy shrine of Imam Ali al-Hadi in Samarra
8. Various of women wearing black veils holding placards

10:20:12
476187
AP Television
Abu Dishir neighbourhood, Baghdad – 23 February 2006
Wide exterior of Yassin mosque, Sunni mosque
Damaged dome
Young man picking up burnt out holy books
Demonstrators chanting and carrying banners

10:20:24
476199
AP Television
Sadr City , Baghdad , 23 February 2006
Various of demonstrators brandishing guns and chanting

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings, kidnappings and hostage beheadings in Iraq , was killed north of Baghdad in June. Al-Qaida's leader in Iraq , Jordanian born Al-Zarqawi, was Iraq 's most notorious insurgent, reportedly spearheading a wave of violence against occupying forces, foreign nationals, Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi civilian population, most notably the Shiite community. He had a 25 (m) million US dollar bounty on his head - the same as the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Zarqawi spent his youth as a petty criminal in Jordan , but like bin Laden became radicalised by his experience fighting the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan . Following the Soviet defeat Zarqawi returned to his home country with an extreme Islamic agenda, but spent 7 years in prison there for conspiracy to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy. Following his release from jail he fled the country .

He first came to prominence in Iraq as leader of the radical insurgent group Tawhid and Jihad. The group merged with al Qaida in 2004 to form al Qaida in Iraq . After the merger of the two groups the videotaped beheadings of foreign hostages became less regular feature of insurgent activity, but attacks on the Shiite dominated government and populace were unrelentless.

Al-Zarqawi made an unprecedented appearance on a video released on April 25th 2006 criticising the new Iraqi government and warning US President George W. Bush of more attacks to come. The video was made available to AP Television by IntelCenter, a US-based firm that provides counter-terrorism intelligence services to the US government.

After al-Zarqawi was killed, the Pentagon released video it claimed shows the bomb site in Hibhib , Iraq , where he died. According to the US Department of Defence, the video shows coalition and Iraqi forces surveying the al-Zarqawi bomb site.

The targeted airstrike was the culmination of a two-week-long hunt for al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq . Tips from senior militants led U.S. forces to follow al-Zarqawi's spiritual adviser to the safe house, 30 miles outside Baghdad , for a meeting with the insurgent leader. The adviser, Sheik Abdul Rahman, was also among those killed.

His death, though trumpeted by the Iraqi government and its US allies, was not likely to deal a fatal blow to the insurgency, with Iraq gripped in daily bloodshed, much of it sectarian-driven, which some have termed civil war, as well as the wider war with US-led occupying forces.

10:20:32
486018
Intel Centre – See Below
++THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HAS NO WAY OF INDEPENDENTLY VERIFYING THE CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THE VIDEO ++
++PICTURES WERE MADE AVAILABLE TO AP TELEVISION BY INTELCENTER, A FIRM BASED IN ALEXANDRIA IN THE US STATE OF VIRGINIA THAT PROVIDES COUNTER-TERRORISM INTELLIGENCE SERVICES TO THE US GOVERNMENT
++PERMISSION IS GRANTED FOR USE IN PRINT, BROADCAST AND INTERNET MEDIA AS LONG AS THE INTELCENTER BUG REMAINS UNOBSCURED AND THE VIDEO IS CREDITED TO INTELCENTER ++
++ WRITING IN ARABIC ON THE RIGHT BOTTOM CORNER " THE MUJAHIDEEN SHOURA COUNCIL" (THE HOLY WARRIORS CONSULTATIVE COUNCIL) ++
++ STRAP (IN BLUE), ARABIC: SHEIKH ABU MUS'AB AL ZARQAWI (MAY GOD PROTECT HIM) ++
++ LOGO OF THE MUJAHIDEEN SHOURA COUNCIL ON THE TOP LEFT CORNER ++

Location Unknown – Images released on April 25th 2006
Various of al-Zarqawi firing a machine gun
Various of al-Zarqawi and followers with map laid out

AP Photos - No Access Canada/Internet
Date And Location Unknown
Black and white still photograph of al-Zarqawi

10:20:48
486117
Dept of Defence +++PLEASE NOTE: This video was shot by the US Department of Defence. The Associated Press cannot independently verify the content, location, or date of the video++
Hibhib, 8 June 2006
Various of soldiers surveying rubble

The year grew increasingly bloody, with wave after wave of bombings. A suicide bomber killed 32 mourners and injured dozens at a funeral for the nephew of a Shiite politician in January. The bomber struck at a funeral for the nephew of a Shiite politician in Muqdadiyah, a town 90 kilometres (60 miles) north of Baghdad . Meanwhile an IED destroyed a fuel tanker under escort near Tikrit. The tanker's driver was killed.

A few months later, three bombs exploded within an hour in Baghdad , killing at least 26 people and injuring 73. A car bomb exploded near a traffic police office and market in a primarily Shiite neighbourhood in New Baghdad on the southeastern side of the city, killing at least 23 people and injuring 40. Less than an hour earlier, a device hidden under a car detonated as a police patrol was passing near the downtown Tahrir Square , killing at least three civilians and injuring 15. Iraqi authorities had deployed tanks on the streets of Baghdad in a bid to end the sustained violence that erupted in the wake of the bombing of the holy shrine in Samarra , but further attacks have occurred.

Later in March, a suicide bomber and a huge car bomb ripped apart a market in an impoverished Shiite neighbourhood of Baghdad , killing at least 39 and wounding 139. An evening of violence began with a huge car bomb that ripped apart a market in Sadr City , followed by a suicide bomb attack. Four mortar rounds reportedly struck nearby.

Angry residents kicked the head of the suicide bomber, an African, as it lay in the street of the al-Hay market in the east Baghdad neighbourhood. It was the second major attack targeting members of the Shiite majority in less than three weeks. On February 22, the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in the mostly Sunni city of Samarra , triggered a wave of reprisal attacks against Sunnis that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.

In April, hundreds of people gathered in Sadr City for a funeral procession for four people who were kidnapped and found dead at Baghdad 's forensic medicine institute. About one-thousand residents of Fallujah held a separate funeral procession, this one for a Sunni cleric who was killed the night before.

The victim was identified as Sheik Shaukit al-Kubaisi, imam of a mosque in Amiriyat al-Fallujah, not far from the centre of Fallujah. Al-Kubaisi was killed by unknown gunmen. Such killings are common in Iraq and security forces often can't tell if the dead were the victims of insurgents, sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis, or criminals.

In May, a roadside bomb exploded next to an Iraqi police patrol in Kirkuk in northern Iraq , injuring eight police officers. The three were taken to a hospital in Irbil while the other five injured were transferred to Kirkuk General Hospital for treatment.

Ten days later a bomb concealed in a parked motorcycle exploded in the courtyard of a Shiite mosque in Baghdad , killing 11 people and wounding at least nine. The bombing in the mixed Tunis neighbourhood bore the markings of the sectarian violence tormenting Iraq . Some of those injured in the attack received medical treatment at the al-Kindi hospital in Baghdad 's Nahda neighbourhood.

By May, At least 3,886 Iraqis had been killed in war-related violence and at least 4,239 have been wounded, based on an Associated Press count that may not be complete because the reporting process does not cover the entire country. During May itself, at least 691 Iraqis were killed. These figures include Iraqi civilians and security forces, but do not include insurgent deaths.

The killing continued throughout the year. In July, a suicide bomber in a minibus killed at least 33 people and wounded dozens more at the entrance to a crowded Baghdad market. The attack occurred in the heavily Shiite district of Sadr City as crowds of residents were busy shopping, after their weekend.

10:21:05
471500
AP Television
North of Tikrit - 4 January 2006
Various of fuel tanker on fire

10:21:13
476785
AP Television
New Baghdad neighbourhood, Baghdad - 1 March 2006
People and soldiers at the scene
Dead bodies on the ground

Tahrir square, central Baghdad - 1 March 2006
Scene of the attack with blood on ground with man searching through the debris

10:21:28
477715
AP Television
Baghdad – 12 March 2006
Wide of chaos in street, with cars on fire
Wide of fire crew spraying water on vehicles
Wide of car on fire after explosion
Various of smoke rising from burning car, UPSOUND: sirens

10:21:57
477752
POOL
Sadr City , 12 March 2006
Burning truck with black smoke rising, residents gathering around dead bodies in marketplace

AP Television
Ibn al-Nafis Teaching Hospital, Central Baghdad , 13 March 2006
Injured lying on beds

10:22:06
481619
AP Television
Baghdad's Sadr City – 23 April 2006
Mourners leaning on coffin with others screaming
Mourners carrying coffins

10:22:14
483564
AP Television
Kirkuk , 14 May 2006
Doctor treating an injured policeman in Kirkuk General Hospital

10:22:17
484511
AP Television
Nahda neighbourhood, Baghdad - 24 May 2006
Various of other injured people in ward

10:22:26
490837
AP Television
Baghdad , 23 July 2006
Pan of the market where blast occurred
Tilt up from rests of stall covered with blood to frantic man shouting
People in panic walking on and among rubbles and wreckage

In August, a military convoy with a US escort was the target of a road side blast, which killed 24 Iraqi soldiers and wounded 13 others in a bus near the city of Beiji , 240 kilometres (150 miles) north of Baghdad . The military bus was said to be carrying Iraqi soldiers when it was hit by the bomb in Ruwashyid village in northern Iraq . A curfew was imposed in Beiji following the blast.

That same month, security forces and Shiite militias in flak jackets were seen exchanging gunfire with unseen assailants in the Waziriyah area of Baghdad . Gunfire echoed in the streets as people ran to take cover.

10:22:39
491945
AP Television
Beiji, north of Baghdad – 2 August 2006
Various wide shots of burnt out bus

10:22:47
493810
AP Television
Baghdad's Waziriyah neighbourhood - 20 August 2006
People running in panic, women being led away UPSOUND: Gunfire
Zoom in on gunmen in truck moving along a bridge
Various of soldiers and others running around during gun battle, one soldier seen lying in the road, UPSOUND: Heavy gunfire
Marchers shouting and running through street

AFGHANISTAN

The year began as envoys from nearly 70 nations and international bodies gathered in London and vowed to keep up the flow of support to Afghanistan , which is still plagued by violence and poverty more than four years after the fall of the Taliban.

About 1,600 people were killed last year in militant violence, including 91 US troops, making 2005 the deadliest year since 2001. The past four months have seen an unprecedented spate of 20 suicide bombings, raising fears of further bloodshed. The fighting has left parts of southern and eastern regions off-limits to aid workers, while a series of attacks on schools - including three burned down last week and a principal beheaded earlier this month - have forced many to close.

The booming trade in opium and heroin is another major challenge for Afghan president Hamid Karzai's government. Afghanistan is the source of nearly 90 percent of the world's opium and heroin and many warn the country is fast becoming a "narco-state."

10:23:27
474030
POOL
London , England - 31 January 2006
Wide shot of interior venue conference on Afghanistan , delegates seated (mute)
Cutaway wide shot conference (Mute)

10:23:31
474057
London , England - 31 Jan 2006
Mid shot of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Karzai signing
Mid shot of Blair and Karzai shaking hands and exchanging agreements

In March, Catholics in Rome welcomed the news that an Afghan who converted to Christianity and faced the death penalty has now been granted political asylum in Italy . Italian newspapers reported that the Afghan man was being held in a government safe house in central Rome . Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said that Abdul Rahman, 41, was in the care of Italy 's Interior Ministry.

When Rahman was jailed in Afghanistan , Pope Benedict XVI appealed to Afghanistan 's president, Hamid Karzai, and the United Nations appealed for a country to grant him asylum. Rahman was arrested in February after police discovered him with a Bible.

His release followed support by senior clerics in the Afghan capital for the prosecution and have warned they would incite people to execute Rahman unless he reverted to Islam. Rahman's trial fired passions in this conservative Muslim nation and highlighted a conflict of values between Afghanistan and its Western backers.

Cleric and Scholar, Doctor Mohammad Ayaz said: "It is the law of the Islamic world, its the law of all constitutions in Islamic countries. It is clearly written in the constitution of Egypt , Iran , Saudi Arabia . Its clear that the man who converts, he must be killed. The apostate must be killed and there is no doubt about it."

10:23:47
479352
AP Television
Rome , Italy - 30 March 2006
Newspapers with pictures of Abdul Rahman

10:23:51
478401
AP Television
File, recent
Wide shots Kabul city
Mid shot exterior of the court

10:23:59
478818
AP Television
Kabul , Afghanistan - 24 March 2006
Men praying
Mullah preaching to muslims about how Islamic law should be applied to Abdul Rahman, the man who converted to Christianity and that Rahman should be killed
SOUNDBITE: (Dari) Dr. Mohammad Ayaz, Cleric and Scholar:
"It is the law of the Islamic world, its the law of all constitutions in Islamic countries. It is clearly written in the constitution of Egypt , Iran , Saudi Arabia . Its clear that the man who converts, he must be killed. The apostate must be killed and there is no doubt about it."

In February, hundreds of prison inmates clashed with guards and took control of parts of a high-security prison in Kabul . Police and soldiers surrounded the Policharki Prison as government officials negotiated through loudspeakers with the inmates, who included al-Qaida and Taliban militants. The unrest began after inmates refused new prison uniforms that were being introduced after some Taliban inmates escaped last month by disguising themselves as visitors.

The Afghan army deployed more than 100 soldiers, some with helmets and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, to surround the prison, and together with NATO peacekeepers, they parked ten tanks and armoured personnel carriers outside the gates.

After four days of rioting authorities regained control of Kabul 's main prison. The Afghan director of jails, General Abdul Salam Bakhshi, spoke of a "sense of pride" at the efforts of the police and the army in bringing the situation under control. The Justice Ministry said that more than 1,300 unruly prisoners, including 350 Taliban and al-Qaida inmates accused of fomenting the unrest, had been transferred to another block of the prison under official guard.

Policharki Prison was built in the 1970s and is notorious for harsh and crowded conditions.

10:24:32
476504
AP Television
Kabul , Afghanistan - 26 Feb 2006
Wide exterior of Policharki prison
Wide shot prison, military vehicles outside

10:24:39
476515
AP Television
Kabul , Afghanistan - 26 Feb 2006
Prisoners looking out through windows
Two officers on chairs pointing rifles into prison through gates UPSOUND of gunfire
Wide shot of prison compound, soldiers/police station on roof and wall
Smoke coming out of cell windows as prisoners burn their bedding
Close-up of AK-47 with smoke coming out of prison window in background

10:25:01
476820
AP Television
Kabul , Afghanistan - 1 March 2006
Wall with Afghan flag painted on it covered with bullet holes

In May, US and Afghan security forces fired on protesters in the Afghan capital Kabul after a riot erupted because of a traffic accident involving US troops that killed three people, police and eyewitnesses said.
A fourth person was killed by gunfire. A commander for the city's traffic police who was at the scene said he also saw US forces firing on protesters.

Rioters broke into shops and stole household items, and an AP reporter said he saw several demonstrators pull a foreign man from a civilian vehicle and beat him. The man escaped and ran to a line of police, who fired shots over the heads of the demonstrators. Hundreds of protesters marched on the palace of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai in the city centre, shouting "Death to Karzai! Death to America !"

10:25:05
485029
AP Television
Kabul , Afghanistan - 29 May 2006
Protesters throwing stones at US convoy, AUDIO of gunfire
Various of protesters throwing stones at passing military vehicles, AUDIO of gunfire
People gathering around body on the ground

10:25:27
485035
AP Television
Kabul , Afghanistan - 29 May 2006
Protesters smashing and rolling police car
Wide of protesters at burning police checkpoint, AUDIO of gunfire

New video evidence emerged in 2006 of what appears to be a switch to sophisticated Iraq-style guerrilla tactics in Afghanistan . A militant propaganda video CD obtained by the Associated Press shows a convoy of American military Humvees making its way along a dusty valley road, its occupants unaware they are being filmed from a distant hilltop.

Suddenly, a massive explosion hits one vehicle, flipping it over and engulfing it in flames. It's not clear if any troops died in the attack. The images were purportedly recorded in eastern Afghanistan in late 2005. The change in tactics has raised questions whether local militants are simply emulating those destructive methods, such as roadside bombings, or if al-Qaida could be importing fighters from Iraq , where attacks have been considerably more sophisticated than in Afghanistan .

Most of the footage in the video carries the logo in Arabic and English of "As-Sahab," an al-Qaida video production company that made some past videos by Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.

10:25:37
476033
Militant Video
++EDITORS NOTE - AP HAS NO WAY OF INDEPENDENTLY VERIFYING THE CONTENTS OR AUTHENTICITY OF THIS INSURGENT VIDEO++
Date, Location unknown - purported to be Afghanistan , late 2005
Humvee explodes as it passes a boulder

Date, Location unknown - purported to be Afghanistan , 2005
Various of mortar being fired (faces obscured at source)
Various of militants walking through woods carrying rocket components

In June, the US-led coalition unleashed more than 11,000 troops to attack militants in the southern mountains of Afghanistan , the biggest offensive since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. The push by US, British, Canadian and Afghan troops aims to squeeze Taliban fighters in four volatile provinces.

It focussed on southern Uruzgan and northeastern Helmand , where the military says most of the forces are massed. The operation, called Mountain Thrust, "is all about setting the conditions for success for ISAF" said Lieutenant Colonel Geoff Toner.

The offensive came amid Afghan and coalition efforts to curb the fiercest Taliban-led violence since the hard-line Islamic government was toppled for harbouring Osama bin Laden following the September 11 attacks on the United States .

The force of more than 11,000 troops is by far the largest deployed in Afghanistan for one operation since the 2001 invasion. Operation Mountain Thrust will involve about 2,300 US conventional and special forces, 3,300 British troops, 2,200 Canadians, about 3,500 Afghan soldiers and air support troops, an official said.

The offensive, which the military says it has been planning for 18 months, coincides with a surge in militant attacks in the southern and eastern provinces near the border with Pakistan , where Afghan authorities have little or no presence.

10:26:04
486663
AP Television
Musa Qala, 13 June 2006
Mid of soldier with a gun resting on hood of vehicle

In September Afghan and NATO forces said they killed more than 200 Taliban fighters in a major operation in southern Afghanistan , in some of the deadliest fighting since the US-led ouster of the hardline regime.

Four soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were killed and seven others were wounded in the fighting in Kandahar province, a statement from the alliance said. Some 80 other suspected Taliban were arrested and a further 180 fled the area, it said.

The next day, U.S. troops in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan continued to shell Taliban, al-Qaida and other Islamic extremists hiding in the forbidding peaks they've long used as sanctuaries. The NATO-led troops were trying to quash a raging insurgency in the south of the country.

Nearly five years after Sept. 11, 2001, and the invasion of Afghanistan that followed, soldiers are still climbing the same mountain ranges in search of al-Qaida figures like Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri believed responsible for the terror attacks.

10:26:07
495164
Nr Kandahar , Afghanistan - 3 September 2006
Wide of the national army running towards the position
Mid of Afghan soldier with rocket launcher

10:26:16
495239
AP Television
Nangalam , Afghanistan - 4 September 2006
++AUDIO AS INCOMING++
Wide of US soldiers loading artillery gun
Wide of artillery gun firing towards mountains
Artillery gun firing

In Kandagal , US soldiers built a bridge at a key point between two valleys in the eastern province. Members of the Alpha Company, from the 27th Engineers Battalion, worked on the bridge that crosses the Pech river and connects the Kandagal valley and the Korangal valley. Also in Korangal Valley , US troops fired mortar shells at suspected militant positions. The inaccessible valley has long provided a safe haven for militants operating in Afghanistan and al-Qaida fugitives.

10:26:32
495797
AP Television
Kandagal province Afghanistan - 9 Sept 2006
Various of US humvees crossing bridge for the first time
Various of US soldiers firing mortars

Meanwhile, footage purportedly filmed by the Taliban gave a rare glimpse of recent fighting in Afghanistan 's southern Kandahar province. Several groups of armed insurgents are seen walking through areas identified on the tape as being Panjwayi and Zangabad. A speaker on the videotape claimed the insurgents are in a stronger position than their enemies. The authenticity of the footage provided to Associated Press Television News could not be verified.

10:26:44
496184
Militant video
Kandahar Province , Date unknown
++AP CANNOT VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY OF THIS VIDEO++
++QUALITY AS INCOMING++
Silhouette shots of purported Taliban insurgent firing gun over wall
Heavily armed Taliban walking in a line beside a wall

The violence increased in Afghanistan in 2006 with a string of suicide attacks which represented a new and disturbing trend four years after the ouster of the hardline Taliban regime. In January a suspected suicide bomber detonated explosives in a car near a U.S. military convoy in a southern Afghan city, killing himself and wounding an American soldier and two passers-by. The convoy was attacked as it drove through the city of Kandahar , a former Taliban stronghold and the site of a string of recent suicide bombings.

A month later, a suicide bomber blew up a guard post outside police headquarters in Kandahar . According to reports 12 were killed and 13 wounded. Purported Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammed Yousaf claimed responsibility for the bombing, and threatened more attacks. Yousaf's claim of responsibility couldn't be independently verified. He has claimed previous attacks on behalf of the Taliban, but his exact ties to the militia's leadership are unclear.

In March, suspected Taliban militants ambushed and killed a local police chief and his brother in southern Afghanistan , while a suicide car bomber attacked a foreign military convoy and wounded six Afghans. A suicide car bomb blew up near a convoy of foreign military vehicles in Kandahar , killing the attacker and wounding six Afghan passers-by, police and witnesses said.

One of the men wounded in the blast in Kandahar , Mohammed Ibraham, said he saw a car blow up near a convoy of vehicles belonging to the US-led coalition, which is responsible for security in southern Afghanistan

10:26:58
471354
AP Television
Kandahar , Afghanistan - 2 Jan 2006
Wide of scene of blast with American soldiers running towards the exploded car
American soldier investigating exploded car

10:27:07
474687
AP Television
Kandahar , Afghanistan - 7 Feb 2006
Close-up of soldier with machine gun
Soldiers standing near the site of the explosion
Various of people at the guard post washing away the blood with water

10:27:22
479345
AP Television
Kandahar , Afghanistan - 30 March 2006
Wide of scene of attack
Vehicle with Afghan police collecting evidence

In May, a ceremony was held at NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base in Kabul for two Italian soldiers killed by a roadside bomb. The attack - in which four soldiers were also wounded - took place as the troops were on their way to help Afghan police injured in an earlier attack.

Two Italian military vehicles were travelling together when one of them was hit about 10 miles south of Kabul . The three Afghan police injured in the earlier roadside bomb had called for ISAF's assistance, according to an Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman. The Italian Defence Ministry identified the two victims as Lieutenant Manuel Fiorito, 27, and warrant officer Luca Polsinelli, 28. Italy has suffered three previous fatalities in Afghanistan .

10:27:29
482871
AP Television
Kabul , Afghanistan - 6 May 2006
Coffin being taken off back of truck
Coffin being loaded onto military vehicle

Also in May, a suicide car bomb exploded near a UN convoy in southern Afghanistan , killing the attacker but hurting no one else, officials said. The attack occurred in Kandahar city as the convoy was travelling to a nearby US -led coalition base, said provincial government spokesman Dawood Ahmadi.

In June, a bomb hidden on a minibus carrying Afghan labourers to a coalition base in southern Afghanistan exploded, killing seven people and injuring 17. The attack occurred in Kandahar as the bus was carrying the workers to the Kandahar Airfield, the coalition headquarters in southern Afghanistan , a local police chief said.

The blast, which occurred during morning rush hour, destroyed the bus and left blood and body parts scattered on a road in central Kandahar . A coalition spokesman said the explosion clearly targeted Afghans working for the coalition, as it was a bus that chauffeured Afghan labourers to work every day.

It was the first time Afghan workers were targeted deliberately, the spokesman said, implying what he called a "shift in tactics" for the Taliban. He said US officials believe the explosion was orchestrated by Taliban forces, who have been regaining strength in southern Afghanistan .

In July, a bomb planted in a car exploded outside a mosque in eastern Afghanistan , killing at least eight people and wounding 16, during a memorial service for a mujahedeen commander. The blast went off by the building in the Farmay Adha area, 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of the city of Jalalabad , as people gathered to mark the death of Younis Khalis, who died on July 19.

The following month, a suicide bomber in a car blew himself up in a crowded town market in southern Afghanistan killing 21 civilians near a NATO convoy. The blast left a scene of devastation in the heart of the town of Panjwayi in Kandahar province. The attack, one of the deadliest bombings in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban, came just days after NATO took charge of security in the volatile south from the US-led coalition.

In September, a massive suicide car bomb struck a convoy of U.S. military vehicles in the Afghan capital, killing at least 16 people, including two American soldiers, and wounding 29 others. The blast near the U.S. Embassy was one of the biggest in Kabul in recent years, and came as NATO chiefs appealed for member nations to send reinforcements to combat resurgent Taliban militants.

Fourteen Afghans were killed in the blast and 27 wounded, with the dead and injured taken to three Kabul hospitals. The bomber also died. A U.S. military spokeswoman said two American soldiers were also killed and two more wounded when the attacker detonated his bomb-packed Corolla alongside their Humvee, turning the armoured vehicle into a burning hulk of twisted metal.

Two weeks later, a suicide bomber struck outside the compound of a southern Afghan provincial governor, killing 18 people, including several Muslim pilgrims seeking paperwork to travel to Mecca . The attacker was stopped by Afghan soldiers at the compound's security gate, where he detonated his explosive vest, a spokesman for the Helmand provincial governor said.

The bomber had been walking toward a vehicle of the private military contractors who provide security for the governor, according to a NATO spokesman. Nine Afghan soldiers and nine civilians were killed and a further seventeen people wounded, said Rahmatullah Kahn, a doctor at the hospital in Lashkar Gah.

10:27:41
483805
AP Television
Kandahar , Afghanistan - 17 May 2006
Wide shot of incident
Close shot of UN burning vehicle

10:27:49
486792
AP Television
Kandahar , 15 June 2006
Wide shot of area where explosion occurred
Destroyed minibus
Wide shot of police examining minibus
Close-up of injured child on hospital bed, with bandaged head
Injured child

10:28:10
491755
AP Television
Farmay Adha , Afghanistan - 31 July 2006
Dead body inside car wreckage
Wide shot of car wreckage in front of the mosque

10:28:19
492105
AP Television
Panjwayi, 3 Aug 2006
Wide of blast site
Security at scene

10:28:27
495666
AP Television
Kabul - 8 Sept 2006
Burning chunks and debris of bombed military vehicle
Troops at blast scene

10:28:36
497659
AP Television
Lashkar Gah – 26 September 2006
++ CLIENT NOTE - PACKAGE CONTAINS GRAPHIC PICTURES++
Wide of blast area, bodies of soldiers
Police and ambulances taking the bodies and wounded away from scene

In October, a Taliban commander said that insurgent fighters will battle "infidel" (non-Muslim) troops until they leave Afghanistan and a fundamentalist government is re-established in Kabul , warning that hundreds of militants were ready to launch suicide attacks to again install strict Islamic law. Speaking to the AP in the mountains of southern Zabul province over the weekend, the regional-level commander, Mullah Nazir Ahmed Hamza, said the Taliban still has thousands of fighters despite heavy losses in recent battles.

Hamza said support for the hardline movement was increasing every day and that US and NATO forces would have a tough time beating the fighters without air support.

The Taliban , which controlled Afghanistan from 1996 until being ousted from power in late 2001 by the US-led coalition, in the wake of the September 11 attacks, instituted a strict interpretation of Islamic law that critics likened to that found in medieval times.

10:28:53
499220
AP Television
Aabul Province – 7 October 2006
Taliban standing in a group
SOUNDBITE (Pashtu) Mullah Nazir Ahmed Hamza, Taliban district level commander in Zabul province:
"For the Muslims jihad is the only way. To put Islamic law in place, there is not any other way, apart from jihad, to do so."
Talib talking on radio


IRAN

Iran opened its doors in June to the international press its controversial nuclear power station, currently under construction at Bushehr in southern Iran . Earlier this year, Iran and Russia signed a landmark fuel accord that paves the way for the firing up of the station. Under the deal, which capped an 800 (m) million-dollar contract to build and bring the Bushehr plant on line, Russia will fuel the reactor on condition that Iran sends back spent fuel. This could potentially be upgraded to weapons use.

10:29:18
453888
AP Television
Bushehr, southern Iran - 22 June 2006
Various tracking shot Bushehr nuclear plant
Various interiors of nuclear plant, employees at work
Centrifuges inside nuclear plant

10:29:48
476505
AP Television
Bushehr, 26 Feb 2006
Various of Bushehr nuclear plant

Meanwhile, its hardline president declared his Iran 's controversial nuclear programme posed no threat to any other country, even Israel . President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke after inaugurating a heavy-water production plant, which went into operation despite UN demands that Iran roll back its nuclear programme. He thanked all those who had "contributed to accomplishing this great project." Tehran says is for peaceful purposes, but Western countries fear it could eventually be used to develop a nuclear bomb.

Ahmadinejad had begun the year by shrugging off threats of U.N. sanctions from Washington and its European allies, saying he would not be bullied because there was no legal basis to forbid Tehran from conducting nuclear research. In a ringing defence of Iran 's resumption of research at its nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz, Ahmadinejad said Tehran had not violated the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which he said allows signatories to produce nuclear fuel.

10:30:05
494379
AP Television
IRINN - No Access Iran
Arak , Iran - 26 August 2006
SOUNDBITE: (Farsi) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian President:
"I thank all the scientists, researchers, scholars and all those people with innovative minds and the media, who have contributed to accomplishing this great project and I thank them for all their efforts in our beloved country's development. Goodbye and good luck to you all."

10:30:28
472448
AP Television
Tehran , 14 Jan 2006
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on stage with TV camera in foreground
SOUNDBITE: (Farsi) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian President:
"A nation which has civilisation does not need nuclear weapons. Those who want to solve every equation with the force of their arms and thick necks want nuclear weapons. Our nation does not need them."

In June, Iran 's top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatened that Iran would disrupt energy shipments from the Gulf region should the country come under attack from the US . He insisted that Tehran will not give up its right to produce nuclear fuel, and warned there would be consequences, for anyone who tried.

In a speech at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Khamenei also warned that the U.S. and its allies would not be able to provide security to all the oil shipments that cross the strategic Hormuz Strait - within close range of Iran - should a disruption occur.

Iran is the world's fourth largest oil exporter and the second biggest power within the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Iranian officials have repeatedly ruled out using oil as weapon in the nuclear standoff with the West.

10:30:48
485601
AP Television
Tehran , 4 June 2006
Wide of people in front of Ayatollah Khomeini's grave
SOUNDBITE: (Farsi) Ayatollah Khamenei , Iran 's Supreme Leader:
"Accusations that we are seeking a nuclear bomb is wrong, a sheer lie. We do not need nuclear weapons. We have no target to use the nuclear bomb."
Wide of Ayatollah Khamenei at the podium

A month later, the UN Security Council passed a resolution giving Iran until August 31 to suspend uranium enrichment or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions. The draft passed by a vote of 14-1. Qatar , which represents Arab states on the council, cast the lone dissenting vote.

Drafted by Britain , France and Germany with US backing, the resolution follows a July 12 agreement by the foreign ministers of those four countries, plus Russia and China , to refer Tehran to the Security Council for not responding to incentives offered in June to suspend enrichment.

The ministers asked that council members adopt a resolution making Iran 's suspension of enrichment activities mandatory. Because of Russian and Chinese demands, the text was watered down from earlier drafts, which would have made the threat of sanctions immediate. The draft now essentially requires the council to hold more discussions before it considers sanctions.

10:31:13
491770
UNTV
New York - 31 July 2006
Wide of Security Council chamber in session
SOUNDBITE (French) Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, July President of the Security Council and French UN Ambassador:
"Will those in favour of the draft resolution contained in document S, 2006, 589, please raise their hand."
Wide pan Security Council vote on Resolution 16-96
SOUNDBITE (English) John Bolton , US Ambassador to the UN:
"We look forward to Iran 's full, unconditional and immediate compliance with this resolution. We hope that Iran makes the strategic decision that the pursuit of programmes of weapons of mass destruction makes it less and not more secure."
Wide of Security Council chamber

10:31:40
485601
AP Television
Tehran , 4 June 2006
SOUNDBITE: (Farsi) Ayatollah Khamenei , Iran 's Supreme Leader:
"Those who threaten our interests should know that they will face the sharpness of our nation's anger"
Crowd chanting

In April, Iran 's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "rotten, dried tree" that will be "annihilated by one storm." Opening of a conference on supporting the Palestinians, Ahmadinejad fired a series of verbal shots at Israel , saying it was a "permanent threat" to the Middle East . Ahmadinejad provoked a world outcry in October 2005 when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map." The land of Palestine , he said, referring to the British mandated territory that includes all of Israel , Gaza and the West Bank , "will be freed soon."

Iran has previously said it will give money to the Palestinian Authority to make up for the withdrawal of donations by Western nations who object to Hamas' refusal to recognise Israel and renounce violence.

10:31:52
480859
AP Television
Tehran , 14 April 2006
SOUNDBITE: (Farsi) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian president:
"The Zionist regime of Israel is like a rotten, dried tree that will be annihilated by one storm."

BIRD FLU

In December, the European Union extended for three months a ban on live bird imports which was imposed a year ago to prevent the spread of bird flu . The ban will stay in place until at least the end of March 2007

In a separate statement, the EU said monitoring showed 748 cases of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu have been found in wild bird s this year across 14 of the 25 EU nations. However, no cases have been found since August.

But at the start of the year, the Turkish Agriculture Ministry said 306-thousand fowl, some infected, some not, including around 3,000 in Istanbul , had been destroyed as a precaution to combat the spread of the bird flu. In the village of Habibler in the capital's Hayirliglu neighbourhood, residents joined with health ministry officials to collect poultry for culling.

Authorities banned the nationwide sale of fowl in open markets and even the sale of eggs in some areas. According to World Health Organisation, the outbreaks have been occurring in Turkey because of close interaction between humans and animals.

By then 15 people had tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, with 70 people being treated for symptoms in hospital. One more Turk was confirmed with bird flu a Turkish Health Ministry official said.

10:32:20
472046
AP Television
Istanbul , 10 Jan 2006
Ducks and chickens walking freely
Various kids trying to catch birds

In Israel , about 11,000 turkeys have died in what officials suspect is the country's first outbreak of the dangerous H5N1 strain of bird flu. After preliminary tests, Health Minister Yaakov Edri told Army Radio that there was a "very high chance that this is avian flu." The suspected outbreak in Israel was centred on the Negev Desert farming community of Ein Hashlosha and the nearby community of Holit, where thousands of turkeys died.

Officials imposed a quarantine in a radius of 7 kilometres (4 miles) around the area and were prepared to destroy flocks in a radius of 3 kilometres (2 miles) if suspicions are confirmed.

10:32:32
478160
AP Television
Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha , Southern Israel - 17 March 2006
Various of chickens

The Georgian government imposed an embargo on the import of poultry from Turkey , Russia and Bulgaria . Although no cases of the deadly N5H1 virus have been reported in Georgia , the trade in chicken has dropped sharply, with markets selling much less chicken meat than in previous months.

10:32:47
472029
AP Television
Tbilisi , Georgia – 10 January 2006
Various market with dead chickens for sale

In Romania , education officials launched avian flu awareness campaigns for school children. Romanian schools are now obliged to disinfect the children as they arrive at school and to give special education lessons about bird flu, especially in and around contaminated parts of the country.

Andreseti village, 120 kilometres (75 miles) east of the capital Bucharest , is 3 kilometres (2 miles) away from one of the main contaminated villages, Albesti. A teacher at an Andreseti primary school, Elena Tudor, said they are teaching children to avoid avian flu infection.

10:32:54
471979
AP Television
Andreseti village, 120 kilometres (75 miles) east of Bucharest - 9 January 2006
Flock of birds flying
Interior classroom, teacher (talking about hygiene)
Teacher Elena Tudor checking the cleanliness of children's hands

Health officials in the eastern Turkish village of Dogubayazit began a round-up of poultry to be culled following the death of a child of suspected bird flu in the area. An 11-year-old girl died just days after her brother and sister succumbed to the disease. Their doctor said they probably contracted the illness playing with dead chickens.

In the town health officers warned children to keep away, after several of them also tried to round up chickens. One local woman said she was happy to hand over her poultry as she did not want her children to get sick.

A team of World Health Organisation experts were sent to Turkey to gain more insight into how the deadly H5N1 strain is spreading and mutating as they race to contain the virus before it can begin passing easily from person to person.

In neighbouring Georgia , security measures have been tightened following the outbreak. Strict sanitary controls were imposed at the borders, with epidemiological teams dispatched to all areas. Every vehicle crossing into Georgia from Turkey is being disinfected.

Birds in Turkey , Romania , Russia and Croatia tested positive for H5N1. Authorities have said the virus was believed to have been brought by birds migrating from Caucasus regions.

10:33:08
471690
AP Television
Dogubayazit, 6 Jan 2006
Close up of officers with masks
Locals handing over poultry to officers, poultry being put in white bag
Officers catching ducks and putting them in bags

10:33:22
472363
AP Television
Istanbul , Turkey – 13 January 2006
Official putting geese in sack

Sivas , central Turkey
Wide of Sivas Cumhuriyet University Research Hospital
Doctors walking inside hospital with masks
Pan from hall to the room of bird flu patient Gulten Yesilirmak

10:33:37
472029
AP Television
Sarpi crossing, Georgia-Turkey border
Various cars being disinfected

At Giurgiu, a main Romanian border point with Bulgaria, 60 kilometres (37 miles) south of the capital Bucharest, Romanian authorities have installed a special 'disinfection point' for vehicles entering and leaving the country.

10:33:45
471979
AP Television
Giurgiu county, Romania – 9 January 2006
Various of Turkish trucks being disinfected as they cross border

Greece , which neighbours Turkey , began taking preventive measure in an attempt to prevent Bird Flu spreading across the border. Passengers at Athens main airport said they went through rigorous checks upon arrival.

10:33:56
472155
AP Television
Athens - 11 Jan 2006
Wide interior of airport
Various of sign about avian flu at airport

Meanwhile, Australian researchers claimed in March they had discovered a method of testing hundreds of people for avian flu within hours. Their diagnostic test kits are portable, can give results of testing within hours and can identify the mutation of new strains of the virus.

The detection kit allows more than seventy people to be tested for the H5N1 simultaneously, providing results within a couple of hours. Originally developed as part of research in breast cancer treatment, the kit uses robotics in order to quickly prepare multiple samples.

10:34:08
479501
AP Television
Sydney , Australia – March 2006
Various of the Centre for Immunology building
Close up of sign reading Centre for Immunology
Professor Keith Stanley working on machine
Various of biohazard warning signs
Various of portable robotics

In Asia, China reported its eighth human case of bird flu in January, a 6-year-old boy hospitalised in the central province of Hunan . The boy showed fever and pneumonia symptoms on 24 December 2005, the official Xinhua News Agency said, quoting the Health Ministry. The case was confirmed by a spokesman from the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Beijing . Three people have died in China from the disease which has swept vast parts of Asia , decimating poultry populations and killing at least 74 people in the region since 2003.

China has launched an aggressive campaign to vaccinate hundreds of million of poultry against the H5N1 virus. The production facility and research lab in the northeastern city of Harbin uses fertilised eggs to make 40 percent of China 's poultry vaccine. The vaccines are being used in China to inoculate poultry as fast as they can be produced.

10:34:38
472007
AP Television
Harbin , 6 January 2006
Mid of TV monitor with split screens showing various lab locations
Close of poultry vaccine in bottles

RELIGION - POPE

The Turkish gunman who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 was released from prison in January after serving more than 25 years behind bars in Italy and Turkey . He was serving time for the plot against the pontiff and for the slaying of a Turkish journalist. Agca was among right-wing militants who fought leftists in street battles in the 1970s. Agca, a draft-dodger who escaped from a military prison in 1979, faced the possibility of being enlisted in the army if he were to be pronounced fit to serve, although the military generally accepts conscripts only up until the age of 41.

Agca shot John Paul II as he rode in an open car in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on May 13, 1981, and was captured immediately. The pontiff, hit in the abdomen, left hand and right arm, recovered because Agca's bullets missed vital organs. John Paul II who died last April, met Agca in Italy 's Rebibbia prison in 1983 and forgave him for the shooting.

Agca also served 5 1/2 years in Turkey for murdering journalist Abdi Ipekci. He returned to prison days later when prosecutors said he must serve more of his ten year term for killing Ipekci. He will be released in 2010.

Meanwhile, an Italian parliamentary commission concluded "beyond any reasonable doubt" that the Soviet Union was behind assassination attempt. A draft report said the commission held that the Pope was a danger to the Soviet bloc because of his support for the Solidarity labour movement led by Lech Walesa in his native Poland . Solidarity was the first free trade union in communist eastern Europe. The report said Moscow was alarmed because " Poland was the main military base of the Warsaw Pact, its main supply lines and troop concentrations were there."

10:34:53
472219
Istanbul - 12 January 2006
AP Television
Wide of Kartal prison gate where Mehmet Ali Agca is being released
Agca getting out of car and entering military recruitment centre

AP STILL - No Access Canada/Internet
Agca holds up an issue of Time magazine

10:35:11
476966
Vatican TV
13 May 1981 - Vatican City
Popemobile speeds away from the scene of the shooting


CTV
13 May, 1981 - Vatican City
The arrest of attempted assassin Mehmet Ali Agca

CTV
Date Unknown
Various of Pope John Paul II speaking with Mehmet Ali Agca in prison forgiving him

In May, Poland welcomed Pope Benedict XVI with cheers and fluttering yellow and white Vatican flags, as the German-born pope started a four-day visit to honour predecessor John Paul II and to heal wounds from World War II. The visit will touch on some of the most painful memories of Europe 's past, including a visit by the pope to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where the Nazis killed 1.5 million (m) people, mostly Jews.

Benedict met Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who presented the pontiff with gifts which included a photo album of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis.

During his visit, Benedict celebrated Mass for an estimated 270-thousand people in a rain-soaked Warsaw square where his predecessor, John Paul II, inspired Poland 's Solidarity movement against communist rule in a historic 1979 visit.

10:35:29
484675
Polish Pool - No Access Poland
Warsaw - 25 May 2006
Pope gets out of car and greets Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, and Polish President's wife, Maria Kaczynska

10:35:34
484722
Warsaw - 26 May 2006
TVP Pool - No Access Poland
Wide shot congregation
Mid shot of Pope's mitre being removed

In July, Pope Benedict XVI praised marriage between a man and a woman as part of a loving plan of God, as he defended the traditional family at a Mass attended by hundreds of thousands of people. The Vatican has warned that the family is under threat from such liberal reforms as gay marriage, which was recently legalised in Spain , as well as in the Netherlands , Belgium and Canada .

10:35:44
489154
POOL
Valencia , Spain - 9 July 2006
Aerial view of City of Arts and Science
Various of Pope and priests walking towards the altar
Spanish King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia

In September, Benedict met his brother, the Reverend Georg Ratzinger, in Regensburg during his six-day homecoming tour of his native Bavaria . Benedict walked the streets with Ratzinger, who is a retired choir director at the city's cathedral, and greeted clergymen and the crowds that had gathered there to see him. Benedict served as archbishop in the regional capital, Munich , from 1977 to 1982.

10:35:59
496226
Vatican TV
Regensburg , Germany - 13 Sept 2006
Various of Benedict and his brother Georg walking along streets
Benedict greeting crowds

In September the Vatican said Benedict did not intend to offend Muslim sensibilities with remarks about holy war, as it defended the pontiff after a furore raged in the Muslim and Arab world over some of his remarks quoting a Byzantine Emperor during his pilgrimage in Germany .

Islamic leaders across the world denounced Benedict's remarks on Islam during a lecture in Regensburg University . In his speech, the pontiff quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

The comments that have caused offence included the line 'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.' "

The next day a group of radical Islamists burnt an effigy of Benedict during a rally in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi . Similar rallies were held in Islamabad and other major cities around the Pakistan including Quetta , Peshawar and Multan .

In Iraq , where five hundred protesters in the mostly Shiite city of Basra took to the streets.

In Gaza , hundreds of Palestinians marched through the streets towards the Palestinian parliament, with some gathering at the entrance to the YMCA building. The demonstration was organised by the Hamas party with a number of protestors carrying the party's green flags.

There were also protests in India , where police detained nearly two dozen angry Muslims on the second day of anti-pope rallies in India 's only Muslim majority state of Kashmir .

10:36:15
496468
AP Television
Rome , Italy - 15 September 2006
US daily newspaper "International Herald Tribune" headline reading: "Muslim assail Pope over Islam comments."

10:36:20
496572
AP Television
Karachi , 16 Sept 2006
Wide of protesters
Burning puppet representing the Pope

10:36:28
496704
AP Television
Basra , Iraq – 18 September 2006
Various of protest march led by clerics, chanting and bearing yellow and black Shiite flags
Long shot of men burning effigy of Pope, also burning German, Italian and US flags

10:36:45
496523
AP Television
Gaza City , 15 Sept 2006
Palestinians pointing upwards chanting slogans

10:36:51
496559
AP Television
Srinagar , 16 Sept 2006
Medium of woman chanting: "Pope should be hanged"

RELIGION - PROPHET CARTOON

In February a French newspaper published caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad that had been printed in a Danish newspaper in September 2005. While the Danish publication of the cartoons in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten sliped under the radar, the French re-publication caused an uproar in the Muslim world. The drawings sparked boycotts and demonstrations against Denmark throughout the Muslim world. Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet to prevent idolatry.

The front page of the daily France Soir carried the headline "Yes, We Have the Right to Caricature God" and a cartoon of Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and Christian gods floating on a cloud.

The Jyllands-Posten published the cartoons after asking artists to depict Islam's prophet to challenge what it perceived was a tendency of self-censorship among artists dealing with issues related to Islam. The depictions include controversial images such as Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. The Jyllands-Posten apologised, saying it regretted offending Muslims.

However that didn't stop the spread of protests in the Muslim world. About 5-thousand members of the militant Islamic Jihad group marched in Gaza City and about 400 militants demonstrated in the southern Gaza town of Rafah shooting a poster of the Danish Prime Minister and burning the Danish flag.

Thousands of outraged Syrians stormed the Danish embassy in Damascus .

About three hundred Palestinians, some throwing stones and bottles, attacked an international observer mission in the West Bank city of Hebron . Sixty members of the mission were inside at the time, said a spokeswoman for the Temporary International Presence, or TIPH, which serves as a buffer between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the volatile city.

The protests spread to Iran , where around 60 protesters in Tehran threw firebombs and stones at the French Embassy, shattering nearly every window on its street façade.

Fuelling the protests was the publication of the cartoons in several other papers in Europe , either to illustrate stories about the controversy or to make a point about freedom of speech.

10:37:01
474187
AP Television
Paris , 1 February 2006
Pan exterior of France Soir building entrance

10:37:05
474041
AP Television
Gaza City , 31 Jan 2006
Danish flag being set alight
Wide of protest rally in Gaza street

10:37:13
474482
AP Television
Damascus - 4 Feb 2006
Crowd protesting outside Danish embassy
Danish Embassy building with stones being thrown at it

++NIGHT SHOTS++
Various of demonstrators inside building setting fire and chanting slogans

10:37:28
474698
AP Television
Rafah, southern Gaza Strip - & February 2006
Wide of armed men carrying Danish flag
Shots being fired at picture of Prime Minister of Denmark and burning picture and flag

10:37:51
474799
AP Television
Hebron , 8 January 2006
Various of Palestinians throwing stones at building
Palestinians pushing into TIPH car park
Pan from protesters throwing stones to broken windows

10:38:01
475046
AP Television
Tehran , Iran - 10 February 2006
French Embassy hit with fire bombs

RELIGION – HADJ

More than two million Muslims raised their hands to heaven and chanted in unison in January as they hiked through a desert valley to the outskirts of Mecca in preparation for Islam's annual sacred pilgrimage. The journey through the six-kilometre long (8-mile) valley puts the pilgrims from across the globe in place for the start of Hajj rituals. The march puts Muslims in the steps of the prophet Muhammad, who gave his last sermon on Mount Arafat in 632 AD.

The Hajj rituals begin with the circling of the Kaaba, the huge black cube in the centre of Mecca 's Grand Mosque, which Muslims around the world face when they offer their prayers five times daily. For many Muslims, the Hajj, one of Islam's five pillars, signals their spiritual rebirth and the burial of past transgressions.

The pilgrimage is required of all Muslims who are able, as is the profession that there is only one God and Muhammad is his prophet, to pray five times daily, the giving of alms and fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.

Tens of thousands of Muslim pilgrims threw pebbles at three huge stone pillars in the symbolic stoning of the devil, one of the final rituals of Islam's hajj. .

Saudi Arabia had taken extra precautions this year in an effort to prevent deadly stampedes that have killed hundreds during the stoning ritual in recent years. Authorities tried to improve traffic around al-Jamarat, where all 2.5 (m) million pilgrims move from pillar to pillar to throw their stones, then exit.

However at least 345 people were killed as thousands rushed to complete the stoning ritual tripped over luggage, causing a crush. The stampede occurred as tens of thousands of pilgrims headed toward al-Jamarat, a series of three pillars representing the devil that the faithful pelt with stones to purge themselves of sin.

Footage from the scene showed lines of bodies laid out on stretchers on the pavement and covered with sheets. Ambulances and police cars streamed into the area, and security forces tried to move pilgrims away from part of the site, though thousands continued with the ritual.

The site is a notorious bottleneck for the huge crowds that attend the pilgrimage and has seen deadly stampedes in the past, including one in 1990 that killed 1,426 people and another in February 2004 that killed 244.

10:38:08
471871
AP Television
Mina, 8 January 2006
Wide of Mina city
People walking around city

10:38:15
472028
AP Television
Mina - 10 January 2006
Various wide shots of pilgrims and tents
People walking towards the Aqaba Jamra (one of the three stone pillars representing the devil) and throwing stones
People throwing stones at the Aqaba Jamra

10:38:24
472253
AP Television
Mina - 12 January 2006
Various of bodies wrapped in white sheets
Various of bodies wrapped in white sheets
Security standing near bodies wrapped in sheets

TERRORISM – AL QAEDA

The death-penalty trial got underway in February for Zacarias Moussaoui, the confessed al-Qaida conspirator often referred to as the twentieth hijacker in the 11 September 2001 attacks. Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan origin pleaded guilty in April 2005 to conspiring with al-Qaida to use aircraft to target US buildings.

Prosecutors argued that federal agents could have prevented the attacks if Moussaoui had been truthful about his al-Qaida connections after his arrest on 16 August 2001.

A few months later Moussaoui said he lied on the witness stand about being involved in the plot and wanted to withdraw his guilty plea because he believed he could get a fair trial from an American jury. US District Judge Leonie Brinkema denied Moussaoui''s request, saying the motion was "too late."

In a motion, Moussaoui said he testified on March 27 that he was supposed to hijack a fifth plane on September 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House although he knew that to be a total fabrication.
A federal court jury spared the 37-year-old Frenchman the death penalty, but he was given six life sentences, to run as two consecutive life terms, in the federal supermax prison at Florence , Colorado .

Explaining his reversal, Moussaoui said in an affidavit that he was "extremely surprised" by the life sentence. Moussaoui''s court-appointed lawyers told the court that they filed the motion even though a federal rule prohibits a defendant from withdrawing a guilty plea after imposition of sentence.

10:38:55
475382
POOL
Alexandria , US - 14 February 2006
Exterior of courthouse

10:39:02
483064
POOL
Alexandria , Undated
STILL of Moussaoui

10:39:06
475382
AP Television
Alexandria , Virginia - 14 February 2006
Various courtroom sketches of Zacarias Moussaoui in court
Sketch of Moussaoui standing next to courthouse door

10:39:14
483064
AP Television
Washington , DC - 4 May 2006
Various of newspapers showing guilty verdict headlines

TERRORISM – ABU ALI

A Virginia man who travelled to Saudi Arabia , joined al-Qaida and plotted to assassinate US President George W. Bush was sentenced in March to 30 years in prison. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 25, was convicted in November 2005 of conspiracy to assassinate the president, conspiracy to hijack aircraft and providing support to al-Qaida, among other crimes. He faced a mandatory minimum of 20 years and maximum sentence of life.

The Saudis arrested Abu Ali in June 2003 as he was taking final exams at the Islamic University of Medina. Abu Ali confessed that he joined al-Qaida while studying in Saudi Arabia and said he discussed terror plots with some of the most senior al-Qaida members, including plans to assassinate Bush and plans to establish an al-Qaida terror cell in the US . Abu Ali claimed that the Saudis had extracted a confession from him through torture and argued that the US was complicit in his torture by colluding with the Saudis. Prosecutors denied he was mistreated.

10:39:20
479310
AP Television
Alexandria , Virginia - 29 March, 2006
Wide shot of courthouse

US District Attorney's Office
FILE: Saudi Arabia , date unknown
Abu Ali "confession"

TERRORISM – ARREST OF AL-QAIDA IN IRAQ NO. 2

Iraq 's national security adviser announced in September the arrest of the second most senior figure in al-Qaida in Iraq . Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi, known as Abu Humam or Abu Rana, was arrested a few days ago, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie said.

Al-Saeedi was "directly responsible for the criminal Haitham al-Badri, the mastermind and the bomber of the Samarra shrine," al-Rubaie added. The bombing of the Shiite shrine in February inflamed tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims and triggered reprisal attacks that continue to this day.

He said authorities had obtained information about al-Saeedi after al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed on June 7 in a US airstrike north of Baghdad . The information indicated he had moved to northern Baghdad and had been operating outside Baqouba, the same area where Zarqawi was killed.

10:39:40
495140
AP Television
Baghdad , Iraq - 3 September 2006
Wide shot of al-Rubaie, zoom into photo of Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi on display

TERRORISM – PAKISTAN BOMBS

In February a bomb ripped through a passenger bus, killing at least 13 people and wounding 20 others in a province of southwestern Pakistan wracked by growing tribal unrest, police said. The blast occurred in Kolpur, a town about 30 kilometres (18 miles) southeast of Quetta , the capital of Baluchistan . The bus was travelling with about 50 passengers from Quetta to the eastern city of Lahore . Dead bodies were brought to Quetta 's Government Civil Hospital , where the injured were also receiving care.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, which will deepen concerns over Baluchistan , where violence between tribal militants and security forces has escalated in remote areas of the province. The tribesmen resent the presence of security forces in the region and are demanding more revenues for natural resources, including natural gas, extracted from their territory.

The continued unrest in Baluchistan 's tribal areas has raised fears of a repeat of violence that rocked the province in the 1970s, when thousands died in a large-scale military operation against rebellious tribesmen.

Four days later, a suicide bomb ripped through a Shiite Muslim procession in Hangu in northwestern Pakistan , sparking riots during the Muslim sect's most important holiday. At least 28 people were killed and 50 injured in the violence. Shiites went on the rampage after the explosion, burning shops and cars in Hangu, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) southwest of the capital, Islamabad . The attack came despite heightened security across Pakistan for the Ashoura festival.

The 7th century death of Hussain fuelled a rivalry between Shiites and Sunni Muslims over who should succeed the prophet, and sectarian attacks have often marred the annual rite. About 80 percent of Pakistan 's 150 million people are Sunnis and most of the rest are Shiites. The two communities generally live in peace, but extremists on both sides, who regard the other sect as heretical, often launch attacks. During Ashoura, the most revered religious holiday for Shiites, they dress in black, weep, pound their chests and the flail their backs with chains and blades as they mourn Hussain's death.

In April, a bomb exploded during evening prayers at a public park in Karachi killing at least 40 people and injuring dozens more. Initial reports suggested the bomb was planted under a stage in Karachi ''s Nishtar Park, where hundreds of Sunni Muslims had gathered for prayer to celebrate the birth of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, police said.

After the blast, scores of men wearing long white, blood-spattered robes clambered onto the stage to help victims. People were seen carrying away bloodied victims and putting them into ambulances while several bodies were seen lying side-by-side on a strip of dusty ground.

Karachi has been the scene of several bombings and other attacks since Pakistan became a key ally of the United States in its war on terror after the September 11 2001 attacks in America .

10:40:01
474567
AP Television
Kolpur, Baluchistan Province – 5 February 2006
++NIGHT SHOTS++
Various exteriors of destroyed bus
Interiors of destroyed bus

Quetta , Baluchistan Province
Pan of dead bodies

10:40:20
474909
AP Television
Hangu - 9 February 2006
Pakistani soldiers in bazaar
Burning shops
Shops burning and army in street

10:40:39
480558
AP Television
Karachi , 11 April 2006
++CONTAINS GRAPHIC MATERIAL++
++NIGHT SHOTS++
Wide of vehicle on fire
Various of vehicle on fire
Wide of scene of blast
Wide of stage where bomb is thought to have been planted
Dead man on stretcher being taken out of ambulance and rushed into hospital

TERRORISM – INDIA

In July eight bombs tore through packed Mumbai (Bombay) trains , killing at least 147 and wounding hundreds in what authorities called a well-coordinated attack. Pakistan , India 's rival over the disputed territory of Kashmir , quickly condemned the bombings. The bombings appeared timed to inflict maximum carnage in the Arabian Sea port of 16 (m) million, more than 6 (m) million of whom ride the crowded rail network daily.

Emergency crews struggled to treat survivors and recover the dead in the wreckage during monsoon downpours, and the effort stretched into the night. Survivors clutched bandages to their heads and faces, and some frantically tried to use their cell phones.

The Press Trust of India, citing railway officials, said all the blasts hit first-class cars - a sign the assailants were targeting the professional class in a city that has come to embody India 's 21st century ambitions.

10:41:09
489470
AP Television
Mumbai, 11 July 2006
Pan of crowds gathered on the railway tracks
Various of crowds outside damaged coaches
People carrying dead body on a stretcher
Pan shot of badly damaged compartment
Various of debris and damage inside the coaches

TERRORISM – SPAIN , ETA

Spain 's government informed parliament on of its intention to start peace negotiations with the Basque separatist group ETA. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero then formally announced the ETA peace talks, saying they'll be "long, tough and difficult". The talks have been widely expected since ETA declared a permanent cease-fire in March, but there have so far been no details about where and when the negotiations would be held.

ETA declared a permanent ceasefire earlier this year on March 22, bringing a dramatic end to nearly four decades of violence that claimed more than 800 lives. ETA's last lethal attack was in May 2003, when it killed two police officers with a car bomb.

During that period a lone round of secretive peace talks with the conservative government then in power went nowhere and ETA resumed attacks. A single round of talks in May 1999 between ETA and the government of then Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar were fruitless.

Zapatero's Socialist government has come out strongly in favour of allowing more regional autonomy, not only in the Basque country, but in powerful Catalonia and elsewhere. But many victims of ETA attacks insist that the government should not negotiate with the Basque separatist group.

The Basque region, with about two (m) million inhabitants, is located northern Spain , bordering with France at the western end of the Pyrenees . Its main cities are Bilbao , San Sebastian and Vitoria .

10:41:48
488175
AP Television
FILE: Fuengirola - 21 June 2002
Wide of fire burning near cars as a result of bomb blast, police standing by, firefighter extinguishing flames

AP Television News
Madrid - 21 January 2006
Mid shot of bombed out car

ETA Video - Non AP Television News material
Date and location unknown - released on 22 March 2006
++SOUND QUALITY AS INCOMING++
SOUNDBITE (Spanish): Masked ETA militant (in middle of three masked ETA militants seated at a table):
"Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) has decided to declare a permanent ceasefire as of March 24, 2006. The aim of this decision (the ceasefire) is to promote a democratic process in Euskal Herria (the Basque country) and to build a framework in which our rights as a people will be recognised."

TERRORISM - ITALY

In October, a Turkish man seeking political asylum hijacked a jetliner carrying 113 people forcing the pilots to fly to Italy , where he later surrendered and released the passengers unharmed. Security officials in the southern Italian city, where the plane landed, said the unarmed hijacker, identified by Turkish authorities as Hakan Ekinci, was seeking to have a message delivered to Pope Benedict XVI, but said he did not know what that message was.

The Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-400, flying from Albania to Istanbul , was hijacked in Greek airspace.
It landed at Italy 's Brindisi airport under escort by two Italian military planes. Turkish officials said Ekinci was an army deserter seeking political asylum. No weapons were found on Ekinci or on the plane.

Istanbul 's governor said Ekinci fled to Albania and was seeking political asylum. He said the Turkish Consulate in the Albanian capital had alerted Turkish authorities that Ekinci had been denied political asylum there and was on the flight back to Turkey .

Had Ekinci arrived in Istanbul as scheduled he would have been detained for being a deserter. Ekinci, 28, had written to Pope Benedict in August to seek the pontiff's help to avoid military service in his home country.

10:42:22
498577
AP Television
Brindisi – 3 October 2006
++NIGHT SHOT++
Wide of Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-400 on airport runway

10:42:26
498624
Police Video
Brindisi – 3 October 2006
Man coming down plane steps followed by suspect with hands in the air
Passengers coming down steps and being searched by police

TERRORISM – INDONESIA (RELEASE OF ABU BAKAR BASHIR)

The militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir was released in June, more than two years after he was imprisoned for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali bombings. Bashir was greeted by jubilant supporters and mobbed by media and onlookers as walked to freedom from Jakarta 's Cipinang prison.

The 68-year-old cleric, an alleged key leader of the al-Qaida-linked Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, served 26 months for giving his blessing to the nightclub bombings, which killed 202 people, most of them foreign tourists. About 150 of Bashir's supporters gathered at Jakarta 's Cipinang prison for his release, which came about 45 minutes earlier than expected.

Bashir, who has maintained his innocence, planned to return to the Islamic boarding school that he founded and retake his position at the head of his legal hardline Islamic organisation, the Council of Mujahedeen for Islamic Law Enforcement.

Bashir went straight to the al-Mukmin boarding school, notorious for producing some of Southeast Asia 's deadliest extremists, where he again received a hero's welcome.

The United States and Australia , expressed disappointment at his release. Bashir was quick to point his finger at his critics saying the US , Australia and their allies just don't like him being free and he warned "there is no point in fighting against Islam because our opponents will be destroyed."

10:42:56
486634
AP Television
Jakarta , 14 June 2006
Crowd surrounding cleric Abu Bakar Bashir at entrance way as he is released, heavy media pack

10:43:04
486708
AP Television
Solo, 14 June 2006
Wide of Bashir in the public meeting before he makes a speech
SOUNDBITE(Indonesian) Bashir:
"Islam will always win, therefore I tell the non-Muslim people there is no point in fighting against Islam because our opponents will be destroyed"
Supporters with scarves over their faces

TERRORISM – US, SEARS TOWER

Seven young men were arrested in an alleged plot to bomb the tallest building in the United States were part of a group of "homegrown terrorists", US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said in June. At a Justice Department news conference in Washington , DC , Gonzales outlined an alleged plot against the 110-floor Sears Tower in Chicago and a federal building in Miami .

The seven individuals - ranging in age from 22 to 32 - were indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami , in the US state of Florida . Six were taken into custody in Miami when authorities swarmed a warehouse, removing a metal door with a blow torch. A seventh was arrested in Atlanta , Georgia .

The defendants were identified as the alleged ringleader Narseal Batiste, plus Stanley Grant Phanor, Burson Augustin, Patrick Abraham, Naudimar Herrera, Rotschild Augustine and Lyglenson Lemorin.
Five of the defendants, including Batiste, appeared in federal court in Miami under heavy security.

The FBI's deputy director, John Pistole, said one of those arrested had been familiar with the Sears Tower . But, he said, the alleged plot had been in its early stages. The seven defendants were charged with conspiring to "maliciously damage and destroy by means of an explosive" the FBI building in North Miami Beach and the Sears Tower in Chicago .

10:43:33
487640
AP Television
Chicago , Illinois - Recent
Shots of the Sears Tower

Department of Justice Handout Photos
Police photograph of Narseal Batiste
Police photograph of Burson Augustin
Police photograph of Naudimar Herrera
Police photograph of Rotschild Augustine
Police photograph of Patrick Abraham
Police photograph of Stanley Grant Phanor
Police photograph of Lyglenson Lemorin

ASIA – NORTH KOREA

In July, North Korea test-launched six missiles, in defiance of stern international warnings. The missiles apparently fell harmlessly into the Sea of Japan and US officials said one of them - believed to be a long-range Taepodong-2 - failed shortly after it lifted off. The military exercise drew immediate, international condemnation. The White House called it a "provocation" while Japan urged UN Security Council action and warned of economic sanctions against the impoverished, communist country. South Korea , meanwhile, said the test launches would further deepen its neighbour's international isolation.

The launch came after speculation that the North was preparing to test the Taepodong-2 from a site on its northeast coast.

North Korea 's missile programme is based on Scud technology provided by the former Soviet Union or Egypt , according to American and South Korean officials. North Korea started its Nodong-1 missile project in the late 1980s and test-fired the missile for the first time in 1993. North Korea had observed a moratorium on long-range missile launches since 1999.

Then in October, North Korea said it will conduct a nuclear test to bolster its self-defence against what it calls increasing US hostility toward the communist regime - the strongest blow yet to efforts to convince the North to give up its drive for nuclear weapons. It is the first time the North publicly announced its intent to conduct a nuclear test amid recent concerns that the communist country may be preparing for such a move.

The North's announcement comes as multilateral talks on its nuclear programme remain stalled for almost a year. Pyongyang has boycotted the six-nation talks in protest over US financial restrictions imposed for its alleged illegal activity, including money laundering and counterfeiting. The communist nation stoked regional tension in July by test-firing seven missiles, including one believed to be capable of reaching as far as the US .

10:44:10
488687
KRT FILE - No Access North Korea
Unknown date and location
Various of military parade through Pyongyang , with missiles being transported on truck
Various of missile being fired - CLIENTS PLEASE NOTE AP CANNOT CONFIRM WHAT TYPE OF MISSILE IS LAUNCHED
Kim Jong-il addressing parade
More of parade

10:44:39
498482
AP Television
FILE, Recent
Various interiors of people working in reactor
People working in main control room of nuclear reactor

KRT - No Access North Korea
FILE, Recent
Exterior of nuclear facility

10:44:55
499086
AP Television
Washington , DC – 9 October 2006
SOUNDBITE: (English) George W. Bush , US President:
"Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond.”

ASIA – THAILAND

In March, h undreds of supporters cheered Thailand's embattled prime minister as he urged the opposition to abandon its boycott of next month's snap elections so that the people could decide who runs the country. Thaksin Shinawatra pushed through crowds chanting "Thaksin, Fight!" as he and members of his Thai Rak Thai party registered for April 2 elections.

He had recently dissolved parliament in a bid to head off growing public protests against his rule and renew his mandate, and then set into motion next month's snap elections. But the looming polls have only deepened a political crisis for Thaksin, with opposition parties saying they will boycott the vote, leaving his candidacy virtually uncontested.

Later in March, more than 100-thousand protesters demanding his resignation marched on his office in Bangkok , vowing to continue peaceful protests until he steps down.

Tens of thousands of protesters have been demanding Thaksin's resignation in regular weekend rallies.
The tycoon-turned-politician is accused by the protesters of corruption, mishandling a Muslim insurgency in southern Thailand , stifling the media, and allowing cronies to reap gains from state policies.

Then in September, tanks and other armoured vehicles surrounded Government House after the army mounted a coup. Soldiers attached yellow ribbons to their uniforms, signifying the army's continued backing for the Thai monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Bangkok residents watched as tanks took to the streets. Soldiers stood at street intersections, directing civilian traffic to stop so that military convoys could pass.

But the city of more than 10 (m) million was calm and most residents appeared unfazed by the dramatic turn of events. Not a shot was fired during the night time operation.

The following month, Thailand 's King Bhumibol Adulyadej formally appointed General Surayad Chulanont as his country's new prime minister. The king was approached at the Royal Palace in Bangkok , by General Sondhi Boonyaratkalin, who led the coup that overthrew former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra on September 19. The king signed the royal command endorsing Surayud as the new interim prime minister.

Under the new interim constitution, approved by the king, the military council gave itself the power to remove Surayud and his Cabinet, approve the selection of a National Assembly speaker, and have the final say on a 100-member committee that will write the next constitution.
Surayud Chulanont said his one-year term in office would be characterised by an openness to all the people so as to keep himself well-informed. Surayud is a former head of Special Forces, and a former commander-in-chief of the army. For the past three years he has been a member of the Privy Council, a small, select group of advisors to King Adulyadej.

10:45:17
476871
AP Television
Bangkok , 2 Mar 2006
Thaksin walking back to his seat, making the 'V' for victory sign

10:45:25
477821
AP Television
Bangkok , 14 March 2006
Protestors marching away from Democracy monument
Protesters passing line of police
Protestors with non-violence banners

10:45:37
496890
AP Television
Bangkok – 19 September 2006
++NIGHT SHOTS++
Various tank outside Government House

10:45:41
496919
AP Television
Bangkok – 19 September 2006
++NIGHT SHOTS++
Tank outside Government House, people taking pictures

10:45:45
496942
AP Television
Bangkok – 20 September 2006
Exterior of government house
Military vehicle entering government house
Mid of soldiers on tank

10:46:01
497109
AP Television
Bangkok – 21 September 2006
Various top shots of traffic on highway with tanks parked on the side
Soldiers on top of tanks, on side of highway

10:46:12
498273
Pool
Bangkok – 1 October 2006
Mid of Surayud Chulanont walking towards portrait of Thai King and bowing, at his official swearing-in as interim Prime Minister
Mid of Surayud kneeling before portrait of Thai King and lying on floor, as sign of respect to king

ASIA – NEPAL

Nepal's King Gyanendra said in February his country would hold parliamentary elections within the next 15 months, and claimed that attacks by Maoist rebels had decreased since he assumed direct rule over the Himalayan nation a year ago. In an address carried by state-run media, the king said that by mid-April, "all the positions held by people's representatives will be filled".

The king was speaking on the first anniversary of his seizure of absolute power, which has drawn heavy protest from the country's main political parties and criticism from foreign governments who have urged him to speed moves to restore democracy. A coalition of seven political parties hoped to launch a major protest rally in Katmandu to put pressure the monarch to relinquish power and restore democracy.

Nepal has held no elections since 1999 and lacked a working parliament since it was dissolved in 2002.
Plans for elections have been put off in part due to the insurgency, which has made deep inroads in Nepal 's countryside since it was launched a decade ago.

A few months later, Nepalese police fired tear gas and fought frenzied street battles with protesters on the second day of a strike called by government adversaries of King Gyanendra. Protesters marched through the streets of Katmandu , hurling stones at police who responded with tear gas and batons.

In a speech broadcast live on national television and radio from Birgunj, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of Katmandu the king said, "It is the need of today to establish permanent peace."
The remarks were the monarch's first public comments on the daily protests from pro-democracy activists and major political parties and on the escalating violence from communist rebels. But he did not refer to the four-day opposition general strike that has left streets largely empty in Katmandu , except for protesters.

While many Nepalese at first welcomed the king's move, the insurgency has since only worsened and the economy has faltered, fuelling discontent.

10:46:34
474139
AP Television
Katmandu , 1 Feb 2006
Wide shot of the king's palace in Katmandu
People watching the king's speech on television

10:46:42
480175
AP Television
Kirtipur neighbourhood, Katmandu , Nepal – 7 April 2006
Wide shot protestors chasing the police, tear gas being fired
Mid shot protester being beaten by police

10:46:50
480408
AP Television
Katmandu - 10 April 2006
Wide of protesters chanting slogans, and holding an effigy of Nepalese King Gyanendra
Wide of woman (pink trouser outfit) leading protest
Protesters chanting, then running as police chase to disperse protesters

10:47:02
480551
AP Television
Katmandu , 11 April 2006
Police running down street, pushing protester, AUDIO of gunfire
Police dragging protester along ground
Police kicking and beating protester

ASIA – KASHMIR

Security forces stormed a hotel from which suspected Islamic militants opened fire on a paramilitary base in the centre of the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir in October. A policeman was killed in the raid.

Police said the gunmen began shooting at the base in the busy Lal Chowk area of central Srinagar from the nearby hotel. At least two other people were seriously wounded in the ongoing operation, said the head of a paramilitary force that had gone into the building, ending a three-hour standoff.

A Kashmiri militant group, Al-Mansor, claimed responsibility for the attack. An unidentified man, claiming to be a spokesman for the group, told the local Central News Agency that three of its men carried out the attack. Al-Mansor is one of the smaller groups operating in the area.

Earlier in the year, In Wangund, an eastern suburb of Srinagar , two suspected militants were killed in a gun battle with paramilitary soldiers, India 's Central Reserve Police Force said. A soldier was injured in the brief gun battle, they said.

A large force from the Indian army cordoned off the village of Gambru , 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of Srinagar late on Sunday after receiving a tip-off that several separatists had gathered there, the army confirmed. Gambru is 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of Srinagar , Indian-controlled Kashmir 's summer capital.

In another incident, c lashes between Indian government forces and suspected Islamic separatists killed 12 people in Indian-controlled Kashmir . Eight separatists and a soldier died in three incidents in the Kashmir area, the Indian army said.

In May, s uspected Islamic militants hurled grenades and fired bullets into a crowd at a ruling Congress Party rally in India 's portion of Kashmir killing five people and wounding at least 20 others before two of the attackers were killed. About 3,000 people had assembled inside a park in Srinagar , the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir , to observe the anniversary of the death of former Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi when the assault happened.

Two policeman and three civilians died and three senior police officers were wounded in the attack. The injured officers included top-ranking Inspector General of Police K. Rajendra Kumar, police said. Security forces killed two of the attackers, who were dressed as policemen.

Two militant groups, Al Mansoorian and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, claimed responsibility for the attack. One of the attackers is believed to have entered the venue dressed as a policeman and was the first to open fire. Other militants hiding nearby gave him cover by hurling grenades and firing bullets into the crowd.

Anti-India sentiment runs high in Kashmir , India 's only Muslim-majority state, where most people favour independence from Hindu-majority India or a merger with Pakistan . Kashmir is partially administered by India and partially by Pakistan . More than a dozen Islamic rebel groups have been fighting security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir since 1989. More than 68-thousand people, most of them civilians, have died in the conflict.

10:47:22
498608
AP Television
Srinigar – 4 October 2006
Wide of hotel, scene of stand-off, with bullets hitting exterior AUDIO gunfire
People running with hands up
Jammu and Kashmir armoured police taking positions at scene AUDIO gunfire

10:47:34
488569
AP Television
Wangund, eastern Srinagar , Indian-controlled Kashmir - 3 July 2006
Various of soldiers looking at dead body

Gambru
Wide of two dead bodies lying on the ground, AUDIO of mourners crying
Remains of burnt houses

10:47:51
484248
AP Television
Srinagar , 21 May 2006
Various people running along street
Various of police crouched down on the street, AUDIO of gunfire
Police and civilians hiding behind a wall

ASIA - SRI LANKA

Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels detonated a bomb in May in a busy street in northeastern Sri Lanka , killing four members of a family and a navy officer, and adding to fears the country could fall back into civil war.
The bomb in the city of Trincomalee was apparently aimed at a naval foot patrol, but a passing motorised rickshaw took the force of the explosion.

The bombing was the latest in recent weeks in a series of attacks that pose the most serious threat yet to a 2002 truce between the government and LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) seeking a separate state in the country''s north and east.

A few months later, suspected Tiger rebels attacked a crowded bus in northern Sri Lanka , triggering a pair of hidden explosives that killed at least 64 people in the worst violence since a 2002 cease-fire, officials said. The government quickly launched retaliatory airstrikes against rebel-held positions.

The dead included at least 15 schoolchildren, their blue uniforms coated with blood and gore as authorities lined up corpses on the floor of a nearby hospital so relatives could identify them. The rebels denied any responsibility for the attack and suggested it was done by shadowy forces they say are trying to create unrest.

The Tigers began fighting the government in 1983 to create a separate Tamil nation, accusing the majority Sinhalese-dominated state of discrimination. The conflict killed more than 65,000 people.
A Norway-brokered cease-fire halted the war in February 2002, but outbreaks of violence have escalated, threatening to shatter the fragile truce.

10:48:12
482352
AP Television
Trincomalee – 1 May 2006
Pan of blast site to security at scene
Bicycle where the bomb was concealed
Vehicle hit by the explosion

10:48:22
486826
AP Television
Kabithigollewa, 15 June 2006
++GRAPHIC PICTURES +++
Various of wreckage of bus
Tilt of bodies of children and adults killed in the mine blast
Shot of man sitting next to dead children
Various of bodies on the floor
Women sitting and crying

ASIA – PAKISTAN

January's airstrike on a suspected al-Qaida hideout in Pakistan near the Afghan border killed at least 17 people but failed to killed the target, No.2 Ayman al-Zawahri. Villagers angrily denied any links to the Taliban or al-Qaida militants, and Pakistan condemned the purported CIA airstrike.

Pakistani officials said a CIA-operated Predator drone aircraft had launched missiles targeting Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, at a residential compound in the village of Damadola .
In the village of Bajur , more than 8,000 tribesmen, chanting "God is Great!" staged a protest in a nearby town to condemn the airstrike.

Protests continued the next day as Pakistan began nationwide protests against the air strike. More than 600 people braved rain and cold to rally against the air strike in the town of Samarbagh , about 50 kilometres (31 miles) east of Damadola.

In the capital Islamabad , a group of about 80 demonstrators marched through the streets, demanding the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan .


10:46:51
472403
AP Television
Damadola/Islamabad, 13 Jan 2006
Wide pan of Damadola village
Pan from blast damaged house to group of men

10:49:02
472449
AP Television
Damadola, 14 January 2006
Various of villagers sifting amidst damage
Wide of people walking on road, landscape

10:49:12
472484
AP Television
Samarbagh - 15 Jan 2006
People chanting slogans: "Those who are friends of America , are traitors"

Islamabad
Wide of protesters demonstrating against Friday's purported Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) air strike that killed innocent civilians
Protesters shouting: "Down with America "

In August, police arrested hundreds of rioters as violent protests flared against the Pakistani military's killing of a rebel tribal chief. Local political groups said Nawab Akbar Bugti's death had sparked a "never-ending war." Enraged mobs burned dozens of shops, buses, banks and police vehicles on Sunday in Quetta , the capital of southwest Baluchistan province.

The rioters defied a round-the-clock curfew imposed by government authorities to try quell the outpouring of anger over 79-year-old Bugti's killing in a raid on his mountain hide-out.

Baluchistan province's police chief said 450 people were arrested in Quetta as security forces tried to crack down on the violence, which has spread to other parts of the impoverished province and into the commercial capital Karachi .

Government forces killed Bugti, one of Pakistan 's most prominent fugitives, and at least 24 of his supporters during a raid on his cave hide-out in the Kohlu area, about 220 kilometres (140 miles) east of Quetta . Bugti went into hiding in late 2005 after an attempt was made on the Pakistani president's life.

10:49:41
494437
AP Television
Quetta – 27 August 2006
Various of burned vehicles at Baluchistan University parking area
Protesters fleeing teargas
Police officer firing teargas at fleeing protesters

ASIA – GEORGIA

Georgian police broke up a protest rally in May held by representatives of non-governmental organisations and political parties in the centre of the Georgian capital Tbilisi . The demonstrators were protesting against alleged police violence and the presence of the so-called 'death squadron' in the Georgian Interior Ministry.

Organisers of the rally were arrested and charged with affray. They were later released after paying fines. Protesters demanded the fair investigation of murder cases, where high-ranking police officers have allegedly been involved.

The following day several hundred opposition activists and supporters of a wanted former security minister rallied in the Georgian capital to call for the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili and his government. The demonstration in Tblisi was organised by a loose coalition of opposition parties calling themselves "Anti Soros".

The protesters accuse current Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's government of failing to conduct democratic reforms and to improve living standards in the country. The movement, created in 2005, is known for its close ties with Russia . Protest actions organised by Anti-Soros activists are mostly directed against Mikhail Saakashvili.

Anti-Soros activists accuse U.S. Billionaire philanthropist George Soros of funding the 2003 Rose Revolution that brought Saakashvili to power. The protesters accuse Saakashvili of pursuing west-oriented foreign policy.

10:49:48
484528
AP Television
Tbilisi , 24 May 2006
Wide shot Georgian parliament building, pan to protesters blocking the road
Close-up policemen pushing protester away from road
Mid shot policemen carrying a protester

10:49:58
484659
AP Television
Tbilisi - 25 May 2006
Wide shot rally
Wide shot protesters with banner
Wide shot pan demo

In September, a Georgian court in Tbilisi ruled it would keep in custody for another two months two of the four Russian officers detained for spying. The detained officers - Colonel Alexander Savva, Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Kazantsev, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Zavgorodny and Major Alexander Baranov - appeared at Tbilisi City Court for the hearing to decide whether they should continue to be held.

Infuriated by the detentions, Moscow announced that it was recalling its ambassador, Vyacheslav Kovalenko. Russia 's Foreign Ministry alerted all Russians to refrain from travelling to Georgia , and the embassy in Tbilisi stopped issuing visas to Georgian citizens.

Bilateral ties have long been strained over Georgia 's bid to join NATO and Moscow 's close links to Georgia 's breakaway provinces. Tbilisi officials have accused Russia of backing separatists in Georgia 's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia , and making efforts to undermine Saakashvili's government. Russia has denied the allegations.

10:50:32
498084
AP Television
Tbilisi – 29 September 2006
Interior of courtroom
Georgian judge flanked by security officers
Four of the Russian detainees (unidentified, all four named in script) behind bars


DISASTER – JAVA MOUNT MERAPI

Mount Merapi spat out near continuous clouds of deadly hot ash and debris early in May, as activity at the volcano intensified. One of the eruptions was the most powerful yet, sending ash, rock fragments and volcanic gas almost four kilometres (2.5 miles) down the mountain's western flank.

Villagers who had not evacuated their homes waited in groups by the side of the road on the slopes of the volcano, which rises from the plains of Indonesia 's densely populated Java Island , and were told to stand by for possible evacuation.

Some 18,000 others who live lower down the slopes of the 3,000-metre (9,800-foot) mountain and were not considered to be in immediate danger stayed behind.

Merapi, which is one of 129 active volcanoes in Indonesia , sent out a searing cloud of gas that burned 60 people to death when it last erupted in 1994. About 1,300 people died in a 1930 eruption.

10:50:39
483581
AP Television
Mount Merapi , 15 May 2006
Various of gas clouds rising from volcano

10:50:52
483582
AP Television
Mount Merapi , 15 May 2006
Two shots of gas clouds rising from volcano

DISASTER – JAVA EARTHQUAKE

In May, the number of dead in central Indonesia rose to more than 2,900, following a powerful earthquake which flattened buildings and injured thousands.

The magnitude-6.2 quake struck near the ancient city of Yogyakarta , as most people were sleeping, causing death and damage in many nearby towns. According to the Social Affairs Ministry, more than two-thirds of the fatalities occurred in Bantul.

Over a thousand were reported to have been seriously injured in the area and more than three thousand homes destroyed. Imogiri village was a scene of almost complete destruction after the quake with the homeless camping out in the open.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered the army to help evacuate victims and arrived in densely populated Central Java province on Saturday with a team of Cabinet ministers to oversee rescue operations.

10:51:04
484896
AP Television
Bantul - 27 May 2006
Wide of flattened village
People searching for missing people
Refugees sitting in open air

Imogiri
Various of damaged houses

DISASTER- IRAN EARTHQUAKE

In March, Villagers in western Iran mourned their dead after three strong earthquakes killed at least 70 people and injured about 1,200 others. The village of Khalid Ali , at the epicentre of one of the quakes, was devastated, with many homes completely collapsed. Rescue workers began clearing away the rubble while traumatised survivors wept at the loss of their loved ones. One injured man at Chamran hospital in the town of Boroujerd said he had lost twelve members of his family in the quake.

Iranians are celebrating Nowruz, or new year, and most government offices are closed and their staff on holiday, but officials recalled doctors and nurses from vacation to help treat the injured. Provincial officials said 200 villages had been damaged by the quake, some of them totally flattened.

In Boroujerd, tents lined some of the streets, with some families opting to spend the night in open spaces for fear of more aftershocks. Most of the 1,200 people injured had been in bed when the quake struck, the television said.

Survivors started to clear the debris and search for their belongings as son as was safe. Ali Moradi, a survivor from the village of Baba Pashmak , near Boroujerd, was forced to live with his family in a tent next to his ruined house.

Iran is located on seismic fault lines and is prone to earthquakes. On average, it experiences at least one slight earthquake per day.

10:51:29
479512
AP Television
Khalid Ali, near Boroujerd – 31 March 2006
Wide of women mourning in Khalid Ali village, earthquake epicentre where about 35 people were killed
Wide of collapsed village

near Boroujerd
Villager digging through rubble

10:51:41
479557
AP Television
Baba Pashmak, 1 April 2006
Wide shot collapsed houses next to road
Wide shot collapsed houses
Moradi family arranging belongings in tent

DISASTER – SERBIA FLOOD

Bulldozers in Northern Serbia moved quickly to build a flood barrier in April, as the rising Danube river flooded hundreds of homes, throughout Serbia , and Bulgaria . Some residents in the area were forced to used boats to transport themselves around. Others used sandbags where they could, while a few stood watching the rising water at their doorsteps in dismay.

Swollen by the spring snow melt and heavy rains, the Danube has reached record highs in Serbia , Romania and Bulgaria in the past several days, threatening towns, villages and farmland. More floodwaters advancing along the river, one of Europe 's longest, were expected to hit the region over the weekend.

In the Serbian capital Belgrade , streets in the lower sections along the Danube and Sava Rivers were submerged. Elsewhere in Serbia , the waters flooded a railway station and a medieval fortress in the town of Smederevo , about 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Belgrade .

10:51:53
480860
AP Television
Northern Serbia , 14 April 2006
Submerged houses, boats, people trying to save their belongings, more houses half-submerged, whole streets under water, water pump pumping out water from the house

DISASTER – MEXICO HURRICANE

In September, Hurricane John bore down on the Mexican resorts of Cabo San Lucas and Los Cabos. Droves of tourists sought the last flights out or took shelter in hotels while many shantytown residents were ordered to evacuate. The Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 185 kilometres per hour (115 miles per hour).

For local residents, shelters were set up in 131 schools. Shop owners and hotels boarded up windows and hotel workers stripped rooms of light fixtures and furniture, in case plate-glass windows shattered

Between 7-thousand and 8-thousand tourists who remained in Cabo San Lucas were relocated to hotel ballrooms and rooms away from the beach to wait out the powerful storm. John ripped the roofs from shacks, knocked out power and sent billboards flying in the southern Baja California peninsula on Saturday and left tourists wet but unhurt in the upscale tourist resort of Los Cabos.

By the next day, John had knocked out electricity, downed trees and sent billboards flying in La Paz , a city of more than 150,000 people.

Two weeks later, hurricane Lane slammed into a sparsely populated stretch of Mexico 's Pacific coast south of the city of Culiacan after its winds and rain flooded streets and knocked out power in parts of the resort of Mazatlan . Culiacan is the capital of Sinaloa state and a centre for the region's booming agriculture and food-processing industry.

10:52:18
495021
AP Television
Cabo San Lucas, Los Cabos, 1 September 2006
Push in from wide to medium of flooded streets
Wide of workers pulling cars out of flooded road
Medium of police workers moving car in flooded street/pull out wide

10:52: 26
495102
AP Television
San Jose del Cabo - 2 September 2006
Palm trees in the strong winds

Todos Santos
Close-up of flood water

10:52:34
496608
AP Television
Mazatlan - 16 Sept 2006
Wide of sea, heavy rain
Wide of man being washed up by a wave

DISASTER - BAHRAIN FERRY

In March a cruise boat capsized off the coast of Bahrain , killing at least 57 people. Television footage showed the boat, al-Dana, capsized and lying on its side, with rescue workers walking on its brown hull.
Bahrain 's Interior Ministry spokesman told Al-Jazeera television that 67 people had been rescued.

He said the exact number of passengers was also not known because some left the boat before it sailed. The boat was thought to have been carrying up to 150 people when it capsized.

The official Bahrain News Agency said the boat was on an evening cruise that was to last several hours. It overturned less than a mile off the coast, it added. US helicopters and divers joined the rescue and recovery operation launched by Bahrain 's Coast Guard.

10:52:42
479448
AP Television
Manama - 31 March 2006
Wide of capsized ferry
Rescue worker diving into the sea
Mid of capsized ferry

DISASTER – EGYPT FERRY

A fire broke out on an ageing ferry before it sank in the Red Sea with more than 1,400 people on board, mainly Egyptian workers returning from Saudi Arabia . Most were feared lost but at least 324 made it to safety.

A spokesman for President Hosni Mubarak said the ferry did not have enough lifeboats, and questions were raised about the safety of the 35-year-old, refitted ship that was weighed down with 220 cars as well as the passengers. Weather may also have been a factor. There were high winds and a sandstorm overnight on Saudi Arabia 's west coast.

Two days later, about 100 family members protested against the government's rescue efforts. The family members protested outside the port of Safaga , where survivors were taken. They criticised Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his interior minister for failing to provide information about their family members and for the government's handling of the disaster.

The Egyptian rescue effort was slow to start - initial offers of help were rejected - and so far only about 380 survivors have been found. Four Egyptian rescue ships reached the scene about 10 hours after the ferry was believed to have sunk.

Coffins were also taken to the hospital in Hurghada, about 60 kilometres (40 miles) to the north, for families to identify the deceased. The governor of Red Sea province, Bakr al-Rashidi, said the number of corpses retrieved from the sea had risen to 244.

10:53:02
474426
AP Television
Cairo - 3 Feb 2006
Black and white photo of ship which sank, 'Al-Salam Boccaccio 98', on wall

10:53:06
474509
AP Television
Safaga, 5 Feb 2006
Relatives sitting on pavement
Various of relatives chanting and being pushed back by riot police

10:53:18
474603
AP Television
Hurghada - 6 February 2006
Various of workers unloading wooden coffins outside hospital

DISASTER – EGYPT TRAIN

A passenger train barrelled into a northern Egypt railway station in August and collided with a second train, killing 36 people and injuring 133 in Qalyoub, 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of the capital Cairo.
The trains, both southbound and carrying commuters to the Egyptian capital, Cairo , originated in the Nile Delta towns of Mansoura and Benha.

The train from Mansoura was going at least 80 kilometres (50 miles) per hour when the collision occurred after it failed to abide by a stop signal outside Qalyoub train station. The driver of the Mansoura train was killed and the locomotive overturned.

Egypt has a history of serious train accidents, which are usually blamed on poorly maintained equipment. Egypt 's worst train disaster, in February 2002, killed 363 people, many of them headed home to the country's south for the Islamic calendar's most
important holiday.

10:53:26
493856
AP Television
Qalyoub, 21 August 2006
Pan from damaged train to crowd at scene, people at windows and on top of a building
Various of damaged train, onlookers, rescue workers
Damaged train
Pan from smashed train front to onlookers
Mid of train

DISASTER – PAKISTAN TRAIN

An express train carrying up to 600 passengers derailed in January evening and plunged into a ravine in eastern Pakistan , killing four people and injuring up to 40 others. The accident occurred near the town of Domeli , about 100 kilometres (60 miles) southeast of the capital, Islamabad .

One carriage tumbled 100 metres (100 yards) to the bottom of a gorge in the Punjab province and at least four cars were thrown on their sides down the scrubby slope. About 300 soldiers were dispatched to search for survivors and begin clearing the wreck. Darkness hindered rescue efforts as did accessibility; only two narrow, rural roads approach the tracks near the crash site.

Six carriages in the 10-car train were derailed. An intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the accident was caused by a damaged railway track. Pakistani investigators believe sabotage to a rail track was the cause.

The Islamabad Express train was headed to Lahore , the capital of Punjab, from Rawalpindi , a city near Islamabad . Train wrecks in Pakistan often have high casualty counts because the carriages are sometimes packed beyond capacity.

10:53:50
473896
AP Television
Domeli - 29 Jan 2006
AP Television News
++NIGHT SHOTS++
Personnel at train crash site
Various of wreck
Interior of carriage, man inspecting damage

10:54:03
473902
AP Television
++NIGHT SHOT++
Domeli, Punjab Province - 29 January 2006
Various of train wreckage

DISASTER – ITALY TRAIN

A speeding subway train rammed into another train halted at a station in central Rome during the morning rush hour in October, killing at least one person and injuring about 60 others. Atac, Rome 's public transport company, said one train was stopped in the station when it was hit from behind by another travelling at a high speed. Some passengers said the driver of the second train appeared to have run a red light.

About 60 people were injured, including 10 seriously, said another Rome fire department spokesman,

Ambulances, firefighters and rescue teams rushed to the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II subway station, near Rome 's main railway station, following the crash. Rescue workers set up a field hospital nearby, where they treated dozens with slight injuries.

The cause of the accident was not known. Atac said the station remained closed, but the rest of the line was working. The Rome Film Festival said in a news release that screenings and news conferences would open with a moment of silence, and that all side events were being cancelled out of respect for the victims.

10:54:13
499930
Rome , 17 Oct 2006
AP Photos - No Access Canada/Internet
STILLS: Firefighters removing wreckage from inside a carriage after two subway trains collided
STILLS: Firefighters on the platform at the spot where two subway trains collided

10:54:21
499945
AP Television
Rome - 17 October 2006
Subway entrance, onlookers
Wide fire engine, ambulance, mortuary police van outside Piazza Vittorio Emanuele tube station
Civil protection putting up blankets to protect sight of victim taken out of subway

DISASTER – UKRAINE PLANE

A Russian passenger jet crash in Ukraine in August, killing 170 people. Investigators combed through the wreckage of the jet which crashed into a Ukrainian field during a severe thunderstorm.

Fragments of the plane - its engines, parts of the landing gear, the nose and chunks of the fuselage - were seen scattered around field. Emergency officials said preliminary information suggested that bad weather caused the crash about 45 kilometres (30 miles) from the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine .

Ukrainian officials said a storm, with heavy winds, driving rain and flashes of lightning, was raging through the region at the time. The pilot had asked to make an emergency landing before disappearing from the radar screens. The pilot had also asked for permission to change course by about 20 kilometres (12 miles) to the east, which had been granted.

The plane was flying over the Ukraine to St. Petersburg from the Russian Black Sea resort of Anapa - a holiday destination popular with families. 45 of the passengers on board were children, Pulkovo Airlines said.

The wreckage was found about an hour after the plane disappeared from radar screens in Sukha Balka, a village about 640 kilometres (400 miles) east of the Ukrainian capital Kiev .

The incident was the third fatal crash this year of a Russian passenger airliner. It came less than two months after an Airbus A310 belonging to the Russian airline S7 skidded off a runway and burst into flames on July 9 in the Siberian city of Irkutsk , killing 124 people.


In May, an A320 belonging to the Armenian airline Armavia crashed into the Black Sea when trying to land in the Russian resort city of Sochi in rough weather, killing all 113 people aboard.

10:54:35
494080
AP Television
Sukha Balka - 23 August 2006
Various of plane wreckage on ground at crash site
Wide of crash site, dead body lying on ground, plane wreckage
Priests saying prayers at crash site

DISASTER - PAKISTAN PLANE

A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) passenger plane crashed soon after takeoff in July on a domestic flight from Multan in eastern Pakistan , and all 45 people on board were killed, officials said. The Fokker F-27 twin-engine aircraft slammed into a wheat field on the outskirts of the city of Multan two or three
minutes after takeoff for Lahore , spiralling in the air before it hit the ground and burst into flames, witnesses said. After firefighters doused the fire, rescuers pulled bodies from the smouldering wreckage.

A PIA emergency department official who identified himself with the single name, Bashir, said the dead passengers were 33 men and eight women, all Pakistani. They included two army brigadiers, two judges of the High Court in Lahore and the head of a state-run university in Multan . Two male pilots and two air hostesses also died, he said. Grieving relatives gathered at the plane's intended destination of Lahore .

President General Pervez Musharraf expressed grief over the crash and ordered an investigation to determine the cause, state-run Pakistan Television reported.

The crash could put PIA's safety record under close scrutiny. The airline has reported a number of emergency landings in recent years and in December 2004, several passengers on a domestic flight were injured when one of its jets suddenly dipped, fearing a midair collision with another plane.

10:54:57
489268
AP Television/AP Photos
Multan - 10 July 2006
AP Photos – No Access Canada/Internet
STILL - People gathered near wreckage of a plane
STILL - Firemen extinguish fire after plane crashed

AP Television
Multan – 10 July 2006
Wide exterior shot Lahore International Airport , destination of crashed PIA Fokker aircraft
People watching news on a TV screen in airport concourse
Various of a woman who was waiting for the flight to arrive crying

EUROPE - HUNGARY

Ferenc Gyurcsany won Hungary 's first parliamentary election as a member of the European Union in April. Gyurcsany and opposition leader Viktor Orban had vied to become Hungary ''s first post-communist premier to serve a second term. Gyurcsany was chosen by lawmakers in September 2004 following a coalition coup that ousted Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy midway through his four-year term. Orban was prime minister from 1998 to 2002.

With a soaring budget deficit, rising unemployment and a need to modernise the health and education sectors, the next government will need to implement reforms quickly to prepare Hungary for adoption of the single European currency, the euro.

While most parties avoided talking about generally unpopular reforms during the campaign, without structural adjustments Hungary could end up as one of the last of the 10 countries which joined the EU in 2004 to adopt the euro.

Gyurcsany, 44, one of Hungary ''s richest businessmen before he turned to politics in 2001, has tried to reshape his party - founded by reform-minded communists in 1989 - into a modern left-wing force. Orban, 42, in an effort to attract undecided voters and those in the ideological centre, has muted some of his party's more nationalistic tendencies and toned down the aggressiveness of his message.

But is hasn't been plain sailing for Gyurcsany . In September demonstrators gathered in Kossuth Square the parliament building, and demanded he step down from office. The crowd at the main protest had grown to 15,000.

The disorder was sparked by Gyurcsany's leaked admission that his government had repeatedly lied to the public about the economy. Authorities say that since the violence began four days before, a total of 140 officers have been injured, including 38 in the early hours of Wednesday, and that 137 people have been detained.

10:55:25
480340
AP Television
Budapest - 9 April 2006
Various of Hungary Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany voting with his family
Various of banner for Fidesz party
Various of Viktor Orban, President of Fidesz Party, voting

10:55:39
497063
AP Television
Budapest , 20 September 2006
++ NIGHT SHOTS++
Wide exterior of parliament
Various of protesters
Reverse shot of speaker addressing protesters
Various of police and protesters

10:56:05
496921
AP Television
Budapest , 19 September 2006
++Night Shot++
Protesters throwing stones

10:56:26
496933
AP Television
Budapest , 20 September2006
++Night Shots++
Mounted police charging at protesters

EUROPE – SERBIA , MILOSEVIC DEATH

In March, f ormer Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic was found dead in his cell while on trial in the Hague for war crimes. People gathered at a makeshift memorial to lay flowers and light candles in the main square of the town in the Bosnian Serb-run part of Bosnia called Republika Srpska.

Milosevic, 64, who was extradited to The Hague in June 2001, was found dead in his bed at the UN detention centre. He had been defending himself against 66 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Croatia , Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s. He had been on trial since February 2002.

The Hague tribunal said there were no outward signs of suicide or unnatural causes of death, and Milosevic suffered for years from heart trouble and high blood pressure.

A few days later, hundreds of supporters paid their last respects, as his flag-draped coffin was placed on public display at a Belgrade museum. A large, framed colour photograph of Milosevic was placed in front of the closed casket inside the city's Museum of Revolution , a gallery once devoted to former Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito.

Tens of thousands of mourners packed a square in front of Belgrade 's federal parliament building at Milosevic's funeral. More than 50-thousand people - many clutching photographs of the late Serbian leader and shouting "Slobo! Slobo!" - gathered around an outdoor stage where Milosevic's flag-draped coffin lay.

Although the authorities had refused to approve an official ceremony, the funeral- organised by Milosevic's Socialist Party - had many of the trappings of a state funeral, from the venue to the speeches made by top party members.

After the ceremony, Milosevic's remains were taken to his hometown for burial. In Pozarevac, 50 kilometres (31 miles) south of the capital, Milosevic is to be buried beneath a linden tree in his back garden. Organisers have said no member of his immediate family will attend.

A week later, opponents of Milosevic staged a rally on Belgrade 's Republic Square, not far from the parliament building, where a massive protest led to his downfall on October 5, 2000. Protesters waved coloured balloons in a peaceful demonstration, angry over the way thousands of Serbian nationals have glorified Milosevic since his death.

10:56:33
195932
AP Television
Belgrade - Undated
Milosevic waves at supporters

10:56:42
477710
AP Television
Bijeljina, 12 Mar 2006
Framed picture of Milosevic and flowers

10:56:46
478099
AP Television
Belgrade , 16 Mar 2006
Flag being placed onto coffin and wreath being placed on top
Officials bowing next to coffin, replaced by other officials including legal adviser to Milosevic family Branko Rakic (front right)

10:56:56
478271
AP Television
Belgrade , 18 March 2006
Wide shot of crowd outside parliament building, Slobodan Milosevic's coffin on stage
Coffin being carried away, AUDIO of music and woman wailing

10:57:08
478291
AP Television
Pozarevac - 18 March 2006
Top shot of hearse moving through crowds
People throwing flowers at hearse, band playing in front of vehicle

10:57:20
478281
AP Television
Belgrade , 18 March 2006
Various of people waving balloons


EUROPE – MONTENEGRO VOTE

Montenegrins voted by a slim margin in May to secede from Serbia and form a separate nation, erasing the last vestiges of the former Yugoslavia .

T housands of independence supporters drove up and down the main street, honking car horns and waving red-and-golden Montenegrin flags. Members of the Coalition for Independence of Montenegro celebrated victory at the party's headquarters.

The independent Centre for Monitoring said 55.5 percent of voters opted for independence - just over the 55-percent threshold needed to validate the referendum under rules set by the European Union.

Montenegro 's pro-independence prime minister, Milo Djukanovic, said that "full integration" into the European Union and NATO remained the strategic national priority of Montenegro .

"I congratulate you to an independent country," he said.

The EU commended Montenegro 's conduct in the vote Sunday, and said it would recognise the result of the plebiscite.

In arguing for independence, the Montenegrin government had repeatedly complained that the union with much bigger Serbia was blocking its efforts to join the 25-nation EU. Preparatory talks with Serbia-Montenegro were frozen earlier this month over Belgrade 's failure to deliver top war crimes suspects to the UN tribunal in The Hague , Netherlands .

International observers who monitored the independence referendum also said the vote was "genuine and transparent," and free of fraud or other irregularities.

10:57:35
484282
AP Television
Podgorica, 21 May 2006
Man opening ballot box
Man emptying out ballot box onto table

10:57:43
484396
AP Television
Cetinje, 22 May 2006
Wide of crowd with flags
SOUNDBITE (Serbian): Milo Djukanovic , Montenegro 's Prime Minister:
"I congratulate you to an independent country."

10:57:55
484281
AP Television
Podgorica, 21 May 2006
Various of supporters dancing and waving flags
Djukanovic on stage with supporters

EUROPE – KOSOVO, DEATH OF RUGOVA

Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova, who had been suffering from lung cancer, died in January aged 61
Rugova, who came to embody ethnic Albanians' struggle for independence from Serbia , was officially diagnosed with lung cancer in September 2005.

Rugova has been Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leader since the early 1990s, when he led a non-violent movement against the policies of then Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic targeting ethnic Albanians. Until recently, Rugova was at the helm of the Democratic League of Kosovo, the biggest political party in the province which has won two general elections since the disputed province came under U.N. administration in 1999.

The United Nations into Kosovo here following NATO's air war, which was aimed at stopping the crackdown by Serb forces on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.

Rugova was at the forefront of ethnic Albanian demands for independence from Serbia while Serbs want Kosovo to remain part of Serbia-Montenegro, a union that replaced Yugoslavia . Rugova survived an apparent assassination attempt earlier this year when a bomb hidden in a trash can exploded as his convoy passed by. He was not injured in the blast.

After his death, ethnic Albanians converged on Kosovo's capital, Pristina, to pay their respects. Thousands gathered outside Rugova's house to say farewell to the man who had pledged to secure Kosovo's independence from Serbia .

His body lay in state for three days as part of a 15-day mourning period, according to a spokesman for the late president.

Rugova's death occurred just days before talks were to begin on the final status of the UN-administered province. The Serb government expressed concerns that Rugova's successor might not share his commitment to non-violence.

10:58:12
473110
AP Television
Pristina - 3 December 2004
Various of Rugova attending Kosovo parliament session

Pristina, 5 September 2005
Various of Rugova announcing that he has lung cancer

10:58:22
473191
AP Television
Pristina, Jan 22 2006
Various of hundreds of mourners waiting outside gates of former Kosovo president Ibrahim Rugova's house
Mourners walking past in a line, photograph of Rugova in foreground

10:58:42
473227
Agency Pool
Pristina, 23 January 2006
Coffin being carried from house
Mid shot of family leaving

EUROPE – BELARUS ELECTIONS

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and his opponents cast their votes in March in presidential elections. Two Belarusian exit polling organisations gave Lukashenko more than 80 percent of the votes after just two hours of voting.

Lukashenko won a new five year-term by a landslide in a vote criticised in the West as undemocratic, with opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich calling for a new vote without the participation of Lukashenko.

A week later Minsk saw a day of tension as police clashed with protesters demonstrating to denounce President Alexander Lukashenko after a disputed election returned him to power. The protests started in Oktyabrskaya Square , where black-clad police pushed crowds back in a bid to end a week of unprecedented protests in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic.

Addressing hundreds of protesters in Yanka Kupala Park , Milinkevich greeted the cheering crowd with the words: "Good afternoon, free Belarus ! They want us to be slaves, but we shall not be."

Later, protesters marched to a jail where demonstrators arrested in previous protests were being held, and were met by riot police wielding truncheons.

The European Union and the United States have called for an immediate end to the crackdown on the opposition and have threatened to impose sanctions on Lukashenko. Those measures seemed unlikely to influence Lukashenko, who has allied his country with Russia .

10:58:49
478329
AP Television
Minsk , 19 March 2006
Milinkevich putting ballot in box
Lukashenko coming out of voting booth, placing ballot in box

10 :59:05
478887
AP Television
Minsk - 25 March 2006
Wide shot of protesters being pushed by police
Police taking young man away, zoom into police pushing the crowd
Riot police marching with shields
Police pushing demonstrators
Police beating demonstrator with truncheon (UPSOUND: screaming)

EUROPE – UKRAINE ELECTIONS

Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko held talks with its former Orange Revolution allies on forming a coalition after Ukraine 's parliamentary elections. Yushchenko, speaking to reporters after casting his ballot at a Kiev polling station in March, said that talks between representatives of Orange Revolution forces will begin in the presidential administration. He also said several options for a coalition would be considered - an apparent signal that he is keeping the door open for an alliance with Viktor Yanukovych, his pro-Moscow rival in the 2004 presidential vote.

Yanukovych has made a startling comeback in the parliamentary election campaign and his party looks set to take the most votes with about 30 percent of ballots, according to most polls. Many fear that Yanukovych's strong showing could push this divided ex-Soviet republic back toward Russia just 16 months after the protests that ushered in Yushchenko's victory and helped set the 47-million nation on a westward course.

Yulia Tymoshenko, former ally of President Viktor Yushchenko, also cast her ballot. Tymoshenko, the flamboyant, blond-braided heroine of the Orange Revolution's mass protests, had a bitter falling out with President Yushchenko when the president abruptly fired her.

Yushchenko met Tymoshenko amid pressure to reunite the pro-Western team and keep the ex-Soviet country on a reformist path.

In the end, Yanukovych's Party of Regions won the most seats and formed a coalition with the Socialists, who had defected from an earlier coalition that included Yushchenko's bloc, and the Communists.

A few months later, lawmakers from Ukraine 's largest opposition party blocked the podium in parliament to prevent a session from starting, a move aimed at forcing the new majority coalition to give them a voice in running the country. The protest came as the three parties that recently united in a majority coalition continued working on filling parliamentary committees and deciding the cabinet.

Lawmakers have 30 days to fill the cabinet posts, but hoped to vote on returning Tymoshenko to the prime minister's job and naming Petro Poroshenko, an ally of President Viktor Yushchenko, to the parliament speaker's post.

But the Party of Regions, which is run by Yushchenko's 2004 election rival, complained that it was being shut out of key jobs in parliamentary committees and threatened to protest for 30 days to prevent a new government from being formed.

A few months later Yushchenko signed a national unity pact with Yanukovych - an agreement the president hopes will ensure his pro-Western, reformist policies continue when his former foe becomes prime minister. The accord had been Yushchenko's condition for approving Yanukovych's candidacy and was expected to provide an opening for Yushchenko's party to take up cabinet seats in the new coalition government.

The decision marks a stunning comeback for the man who left politics in disgrace after Ukraine 's Supreme Court threw out his fraud-marred presidential win in 2004.

10:59:46
478935
AP Television
Kiev , 26 Mar 2006
Yanukovych voting

10:59:50
478949
POOL
Kiev , 26 Mar 2006
Tymoshenko casting her ballot

10:59:54
479154
Kiev , 28 Mar 2006
Ukraine Pool
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko holding talks

10:59:58
487948
AP Television
Kiev - 27 June 2006
Rada (parliament) and protesters with flags
Wide of a square filled with demonstrators
Interior of Rada
Ministers speaking

11:00:12
492103
Kiev , 3 Aug 2006
AP Television
Wide shot of Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko and leaders of parties signing the Charter of the People's Unity

Ukraine Pool
Mid shot President Yushchenko signing document
Wide shot of the signing ceremony

EUROPE – RUSSIA, POLITKOVSKAYA

A prominent Russian journalist famous for her critical coverage of the war in Chechnya was killed in October. Anna Politkovskaya was found dead in an elevator in a Moscow apartment building - she had been shot to death, and a pistol and four bullets were found nearby.

The slaying happened in Politkovskaya's apartment building, Dmitry Muratov, editor in chief of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper where she worked, told Ekho Moskvy radio. Politkovskaya, a tireless investigative reporter and highly respected journalist, has chronicled the killings, tortures and beatings of civilians by Russian servicemen in reports that put her on a collision course with the authorities.

She wrote a book critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his campaign in Chechnya , documenting widespread abuse of civilians by government troops. In 2001, she fled to Vienna , Austria , for several months after receiving e-mail threats alleging that a Russian police officer she had accused of committing atrocities against civilians was intent on revenge. Police officer Sergei Lapin was detained in 2002 based on Politkovskaya's allegations but the case against him was closed the following year.

Politkovskaya began reporting on Chechnya in 1999 during Russia 's second military campaign there, concentrating less on military engagements than on the human side of the war. She wrote about the Chechen inhabitants of refugee camps and wounded Russian soldiers - until she was banned from visiting the hospitals, Panfilov said.

In 2004, she fell seriously ill with symptoms of food poisoning after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow to southern Russia during the school hostage crisis in Beslan, where many thought she was heading to mediate the crisis. Her colleagues suspected the incident was an attempt on her life.

At her funeral, hundreds of Russians, journalists and diplomats filed past her open casket to pay their respects. More than 1,000 mourners filed past her body at a funeral hall on the outskirts of Moscow .
Her forehead was covered with a white ribbon according to Russian Orthodox tradition.

She had been one of the few people to enter the Moscow theater where Chechen militants seized hundreds of hostages in October 2002 to try negotiating with the rebels. Politkovskaya's murder is the highest-profile killing of a journalist in Russia since they July 2004 slaying of Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine.

11:00:31
498957
AP Television
Moscow - 2004
Wide shot of Anna Politkovskaya speaking on stage

EUROPE – RUSSIA, LITVINENKO

Police in London have confirmed they're investigating the death of a Russian dissident who'd been critical of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Alexander Litvinenko, 43, who was under armed guard in University College Hospital in London , fell ill on November 1 after meeting with a contact at a London restaurant.

He was poisoned and fell ill after having a meal with an Italian man, who claimed to have information on the killing of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Akhmed Zakayev, a leading Chechen separatist, who acts as the Chechen foreign minister from his London base, said that Litvinenko was the victim of a "terrorist attack on British soil".

Another of Litvinenko's associates, Alexander Goldfarb, described his condition as very serious - like a cancer patient after heavy chemotherapy, he said.

Litvinenko joined the KGB, the spy agency of the former Soviet Union , and rose to the rank of colonel in its successor, the Federal Security Service, or FSB. He fled Russia and claimed asylum in Britain in November 2000, two years after publicly accusing his FSB superiors of ordering him to kill Russian dissident and tycoon Boris Berezovsky, at the time a powerful Kremlin insider.

11:00:55
503569
AP Television
London , UK - 19 November 2006
Pan across University College Hospital
Tilt down front of Itsu sushi bar

AP PHOTOS - No Access Canada/Internet
London , UK -10 May, 2002
STILL: Close up of Litvinenko
STILL: Litvinenko holding his book 'Blowing up Russia : Terror from Within'

AP Television
Moscow , Russia - 25 July, 2002
Screen showing Litvinenko talking
Close up of Litvinenko talking

EUROPE – FRANCE RIOTS

In March, hundreds of students clashed with riot police near the Sorbonne University in Paris that have presented French President Jacques Chirac's supposed preferred successor with one of his sternest tests yet in his nine-month tenure as prime minister.

Dominique de Villepin, a debonair former diplomat who made his name abroad with his impassioned 2003 United Nations speech against the Iraq invasion, showed no signs of bending to student and opposition demands that he abandon a hotly contested measure to combat youth unemployment.

De Villepin's political future and ability to enact further reforms ahead of next year's presidential vote could hinge on how the political confrontation plays out in the next few weeks. De Villepin, a Chirac protege, has staked his authority on bringing down France 's unemployment rate, still hovering at close to 10 per cent and more than double that among young adults.

His "first job contract," would make it easier for employers to fire workers aged under 26, a new flexibility the government says will spur companies to hire thousands of young employees.

A few days later, an estimated quarter of a million people took to the streets in renewed nationwide protests against a new labour law. Police used tear gas and a water cannon to disperse a large group of protesters who gathered in a square outside the Sorbonne University .

In Late March, more than 1 million demonstrators poured onto France 's streets on, while strikers shut down the Eiffel Tower and disrupted plane, train and bus services, in the largest nationwide protests so far.

Although ministers recognise that the contract's loosening of French labour laws is causing concern, they also argue that France, like other European nations, must reform to compete against rising powers like China, where labour costs are far lower and protections for workers sparse.

Critics on the left, conscious that the issue could swing support their way and undermine de Villepin ahead of the 2007 presidential and legislative races, say the new contract will provide less job security for youths and erode France 's generous labour protections.

11:01:27
477901
AP Television
Paris , 14 March 2006
Riot police holding a line near Sorbonne University as protesters hurl small objects and sections of metal fencing at them, police seen using pepper spray once
Police line moves in on protesters, swinging batons, after some protesters charge line with fence sections

11:01:41
478150
AP Television
Paris , 16 Mar 2006
Wide shot of protesters in square outside the Sorbonne University , flare fired into the air

++NIGHT SHOTS++
Wide shot of protesters dispersing as tear gas fired, zoom in to building on fire
Protester being arrested

11:01:59
479153
AP Television
Paris , 28 March 2006
Demonstrators marching

11:02:03
479188
AP Television
Paris , 28 March 2006
Various of demonstrators smashing shop window on Place de la Republique
Wide of tear gas fog filling area around Place de la Republique as demonstrators disperse
Various of police water cannon vehicle spraying group of demonstrators huddled together

AFRICA - SOMALIA

Rival militia battled with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and assault rifles for control of part of the Somali capital, Mogadishu , over an eight day period in May. Most of the victims in the most recent fighting were civilians caught in the crossfire, including a five-month old baby who was shot in the back, according to a nurse at the Shifo Hospital , one of four hospitals that treated most of the wounded.

Sporadic fighting raged for weeks - at least 48 people were killed in Mogadishu in renewed fighting - some of the deadliest in 14 years - between Islamic militia and their secular rivals near the end of May.
Thousands of civilians fled their homes on foot, some with children on their backs, trying to keep from being caught in the crossfire or struck by stray rockets, shells and bullets.

Earlier this month, more than 140 people died during eight days of fighting in Mogadishu . But residents say this is the first time since 1992 that battles have taken place in different parts of Mogadishu on the same day.

The fighting came despite a May 14 cease-fire between Islamic militia members of the Islamic Courts Union and a rival alliance of secular warlords.

The secular Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism militia and the Islamic Court Union militia had been squaring off for several weeks to stake out strategic positions in preparation for a larger battle for control of Mogadishu .

The alliance accused the rival Islamic militia of sheltering foreign al-Qaida leaders, while they in turn accused the alliance of being pawns of the United States .

Somalia has had no effective central government since 1991, when warlords ousted longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other - carving the nation of an estimated 8 (m) million people into a patchwork of anarchic, clan-based fiefdoms. Traditional elders and local chiefs have attempted to organise peaceful negotiations but have repeatedly failed.

11:02:30
483139
AP Television
Mogadishu , 9 May 2006
Various shots of armed militia in streets, UPSOUND of gunfire

11:02:40
921554
AP Television
Mogadishu - 11 May 2006
Wide shot street, UPSOUND gunfire
Armed man sitting

11:02:48
484684
AP Television
Mogadishu - 25 May 2006
Family with children hurrying away from gunfire, AUDIO of gunfire
Vehicle driving down the road AUDIO of gunfire

In June, a n unidentified gunman shot and killed a Swedish cameraman during a demonstration in the Somali capital Mogadishu, a restive city recently captured by an Islamic group after months of fighting.
In Stockholm , the Swedish Foreign Ministry identified the man as Martin Adler.

The assailant came up from behind Adler and shot him in the back at close range, killing him instantly before disappearing in the crowd, an Associated Press reporter who witnessed the shooting said.
Adler had been filming protesters attempting to set an Ethiopian flag on fire. Another Western reporter who was walking with the victim was unhurt.

The leaders of the Islamic Courts Union held a crisis meeting shortly after the shooting. The chairman of the group, Sheikh Shariff Sheikh Ahmed, criticised the killing and pledged to track down those who "are behind this criminal act."

In a statement, officials for Britain 's Channel 4 said Adler had been a "longtime friend" of the network, and that they were "deeply saddened" to hear of his death, but that he had not been working for them in Mogadishu .

Adler was a well-respected journalist who had one many international awards, including the 2001 Amnesty International Media Award, a Silver Prize for investigative journalism at the 2001 New York Film Festival and the 2004 Rory Peck Award for Hard News.

The killing occurred a day after Somalia 's largely powerless government and a representative of the Islamic group controlling Mogadishu signed an agreement in neighbouring Sudan that called for an immediate cease-fire and conferred militia recognition on the interim administration.

11:02:56
487617
AP Television
Mogadishu , 23 June 2006
++AUDIO AS INCOMING++
Car with Islamic militia aboard
Body of Swedish journalist (in white shirt) on ground
People surrounding body

In July, h undreds of fighters who were battling Somalia 's Islamic militia in the capital surrendered after a surge of violence that have killed more than 70 people, officials said. The fighters, loyal to secular warlord Abdi Awale Qaybdiid, gave up their arms and pickup trucks mounted with heavy weapons to the Islamic militia, said Heyle Abdi, a top Islamic commander.

The Islamic militia wrested Mogadishu from a US-backed secular alliance of warlords in June, but Qaybdiid had refused to disarm. The new violence broke weeks of relative calm under the rule of the Islamic fighters, who have grown increasingly radical since seizing Mogadishu and establishing strict courts based on the Quran.

Mortar shells and gunfire shook the city for two days, sending residents into homes and shops or fleeing Mogadishu altogether.

Somalia has been without an effective government since warlords overthrew its longtime dictator in 1991 and divided the nation into fiefdoms. The Islamic fundamentalists have stepped into the vacuum as an alternative military and political power. This has been a particular concern to the United States , which has long-standing fears that Somalia will become a refuge for members of Osama bin Laden's militant network, much like Afghanistan did in the late 1990s.

11:03:08
489343
AP Television
Mogadishu , 10 July 2006
Group of armed men and boys walking

11:03:12
489443
AP Television
Mogadishu , 11 July 2006
Islamic militiamen sitting in back of technical

In June, more than 10,000 Somalis demonstrated against a plan to call in foreign peacekeepers, insisting that an Islamic militia advancing across the country can restore law and order better than an internationally backed government struggling to assert its authority. The protest, coming amid signs of a deepening divide between the weak government and the Islamic militia now ruling Mogadishu , was also aimed at Ethiopia .

The government's proposal for foreign peacekeepers was limited to troops from Uganda and Sudan in part to allay fears that troops from traditional rival Ethiopia would be included in any peacekeeping mission. But many Somalis think any foreign troop project could be an opening for Ethiopia , seen as an ally of transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf.

A leader of the Islamic Courts Union - the group behind the militiamen that have swept across southern Somalia installing clan-based, religiously oriented municipal administrations - told journalists that his group rejected the idea of peacekeepers.

Sheik Abdulkadir Ali Omar, the deputy chairman of the union, also said that the warlords had been pushed out of Mogadishu . The Islamic group's only competition for control of southern Somalia is Yusuf's transitional government.

It is supported by Somalia 's neighbours, the United Nations, the United States and the European Union, so opposing it could mean regional and international isolation and possibly crippling sanctions for any administration the Islamic forces try to build.

The transitional government, whose military consists of little more than the president's personal militia, has watched from the sidelines as the Islamic forces overcame a coalition of secular warlords to take control of southern Somalia .

11:03:17
486982
AP Television
Mogadishu , 16 June 2006
Wide shot of demonstration, large crowd cheering
Mid shot with demonstrators holding posters
Speaker raising his arms and chanting "Alla Akbhar"

AFRICA - LIBERIA

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was inaugurated as Liberia 's president in January and made history as Africa 's first elected female head of state. Wearing a cream-coloured outfit and traditional African headdress, Sirleaf repeated the oath of office read to her by Liberian Supreme Court Chief Justice Henry Reed Cooper.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by thousands of civilians and scores of foreign diplomats, dignitaries and African leaders. High-profile guests included US First Lady, Laura Bush, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo and South Africa President Thabo Mbeki.

In her inaugural speech, Sirleaf pledged a "fundamental break" with the West African state's violent past. Speaking for the first time as president, she also promised to stamp out corruption to secure the trust of sceptical foreign donors whose aid is desperately needed to rebuild the country.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is a Harvard-educated economist who has called on women to help govern other African states. Her victory in a run-off election in November 2005 raised hopes that Liberia would be able to move on, following a war that devastated the West African country.

Johnson will inherit leadership from a transitional government that has ruled for two years with backing from 15-thousand UN peacekeepers. Liberia is struggling to recover from wars that stretched from 1989 to 2003.

Sirleaf will serve a six-year term.

11:03:36
472434
AP Television
Monrovia , 14 Jan 2006
Wide shot of the Liberian President-elect, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, walking among the crowd
Close up of Johnson
Wide shot of Johnson dancing

11:03:53
472589
AP Television
Monrovia – 15 January 2006
Liberian opposition leader George Weah arriving
Sirleaf being sworn in as new president
South African President, Thabo Mbeki, President Faure Gnassingbe of Togo and US First Lady in audience, Liberian vice president-elect, Joseph Boakar in foreground
Sirleaf being presented with award
Wide of crowd cheering

The special tribunal for Sierra Leone asked the Netherlands to host the war crimes trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor. Taylor, also a former warlord, was arrested and was awaiting trial at the special tribunal in Sierra Leone 's capital, Freetown , for war crimes during that country's long-running civil war.

UNTV video footage showed him in a helicopter as he was being transferred into custody in Sierra Leone .

Taylor 's supporters have complained that he might not get a fair trial in Sierra Leone and there may be security concerns in conducting the trial so close to Liberia , where many still support the former president.

Taylor disappeared from his home-in-exile in southern Nigeria night as he was about to be handed over to the UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone . He faces war crimes charges for backing Sierra Leone 's rebels, who carried out many atrocities during a brutal war from 1991-2002, including cutting off the limbs of civilians suspected of supporting the government.

Taylor was captured in northeast Nigeria as he tried to cross the border into neighbouring Cameroon .

A week later Taylor appeared before an international war crimes court . He wore a dark suit and maroon tie for his appearance, refused to plead before a war crimes tribunal and has repeatedly declared that he is innocent.

Taylor made his initial appearance in Sierra Leone, but was then flown by UN helicopter to the airport on the outskirts of Sierra Leone's capital and escorted onto a plane that took off shortly afterward for the Netherlands, who agreed his trial could be held at The Hague.

11:04:13
479393
AP TELEVISION
Freetown , 29 March 2006
++NIGHT SHOT++
Charles Taylor escorted down helicopter steps

11:04:19
479729
AP TELEVISION
Freetown , 3 April 2006
Wide of large television screen broadcasting Charles Taylor at trial with security guard next to him

11:04:24
479887
UNTV
Monrovia , Liberia – 29 March 2006
Interior of helicopter with Taylor seated, tilt down to restraints around feet, doctor conducting medical test

11:04:30
487264
AP Television
Executive Mansion , Monrovia , 11 August 2003:
Taylor praying

AFRICA – IVORY COAST

In January, security forces in Ivory Coast fought off a dawn attack by unidentified gunmen on the two main military barracks in Abidjan in violence that left at least four dead and heightened tensions in the war-divided nation. Gunfire and heavy explosions shook the military barracks at Akuedo, in northeastern Abidjan , for about an hour before a tense calm returned to the area.

Armed forces chief General Phillipe Mangou went on state television afterwards to reassure nervous residents, saying military forces had repulsed the attack. Mangou called on residents in the area to remain indoors while security forces conducted a search for the assailants, some of whom had fled in civilian clothes.But many civilians, looking for more information on the attack, tried to get near the military complex.

There was no word on who carried out the assault - the first since a new national unity government took office to help steer the country toward delayed elections due later this year. Akuedo is made up of two camps separated by a highway, with the newer one home to heavy armaments and a tank battalion.

French peacekeepers sent helicopters into the skies above the military complex. About 10,000 peacekeepers, both French and United Nations forces, are deployed in Ivory Coast .

11:04:42
471324
AP Television
Abidjan , 2 January 2006
Population looking at military vehicles near the military camp (in the background), smoke rising from vehicle
Wide shot of a burning car close to the military barracks of Akuedo, people passing by
Mid shot of the dead body of an alleged rebel lying in the highway, people watching on the background
People surrounding the dead body, man shouting, UPSOUND: (French): "Everything if fulfilled, we are free, we are free."
Wide of soldier watching man placing another body in a plastic bag
Mid shot of dead body in plastic bag, another dead body in the background
Various exteriors of the Akuedo barracks entrance, sign in French reading "Infantry Battalion"
Group of soldiers around burned car inside the camp

Later that month violent street protests shook southern Ivory Coast for a fourth day as supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo defied his call to return home and demanded the United Nations be punished after a deadly firefight involving UN peacekeepers. Demonstrators gathered outside the French embassy in Abidjan , blocking the main entrance.

French soldiers and UN troops are part of a 10-thousand-strong peacekeeping force in the country.
Peacekeepers fired tear gas grenades to keep back hundreds of angry young men outside UN headquarters in Abidjan .

Shops, schools and banks remained closed in the city centre although life began returning to normal in some outlying areas after Gbagbo called on protesters late on Wednesday to leave the streets and said workers should return to their jobs.

Ivory Coast is still split between government and rebel-held zones despite peace deals to end a 2002-2003 civil war. The unrest erupted after a UN-backed international mediation group recommended that parliament's expired mandate not be renewed.

Gbagbo is leading a one-year government of national unity that has diminished his executive powers.
The Ivory Coast parliament, filled with his supporters, is viewed as Gbagbo's last bastion of power and the decision angered youth activists and the president's backers, who sent their followers into streets.

11:05:15
472933
AP Television
Abidjan - 19 January 2006
+++ QUALITY AS INCOMING +++
SOUNDBITE (French) Protester (no name given):
"The blue helmets (UN troops) are all bastards. The French, they are all bastards."
Various shots of protesters

AFRICA - CONGO

In January, United Nations-backed Congo troops battled Congolese and Rwandan rebels in the Ituri region of the Virunga National Park . Government forces say rebel groups have been attacking villagers in the park. Congolese government troops are trying to re-establish authority nationwide before elections planned for next year, battling home-grown militia fighters as well as rebels from neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda .

About 1,000 Ugandan fighters are in the country, running guns, poaching endangered wildlife and terrorising Congolese civilians, officials say. Some 15,000 UN troops are in Congo to help provide security in a country the size of Western Europe and long wracked by war, army revolts and coups d'etat.

11:05:30
471427
AP Television
Northern-Kivu Province - 2 Jan 2006
Virunga National Park
Various of plumes of smoke raising from burnt fields where FDLR (Rwandan) and Mai Mai (Congolese) rebel groups where hiding after government soldiers and United Nations (UN) raided them

In July Congo held its first multiparty election in more than four decades, a colossal democratic exercise many hope will secure an end to years of fighting and corrupt rule that have devastated this gigantic, mineral-rich nation in the heart of Africa.

However troops loyal to the two final candidates clashed around the home of President Joseph Kabila's challenger Jean-Pierre Bemba. The next day the United Nations demanded an immediate cease-fire as the European Union sent reinforcements to the restive Central African nation. Fourteen people were reported dead from gun battles in the capital, Kinshasa

Heavy gunfire rang out before dawn and fighting raged for hours until the United Nations, with 17,500 peacekeepers in Congo , demanded a halt to hostilities.

About 1,000 EU troops are in Congo , on hand to help the U.N. peace force overseeing the first elections in 45 years of coups d'etat, corrupt rule and war.

With 16.9 million votes cast in the ballot, Kabila won 45 percent of the votes against 20 percent for Bemba. The elections are meant to end years of unrest that began shortly after independence from Belgium in 1960.

In the lead-up to the elections, clashes at a campaign rally killed at least one person dead. The violence followed a fire of undetermined origin at a camp for militiamen attached to a main Congolese presidential candidate, who was holding a campaign rally at a stadium elsewhere in Kinshasa .

There appeared to be no serious injuries, though most of the shacks that made up the camp were destroyed. Gunfire broke out outside the stadium when word reached the crowd there of the fire at the camp, where militiamen lived with their families.

Bemba was just approaching the stadium when the melee erupted. He later addressed the crowd inside.
Thousands of people had marched from Kinshasa 's airport for the rally.

11:05:40
493913
AP Television
Kinshasa , 20 August 2006
One of Jean-Pierre Bemba's supporters throws stone at passing UN jeep
Dead soldier loyal to President Laurent Kabila lying on pavement
Four UN armoured personnel carriers driving down main road on patrol

11:05:53
494061
AP Television
Kinshasa - 21 August 2006
++AUDIO AS INCOMING++
Mid two armed U.N. soldiers crouched behind wall
Mid of Jean Pierre Bemba's soldiers
Mid of dead policeman

11:06:04
491356
AP Television
Kinshasa , 27 July 2006
Smoke, people running, AUDIO gunshots
Bemba talking in Lingala (a national language popular in western Congo )

11:06:26
491645
AP Television
Kinshasa , 30 July 2006
Kabila folding ballot, going to ballot box


AFRICA - SUDAN

After 21 years of civil war in Southern Sudan in which more than 2 million people have died and millions more have been displaced, peace and stability returned to the region. In the Mayo camp for Internally Displaced People (IDP) outside of the capital city of Khartoum , the message of peace in the south has spread throughout the village. Yet many of the 30,000 economic and political refugees are reticent to return to their homeland.

Many of the displaced are willing to repatriate to Southern Sudan but first ask for assurance that there will be a substantial reintegration program in place. For most, it is the assurance that there will be schools for their children and work to feed their families when they return. For a younger generation, the IDP camp is all they have come to know as a home.

The International Organization for Migration has begun taking measures to increase the safety of Southern Sudanese repatriation, in particular the passage back home. By the beginning of this year, IOM hopes to have 23 way stations along the passage south.

11:06:38
UN00268
UNTV
Mayo IDP Camp , Sudan – December 2005
Pan left across rows of huts in the IDP camp
Wide shot, rows of huts in the IDP camp
Pan right, man riding a tractor being pulled by a mule

In April, Jan Egeland, the United Nations humanitarian chief, told the Security Council that the disastrous combination of a worsening humanitarian situation, government obstruction, rebel violence and weakened support of the international community has left relief operations in Sudan 's strife-torn Darfur region on the verge of breakdown, placing millions of people at risk.

Egeland said 200,000 people were displaced in the last three or four months alone, on top of the 1.6 million already displaced. More than 3 million people are in need of daily humanitarian assistance, he said, with 210,000 of those requiring food urgently. He said more pressure is needed to be put on both the Government and the rebel movements to observe the ceasefire and reach a peace agreement.

A month later Egeland visited the western Darfur region to gauge living conditions for civilians displaced by violence between government-backed militias and rebel groups. Egeland's visit came two days after Sudanese authorities and Darfur's main rebel group reached a peace agreement that should help end a conflict that has killed at least 180,000 people in three years and left some two (m) million displaced.

Both displaced persons in Gereida and Arabic tribal chiefs were at pains to stress that everyone wanted peace.

Decades of low-level tribal clashes over land and water in Darfur, a vast region about the size of France , erupted into large-scale violence in early 2003 with rebels demanding regional autonomy. The government is accused of responding by unleashing Janjaweed militias upon civilians, a charge that Sudan denies.

11:06:53
UN00391
UNICEF
Darfur , March 2005
Various shots, malnourished children

11:07:08
482958
AP Television
Gereida, southern Darfur - 7 May 2006
Various of internally displaced peoples'' (IDP) camp

The African Union (AU) planned to increase its peacekeeping force in Darfur and boost the soldiers' role as it extends its mission in the region, AU officials said, a move that has received the backing of Sudan 's President, Omar Al-Bashir.

Al Bashir announced a pledge of support for the African Union, "financially, logistically and militarily." But that support will not extent to the United Nations (UN) Al Bashir said, dismissing international pressure to accept the UN Security Council resolution that plans for some 20,000 UN troops to take over peacekeeping in Darfur .

The AU mission was scheduled to wrap up at the end of September and be replaced by a larger United Nations peacekeeping force, but Khartoum fiercely opposes such a move and the AU has announced it will stay on until at least the end of the year.

AU leaders are finalising a decision to add some 1,200 new troops to the existing 7,000-strong force, officials said. The UN Security Council passed a resolution last month that would expand the mission from 7,000 to more than 20,000 troops and give it new authority to protect civilians.

Sudan 's government vehemently opposes the introduction of UN forces in Sudan 's remote Darfur region, where fighting between rebels and government-backed militias has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million over the past three years.

11:07:17
497497
AP Television
Khartoum , 24 Sept 2006
President of Sudan , Omar Al-Bashir, sitting down at a press conference
SOUNDBITE (Arabic): Omar Al-Bashir, President of Sudan :
"We are saying in front of the world that there is an obvious targeting. They want to use the Darfur case as an opening to take control and to colonise Sudan because these forces are colonial forces."

AFRICA – CHAD

Supporters of Chad's President Idriss Deby took to the streets of the capital N'djamena in April, ahead of the May 3 presidential elections, as the threat of a violent overthrow of the government remained.

Deby had heeded international calls to protect refugees from Sudan 's volatile Darfur region and backed off a threat to expel them. But he reiterated accusations that Khartoum was responsible for a deadly rebel attack on the capital, a UN official said.

Deby had announced a day after a rebel attack on N'djamena - that he was severing relations with Sudan . He threatened to expel 200-thousand Sudanese refugees if the international community did not do more to stop what he claimed were Sudanese backed-rebels from destabilizing his government before the May 3 presidential election. Sudan has denied any involvement with the Chadian rebels.

On the day of the vote, Chadians began casting ballots but only a handful of voters were seen around the polling stations shortly after they opened and most businesses in the capital were closed for the day.
Derby himself was among the first to cast his vote into a clear plastic ballot box.

There was little question that Deby would retain power after the opposition boycotted the polls and the only other names on the ballot were Deby''s supporters, including three of Deby''s allies and a minor opposition leader.

Deby needed massive turnout to give his re-election legitimacy. He seized power in 1990, and won votes in 1996 and 2001 that critics say were neither free nor fair. Last year (2005), he pushed for a national referendum to change the constitution to allow him to run for a third term. The amendment passed after an opposition boycott.

Deby has defended his 16-year tenure, saying Chad had made economic and social strides and he had allowed democracy to take root in the country.

Chad, an arid, landlocked country about three times the size of France, has been wracked by violence for most of its history, including more than 30 years of civil war since gaining independence from France in 1960 and various small-scale insurgencies since 1998.

11:07:45
481063
AP Television
N'djamena, 17 April 2006
Various of cars and weapons left behind by rebels last week outside Parliament building when they thought they were attacking the presidential palace
Exterior Parliament building

11:08:06
482510
AP Television
N'djamena, 3 May 2006
President Deby and his wife placing vote in ballot box

11:08:11
482519
AP Television
N'djamena - 3 May 2006
Electoral officials hand ballot papers to voter
Military security officials standing guard

AMERICAS - CUBA

Cuban President Fidel Castro lashed out against the United States at a session of the National Assembly in Havana late last year. He called US President George W. Bush a "fascist Nazi" and accused him of genocide.

He criticised the U-S government's commission for Cuba 's transition to democracy once the Cuban President is no longer in power. The commission, which was established by the Bush administration, is a group of Cuban-American political leaders who are concerned with a possible transition to democracy of a post-Castro Cuba .

Castro suggested that Cuba set up a counter-commission to prepare a political change in the United States . He said political change is more likely in the United States than in Cuba . In unusually strong words he used an expletive to describe the members of the American commission for Cuba .

11:08:26
470769
AP Television
Havana - 23 Dec 2005
Wide shot of the assembly clapping
SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Fidel Castro, Cuban President:
"Because Nixon wasn't worst than Bush, compared to Bush he was a saint, Bush is a fascist, he is a genocide.”

In April, Haitian President-elect Rene Preval met Cuban President Fidel Castro in Havana on the first full day of a visit aimed at re-igniting relations between the two countries. Preval stopped in the eastern city of Santiago for several hours before arriving in the Cuban capital. The Cuban authorities said Castro had invited Preval to visit and the pair held official talks on Cuban aid for his Haiti .

Relations between Haiti and Cuba were warm during Preval's 1996-2001 presidency, but ties have slipped since a US-backed interim government was appointed to replace former president Jean-Bertrand-Aristide, who was ousted in a February 2004 revolt.

11:08:40
480768
AP Television
Havana , 13 April 2006
Close-up of Fidel Castro

Two weeks later, the leftist leaders of Cuba , Bolivia and Venezuela endorsed their own socialist alternative for regional commerce and cooperation. The presidents'' gathering in Havana marked a rapidly deepening political and economic alliance among communist Cuba's Fidel Castro, left-leaning Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia as the three work toward their own idea for regional integration without US influence.

11:08:43
482248
AP Television
Havana , 29 April 2006
Castro and Chavez sign agreement

In July, the streets of Havana remained quiet as news came through on state television that Cuban leader Fidel Castro had temporarily relinquished his presidential powers to his brother, Raul. In a statement read out by his secretary, Carlos Valenciaga, Castro said he had suffered gastrointestinal bleeding, apparently due to stress from recent public appearances that included travel to Argentina and eastern Cuba .

Castro, who has never before relinquished his post in 47 years of absolute rule, didn't appear on the live state television broadcast. The elder Castro asked that celebrations scheduled for his 80th birthday on August 13 be postponed until December 2, the 50th anniversary of Cuba 's Revolutionary Armed Forces.

Cuban Culture Minister Abel Prieto told The Associated Press he was convinced that with or without Castro , Cuba will "continue to be a survivor of the sinking ship of socialism in the 20th century. It will be a reference for socialism in the 21st century."

Prieto made clear he wants Castro to live much longer, and said the Cuban leader needs to learn to take care of himself and rest. "It's important that Fidel take that into account in the future," Prieto said.

On his 80th birthday, Castro cautioned Cubans he faced a long recovery from surgery and urged them to stay optimistic, while a newspaper published the first photographs of the Cuban leader since his illness.

In the August photos, Castro wore a red and white Adidas warm-up suit. One is a tight shot of him posing with his fist under his chin and in two he is talking on the telephone.

The fourth photograph shows him sitting in a chair in front of a bed with a white spread in what appears to be a home. He is holding up a special supplement of Granma, the Communist Party newspaper.
The photos were published in the online edition of Juventud Rebelde.

In September, acting Cuban President Raul Castro gave Cubans and the world a preview of how he might lead if his brother Fidel does not return to power: efficiently and with little fanfare. Addressing leaders from developing nations, Raul diligently stood in for his iconic sibling at the 118-nation Non-aligned Movement summit this weekend.

Speaking with gravitas but with none of Fidel's passionate gestures, he repeatedly exhorted them to unite against "imperialist" US policies. Dressed in a dark suit rather than his typical olive green uniform, Raul Castro has been much more visible at the summit, his first real opportunity to appear as a statesman since his 80-year-old brother fell ill in late July.

The 75-year-old had mostly avoided public statements since Fidel temporarily ceded power after undergoing intestinal surgery. But he had to step up with his brother committed to be president of the movement representing two-thirds of the world's nations for the next three years.

A lifelong military man who seems most comfortable chatting and joking with his officers, he's known for his sense of humour and self-deprecation - a personality the younger Castro revealed this week as Cuban state media showing him laughing with other heads of state.

Fidel Castro has met privately with foreign visitors at his home where he was recovering, including United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Abdelaiziz Bouteflika of Algeria .

11:08:48
491813
AP Television
Havana - 31 July 2006
Wide of billboard showing Cuban leader Fidel Castro
Close up sign reading: "Viva Fidel 80 More"

11:08:57
492200
AP Television
Havana , 4 August 2006
Medium shot of front page of official Cuban newspapers 'Juventud rebelde' (Rebel Youth) and 'Granma' (Grandma)

11:09:02
493068
AP Television
Havana - 26 July 2006 (last public appearance):
Medium Castro on stage greeting crowd

11:09:07
493116
AP Television
Havana - 13 August 2006
++AUDIO QUALITY AS INCOMING++
STILL showing Cuban leader Fidel Castro on front page of Juventud Rebelde newspaper
Tilt down of stills of Castro on the phone

11:09:12
493218
AP Television
Havana – 14 August 2006
Morning newspapers, reaction to latest on Castro's health

11:09:16
493218
AP Television
Havana - 14 August 2006
Close up front page Granma newspaper "Unforgettable Afternoon Between Brothers"

11:09:26
496758
AP Television
AP Television
FILE- Havana- September 2006
Various of Raul Castro posing for a picture with Cuban officials

AMERICAS – BOLIVIA

In January, Bolivia celebrated with the assumption of power of Latin America 's first indigenous president. Municipal workers throughout the city of La Paz cleaned streets and buildings, and police began to make their presence felt in key areas of the capital.

The Bolivian government expects 12 heads of state, as well as numerous dignitaries, ambassadors, delegations and other personalities to attend the inaugural ceremonies. Bolivian President-elect Evo Morales has promised a change in the general management of the natural resources of Bolivia and a fundamental shift in the distribution of wealth in this poor nation of 9 million.

Two days later, at the inauguration, Morales, the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Vice President Garcia Linera appeared on the Presidential Palace balcony to greet the crowds who had gathered in La Paz ..

In the evening the celebrations continued on the Plaza San Francisco with Morales addressing the nation, "The problem was not winning, the problem is that now we have the responsibility to govern and together we will", he said.

Morales, a former leader of Bolivia 's coca growers union, rose to power leading protests as Bolivia 's poor became disillusioned with free market reforms and the privatisation of everything from oil to water.

Bolivia has the second largest natural gas reserves on the continent after Venezuela , and foreign companies have been responsible for production since the industry was privatised in the 1990s.
Morales vowed to nationalise the industry during his campaign, but also has said private property rights of big international petroleum companies will be respected.

Morales said he had spoken with the U.S. Ambassador about the counter-narcotics efforts and that further talks are needed to determine the future course of joint U.S.-Bolivian efforts at stopping the export of drugs from the countries.

11:09:40
473063
AP Television
La Paz , 20 Jan 2006
Wide shot of La Paz
Bolivian flags in the Presidential Palace
Bolivian President-elect, Evo Morales giving an interview
Meeting of Indigenous Authorities of America in La Paz

11:09:58
473214
AP Television
La Paz , 22 Jan 2006
Pull out of Bolivian President Evo Morales appearing on Presidential building with Vice President Alvaro Gracia Linera after swearing in ceremony
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hugging Evo Morales and Vice President Garcia Linera on Presidential Palace balcony

In April, the leftist leaders of Cuba , Bolivia and Venezuela on Saturday endorsed their own socialist alternative for regional commerce and cooperation. The presidents'' gathering in Havana marked a rapidly deepening political and economic alliance among communist Cuba's Fidel Castro, left-leaning Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia as the three work toward their own idea for regional integration without US influence.

Bolivia 's decision to sign Venezuela and Cuba 's year-old Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas , known by the acronym ALBA, was a victory by Chavez and Castro in their efforts to shove Washington aside while increasing their own regional influence. Oil-producing Venezuela 's recent cut-rate petroleum deals to Caribbean nations, Cuba 's literacy efforts in South America , and their programme to bring free eye operations to needy people around the hemisphere are part of the integration efforts.

The three presidents call the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a US effort to "annex" Latin America . Since the hemispheric trade pact fell apart last year Washington has signed nine free trade agreements with Latin American countries.

11:10:12
482248
AP Television
Havana , 29 April 2006
Medium shot Fidel, Chavez, and Morales on stage at Plaza of the Revolution

AMERICAS - PANAMA

Plans for an additional set of locks on the Panama Canal, the main shipping artery between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans , were announced earlier this year. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) says the locks are necessary to accommodate the increasingly large boats using the canal and to reduce the amount of time they take to pass through it.

The authority claims the average size of boats travelling through the ninety-two year old canal has increased by 20% in the last five years and the extra space is needed to keep boat traffic flowing. But environmentalists are warning that the proposed enlargement could have serious consequences for water supplies in the area.

Architect and environmental activist, Raisa Banfield, claimed the proposed expansion doesn't take into account the amount of water that will be needed to support growing human and animal populations.
But the director of Panama 's environment agency, Ligia Castro, said that further environmental studies will be undertaken before work on the project begins to ensure that drinking water will remain available.

The issue was voted on in October. The modernisation project is the largest in the 92-year-history of the Panama Canal and will cost in the region of 5.25 (b) billion US dollars. President Martin Torrijos' government has billed the referendum as a historic facelift that will double the capacity of a canal already on pace to generate about 1.4 (b) billion US dollars in revenue this year.

The project would build a third set of locks on the Pacific and Atlantic ends of the canal by 2015, allowing it to handle modern container ships, cruise liners and tankers too large for its current 33-meter-wide (108-foot-wide) locks. The canal employs 8,000 workers and the expansion is expected to generate as many as 40,000 new jobs. Unemployment in Panama is 9.5 percent, and 40 percent of the country lives in poverty.

11:10:27
500287
AP Television
Close up ship crossing Panama Canal (Gallaird Cut)
Mid of ship crossing the Panama Canal

11:10:36
484014
AP Television
Panama Canal, Panama Date unknown
Various aerials of Panama Canal

11:10:45
500469
AP Television
Panama City , 22 October2006
Man walking into polling room with three women sitting at a table registering the voters
Close up of pink voter register
Mid of man marking his polling card behind a cardboard screen that reads: (Spanish) "The vote is secret"

AMERICAS – PERU

Former President Alan Garcia, whose 1985-90 government left Peru mired in guerrilla violence and economic chaos, won back the office in June by defeating a fiery nationalist ex-soldier who was endorsed by Venezuela 's Hugo Chavez.

Peruvians faced an unsettling choice between a charismatic former president striving to erase memories of his disastrous tenure and a fiery political newcomer pledging to punish a corrupt political establishment.

Alan Garcia, whose 1985-1990 presidency left Peru in economic ruin, ran for office against Ollanta Humala, a nationalist retired army officer enthusiastically endorsed by Hugo Chavez, Venezuela 's president. Humala's radical, anti-system rhetoric resonates among many of the country's poor.

The poor feel they have not benefited from economic growth that averaged 5.5 percent over the past 4 years.

It was a stunning comeback for a man whose name had been equated with political disaster, and a rejection of a political upstart enthusiastically endorsed by Venezuela 's anti-US president.

Humala, still defiant, told a crowd of his supporters in the capital that there would be no progress in the country, "while corruption is still present." He added that his party would fight for an audit of all the countries regional governments.

Humala, a 43-year-old retired military man, spooked upper- and middle-class Peruvians by attacking the established parties as corrupt and unresponsive to the needs of the poor. He vowed to write a new constitution stripping them of power.

That radical rhetoric won Garcia votes on Peru 's more industrialised northern coast and in Lima , the capital, where Garcia said he had won 65 percent of the vote.

11:11:04
485629
AP Television
Lima , 4 June 2006
Mid view of soldier observing from balcony with people in background Various of United for Peru presidential candidate Ollanta Humala voting
Garcia voting

11:11:16
485664
AP Television
Lima , 4 June 2006
Wide of Alan Garcia walking out to podium at American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) party headquarters
Wide of fireworks
Mid view of Garcia supporters
SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Alan Garcia, Presidential Candidate, APRA Party:
"During this second opportunity we will do everything in our power not to fail or deceive the Peruvian people."

AMERICAS – US MID TERM

Democrats snatched control of Capitol Hill from the Republicans for the first time in 12 years in November with a narrow win in the Virginia Senate race, capping an election that saw embattled Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigning and had President George W. Bush shouldering a large part of the responsibility for Republican losses.

Democrats also snatched control of the House of Representatives away from Republicans. The Senate had teetered at 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans for most of Wednesday, with Virginia hanging in the balance, with less than 7,500 votes separating the two candidates.

About a third of American voters were using new equipment, and problems in several states were reported right away. The Justice Department sent a record 850 poll watchers to 69 cities and counties to safeguard against fraud, discrimination or system malfunctions in tight races.

Glitches delayed balloting in dozens of Indiana and Ohio precincts, and Illinois officials were swamped with calls from voters complaining that poll workers did not know how to operate new electronic equipment.

After the elections, Bush took a conciliatory toward Nancy Pelosi, soon-to-be leader of the House of Representatives, after her Democratic Party. After a bitter campaign that sometimes got personal between the president and the woman soon to be House speaker, the two had a makeup luncheon at the White House.

Earlier, after meeting with his Cabinet and Republican leaders from the House and Senate, the president ticked off a to-do list for the current Congress before January's changeover in power.

That list included: spending bills funding government's continued operation; legislation authorising his domestic surveillance programme; energy legislation; and congressional approval for a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with India and for normalising trade relations with Vietnam .

Barely a week after the elections, the Capitol buzzed with the energy of House members-to-be and senators-in-waiting attending orientation. More than 50 incoming House members spent the day in meetings focused not on big legislative items or the Iraq war but rather on office logistics and ethics, a key issue after a season of scandal that had, at least in part, led to the election of the new members.

11:11:44
502463
AP Television
Washington , DC - 8 November 2006
Push in view of Capitol Hill

11:11:52
502232
AP Television
Columbus , Ohio – 7 November 2006
Poll workers setting up desks
Election official checking machines

New York City , New York
Man going into voting booth

11:12:04
502254
Pool
Crawford , Texas - 7 November 2006
Exterior of Crawford Fire Department polling place
US President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush arrive (UPSOUND: (English) Bush says "I've pretty much made up my mind what I'm going to do, Thanks for asking.")

11:12:14
502565
AP TELEVISION
Washington DC , 9 Nov 2006
Wide shot of Bush and Pelosi in Oval Office
Cutaway of Pelosi
Cutaway of soon-to-be House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer

11:12:31
503001
AP Television
Washington DC - 14 Nov 2006
Pull out from close-up of the Capitol Dome on, to wide of building with new congress members posing on steps

AMERICAS – US ENRON

Former Enron Corporation chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted in May of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud in one of the biggest business scandals in United States (US) history. The verdict put the blame for the 2001 demise of the high-profile energy trader, once the nation's seventh-largest company, squarely on its top two executives.

Lay was also convicted of bank fraud and making false statements to banks in a separate trial non-jury trial before US District Judge Sim Lake related to Lay's personal banking. Lay was convicted on all six counts against him in the trial with Skilling.

Skilling was convicted on 19 of the 28 counts against him, including one count of insider trading, and acquitted on the remaining nine. Skilling told reporters outside the courthouse: "Obviously, I'm disappointed. But that's the way the system works."

Lake set sentencing for September 11 and also set a $5 million bond for Lay and ordered him to surrender his passport before he left the courthouse.

Jurors declared through their verdict that both men repeatedly lied to cover a vast web of unsustainable accounting tricks and failing ventures that shoved Enron into bankruptcy protection in December 2001.
The panel rejected Skilling's insistence that no fraud occurred at Enron other than a few executives skimming millions from secret scams behind his and Lay's backs, and a lethal combination of bad press and poor market confidence sank the company.

The government's victory caps a 4 and a half year investigation which secured 16 guilty pleas from ex-Enron executives, including former Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and former Chief Accounting Officer Richard Causey.

11:12:38
480053
AP Television
Houston - FILE
Shot of Enron sign
Shot of Enron flag

AP Television
Houston - 6 APRIL, 2006 STORYLINE:
Exterior of court house .
Files being brought into court house
Kenneth Lay, Enron founder, walking to court
Jeffrey Skilling, former Enron CEO, walking with lawyer

POOL
Washington , DC - FILE
Various of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling taking oath ahead of testifying at Congress

AMERICAS – US AMISH

In October, tragedy struck an Amish schoolhouse in the US state of Pennsylvania after a gunman ran amok and killed five girls in a tranquil farming area of Lancaster County . Authorities said the gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, shot himself as police stormed the schoolhouse.

Roberts, apparently spurred by a grudge two decades old, wrote to his wife what authorities described as suicide notes, took three guns and ammunition and went to the West Nickel Mines Amish School ready for an extended siege.

Police said the milk-truck driver was carrying three guns when he stormed the school, and that he sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with wood planks, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three people before committing suicide.

Police said he had with him a stun gun, two knives, a pile of wood and a bag with 600 rounds of ammunition. Police said he also had a change of clothing, toilet paper, bolts and hardware and rolls of clear tape.

Most of the victims had been shot execution-style at point-blank range after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.

Roberts, a 32-year-old father of three from the nearby town of Bart , had a daughter who died as an infant. He was not Amish, and did not appear to be targeting the Amish and apparently chose the school because he was bent on killing young girls as a way of acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago.

The shooting took place at the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School , a neat white building set amid green fields, with a square white horse fence around the schoolyard. The school had about 25 to 30 students, ages 6 to 13.

A few days later, a procession of 34 buggies and carriages carried mourners to a hilltop cemetery as the Amish community buried the first of the victims. Two state troopers on horseback led the cortege, followed by a long horse-drawn buggy carrying the body of seven-year-old Naomi Rose Ebersol.

The route wove past the home of Roberts.

All roads leading into the village of Nickel Mines were blocked by state police so the Amish could gather privately in homes to remember Ebersol, 13-year-old Marian Fisher, and sisters Mary Liz Miller, who was eight, and Lena Miller, who was seven.

Amish custom calls for simple wooden caskets, narrow at the head and feet and wider in the middle.
An Amish girl is typically laid to rest in a white dress, a cape, and a white prayer-covering on her head, said funeral director Philip W. Furman.

The Amish have actually reached out to the family of the gunman, who committed suicide during the attack in the schoolhouse. Jacquie Hess, an aunt of Roberts' wife, said members of the Amish community comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them.

11:13:16
498510
AP TELEVISION
Nickel Mines, Hershey - 3 October 2006
Sunrise over a farm in Amish country
Amish man riding on horse and cart
Amish couple walking along road

11:13:28
498449
AP Photo/Pennsylvania State Police Handout - No Access Canada/Internet
Nickel Mines, 2 October 2006
Undated photo released by the Pennsylvania State Police purportedly shows Charles Carl Roberts IV, the man police say was involved in a schoolhouse shooting in Nickel Mines, Pa.

AP Television
Mid of school entrance, with police tape
Wide of field next to school
Various views of police examining school

11:13:42
498784
AP TELEVISION
Nickel Mines, 5 October 2006
Various of funeral procession passing Roberts' (the gunman) house
Mourners passing carts

WORLD – CUBA , NON ALIGNED SUMMIT

Acting Cuban President Raul Castro stood in for his brother at the September opening of the Non-Aligned Summit which brings together more than a hundred of the world's developing nations. After acknowledging his brother's illness, Raul Castro launched a stream of anti-American rhetoric in his inaugural speech, saying the world today is shaped by the United States ' "irrational pretensions for world dominance."

Fidel Castro had temporarily ceded Cuba 's leadership to his 75-year-old brother and a handful of other top officials after emergency intestinal surgery in July.

Also at the summit were representatives from the Group of 15 developing countries, who met on the sidelines.

Speaking afterwards, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez defended Iran 's right to continue its nuclear programme, provided it was pursuing the peaceful use of nuclear technology.

"All of us in the G-15 agree that, firstly, none of our countries will give up their sovereign right to develop alternative energy sources which look attractive to them," said Chavez to reporters.

North Korea was also at the summit, and its second highest official, Kim Yong Nam , blamed the lack of world peace on the United States , whose president George W. Bush had previously stated was part of an “axis of evil.” Kim defended his communist country's nuclear programme in the face of threats by the United States , laying the blame for failed six-way talks, on US insistence that the Koreans return to the table unconditionally.

Kim said his country had been left with no other option but to possess nuclear weapons as a self-defensive deterrent and that the DPRK would not need even a single nuclear weapon if a US threat no longer existed. The leader said North Korea was earnest in previous six-way talks on its nuclear programme, but said that US sanctions had created a deadlock.

The Non-aligned Movement (NAM) was formed during the Cold War to establish a neutral third path in a world divided by allegiances to the United States and the Soviet Union . It now counts 118 members with the addition of Haiti and St. Kitts.

11:14:00
496033
AP Television
Havana - 11 Sept 2006
Spanish/Nat
Wide shot of Trade Centre
Mid shot of flags
Wide of opening ceremony

11:14:10
496445
AP Television
Havana - 14 Sept 2006
Mid shot of Iran 's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Mid shot of president of Venezuela , Hugo Chavez
SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela :
"All of us in the G-15 agree that, firstly, none of our countries will give up their sovereign right to develop alternative energy sources which look attractive to them."

11:14:30
496525
AP Television
Havana , 15 Sept 2006
Mid shot of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela with President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe
Mid shot of President of Bolivia, Evo Morales
Mid shot of Raul Castro, acting President of Cuba (centre of picture)
Wide of official group photo

11:14:45
496576
AP Television
Havana , 16 Sept 2006
Pan from Annan to Castro
Close-up Annan

WORLD – G8

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed his US counterpart George W. Bush at a guest house in Strelna, a suburb of St Petersburg in July, where they held informal talks ahead of the G8 (Group of Eight) summit. The US President arrived with his wife Laura in an electric car decorated with the US flag at Lindstrom's dacha, a mansion which is part of the Palace of Congresses .

The Group of Eight leaders hoped to present a united front at their weekend summit, where the nuclear ambitions of Iran , North Korea 's missile test and efforts to revive stalled world trade talks were sure to feature alongside the official agenda of infectious diseases, energy and education.

Bush has offered a strong defence for Israel 's right to defend itself, and Putin, whose country has strong ties with Arab nations and, more recently, with Israel , has been more moderate in his response to Isreal's offensive against Lebanon .

Israeli warplanes had struck Lebanon after Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid into Israel . The deadly bombings continued as Hezbollah fired barrages of rockets ever deeper into Israel , killing nine people in the city of Haifa .

French president Jacques Chirac said G-8 leaders would call for a show of moderation of all parties involved and for a lasting cease-fire in the Middle East .

Outside the summit, sporadic clashes erupted as Russian Communists rallied against government policies, despite a Kremlin ban on marches through the city for the duration of the summit. The Communist Party had been granted permission to hold a rally in central St. Petersburg , but was prohibited from marching.

Participants instead gathered at another location and then walked informally to the site, an attempt to skirt the ban. But even this sparked a crackdown from security forces, who are trying to prevent the summit from being interrupted by protests such as last year's chaotic array of blockades and window-breaking in Scotland or the violence in Genoa , Italy , in 2001 in which one protester died.

Fifteen young activists were detained in the city on their way to the protest, the city police department said. Police said they had stopped the 15 because they were walking in the street, creating a risk to traffic safety, and that some had resisted detention.

11:14:59
489822
AP Television
St Petersburg - 14 July 2006
Bush and wife Laura getting out of electric car and being greeted by Putin and his wife Ludmila in Strelna, a suburb of St. Petersburg

11:15:05
489975
POOL
St. Petersburg , 16 July 2006
Wide of Summit Negotiations Pavilion, electrocar arriving
Mid pan of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi coming out of electrocar
Close up of Putin talking with French President Jacques Chirac
Mid Putin and Merkel walking inside pavilion
Wide ofs G8 leaders at round table

11:15:27
489890
AP Television
St Petersburg - 15 July 2006
Protesters marching with red flags
Close of protester with red scarf over mouth
Close of scuffles between riot police and protesters
Close of scuffles between riot police and protesters UPSOUND: screaming
Pan from speakers on stage to protesters with flags


WORLD – EU-US SUMMIT

About 300 students gathered at a Vienna train station in June for a march through the Austrian capital to protest against the visit of US President George W. Bush ahead of the EU-US summit. The students' rally began at the Westbahnhof rail station and they planned to set off on foot to a square not far from the former imperial Hofburg Palace , where Bush was meeting top European Union officials.

Security was tight, with some one thousand police officers assigned solely to deal with demonstrators.
Authorities said protesters would not be allowed anywhere near the summit venue. A larger demonstration expected to draw as many as 10-thousand anti-Bush protesters was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

Oxfam also staged a protest against the leaders gathered for the summit. Wearing masks of US President George W. Bush, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac, activists played football with a ball resembling the world while a pretend referee held up a yellow card for unfair play.

Meanwhile, the EU's Foreign and Security Affairs Chief Javier Solana commented on issues relating to Iran , North Korea and Guantanamo Bay . Talking about European demands for Washington to close its detention centre for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay , he said it was an "anomaly" and it had "to end as rapid as possible".

Mounting EU discontent over Guantanamo , the continuing US-led war in Iraq and the alleged existence of secret CIA terror prisons in eastern Europe had threatened to eclipse the talks.

Bush is the first US president to visit Austria since Jimmy Carter signed the SALT II nuclear arms pact with the Soviets in Vienna in 1979, met President Heinz Fischer and Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel of Austria , which holds the European Union's rotating presidency.

Bush and Schuessel later joined EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at a working lunch dealing with a wide range of issues including trade, global energy security, climate change, the Middle East and Iran .

11:16:01
487369
AP Television
Vienna , 21 June 2006
Wide of protest with smoke rising in the background
Placard reading (in English): "We don't want bloody capitals"
Oxfam protesters wearing masks of Bush, Merkel, Blair and French President Jacques Chirac playing football with a ball resembling the world
Cutaway of interview
SOUNDBITE (English) Javier Solana, EU's Foreign and Security Affairs Chief:
"It's not a black spot (referring to Guantanamo Bay detention centre), it's something that many Americans don't like it, we don't like it and we have treated that as an anomaly. Therefore, as an anomaly, it has to end, to end as rapid as possible.

11:16:36
487390
AP Television
Vienna , 21 June 2006
Wide of photo-op

Pool
Bush, Fischer, Rice and Plassnik at round table meeting

WORLD – CLIMATE

Facing rising temperatures and flagging efforts to control greenhouse gases, thousands of delegates from around the world gathered in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in November for a United Nations conference on the next steps to ward off the worst impacts of climate change.

UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan told world leaders not to be "economically defensive" in dealing with climate change. The two-week meeting worked on technical issues involving the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges 35 industrial nations to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Scientists attribute at least some of the past century's 0.6-degree-Celsius (1-degree-Fahrenheit) rise in global temperatures to the atmospheric accumulation of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.
Continued temperature rises could seriously disrupt the climate, they say.

Annan sent a clear warning at the conference. "Instead of being economically defensive let us start being more politically courageous. The Nairobi conference must send a clear signal," he said.

His warning comes as many parts of the World saw the effects of climate change.

The region of East Africa illustrated the dramatic effects. Scientists insist that the ice on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Kenya is melting.

According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 82 per cent of the ice cap on top of Mount Kilimanjaro has been lost since 1912. By 2000, the fields had shrunk to 0.94 square miles. The AAAS's scientists predict that at the current rate of decrease, the entire glacier will disappear sometime before 2020 if the current trends in global warming continue.

Australia has been suffering from below-average rainfall for the past several years. Unseasonably hot, dry winds and early wildfires swept across four southern and eastern states in October evaporating any hopes that a late spring rainfall might salvage Australia 's failing crops.

Much of Australia 's farming and ranching belt in the south and southeast has been in the grip of a severe drought for up to five years. Many officials blame global warming, and some warn that land that has been fertile for hundreds of years may have an uncertain future. Riverina, the prosperous farming region of southern New South Wales and northern Victoria , makes up half of the nation's agricultural land.

The region relies heavily on the water supplied by the river Murray , which starts its long journey in the Snowy Mountain range in the southeast of the continent. The Hume Dam marks the recognised beginning of the Murray River, which then flows through the states of Victoria , New South Wales and South Australia to Adelaide , where its mouth meets the Southern Ocean.

The Hume Dam has now fallen to 12 per cent of its capacity, and holds 371,000 megalitres, the amount expected after the end of a hot summer, not the beginning.

In Brazil , the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest has caused fears that an increase in greenhouse gases would lead to the eventual warming of our atmosphere. Scientists are concerned that global climate change threatens the survival of the forest as warmer temperatures could mean an increase in regional droughts.

Covering over 1.6 million square miles and home to many animals, the lush foliage of the Amazon plays an important role in helping to remove carbon dioxide - one of the main greenhouse gases - from the atmosphere.

The destruction of these forests, largely through "slash and burn" agriculture to create land for beef and soy bean production, results in hundreds of million tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, according to scientific estimates. Some experts estimates that as much as 20 percent of it has already been destroyed by development, logging and farming.

In China , higher living standards for China 's 1.3 billion people is fuelling increased consumption of oil, gas and electricity. As it becomes more affluent, the consumption of fossil fuels in spiralling.

China currently ranks second in the world - after the United States as a consumer of energy resources.
Despite having only 7% of the world's population, the US uses 20% of the its energy - one third of that is used in the construction and upkeep of buildings.

A British report on climate change said that fast-industrialising economies like India and China will have to control their greenhouse emissions if the earth is to be saved from a calamity on the scale of the World Wars and the Great Depression. The report by Sir Nicholas Stern, a senior government economist, said that unchecked global warming would devastate the world economy unless urgent action was taken.

India is already seeing signs of climate disruptions - monsoons are more erratic and there are perennial floods and droughts.

11:16:52
502124
AP Television
Mount Kilimanjaro , Kenya – 2 November 2006
Wide sunset
Mid shot of Mount Kilimanjaro
Pan river

11:17:04
501797
AP Television
New South Wales , Australia - October 28, 2006
Various of dry Hume Dam with little water in the basin and dead trees

11:17:12
503398
AP Television
Amazon , Brazil - recent
Pan down to technician taking measurements in forest

11:17:25
478210
AP Television
Beijing , China - FILE
Wide of rural power station with smoke stacks

11:17:29
501877
AP Television
Various
Mumbai - 2 November, 2006
Wide shot of smoke rising from burning waste

11:17:33
503131
AP Television
Nairobi , 15 November 2006
Wide shot of delegates in conference room
Mid shot of delegates
SOUNDBITE: (English) UN Secretary General Kofi Annan:
"There is still time for our societies to change course. Instead of being economically defensive let us start being more politically courageous.”

TECHNOLOGY - SPACE

After a seven-month journey, a NASA spacecraft closed in on Mars in March on a mission to examine the Red Planet in unprecedented detail from low orbit. Engines were fired on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has travelled 310 (m) million miles, in order to lower it slowly enough into the planet's orbit.

Mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena waited on edge as the two-ton orbiter prepared for the riskiest manoeuvre of the 720 (m) million US dollar mission. The orbiter fired its thrusters for 27 minutes, disappearing behind Mars and temporarily losing radio contact with controllers for a time.

They aimed to place the craft in an elliptical, 35-hour orbit taking it as close as 250 miles above the surface. The spacecraft will then spend seven months dipping into the upper atmosphere to tighten the orbit. The orbiter is expected to start collecting science data in November. Its primary mission will end in 2010.

NASA has had mixed success placing spacecraft into orbit around Mars, a harsh planet with a reputation for swallowing scientific probes. Two of the last four orbiters that flew to Mars in the past 15 years lost signal before or during orbit insertion - a track record that Fuk Li, who heads the Mars program at JPL, called "sobering."

In September, one of NASA's robot rovers arrived at the rim of a crater five times wider than a previous stadium sized one it studied for half a year. The Opportunity rover was at the edge of the massive Victoria Crater looking over at the far wall of the depression approximately 800 metres (half a mile) away.

NASA scientists hope that the crater's high walls with layers of exposed rock could unlock new secrets about the red planet's geological past. The space agency says that operations for its two rovers will be minimised for much of October as Mars passes nearly behind the sun from Earth's perspective making radio communication more difficult than usual.

11:18:05
477591
NASA TV - FILE
Animation (MUTE)
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) approaching Mars
MRO in orbit
MRO deploying sensors

11:18:16
497946
FILE: AP Television
Pasadena , California - December 5, 2003
Close shot of rover prototype during ground tests

NASA
Mars, Space - September 26, 2006
Black and white image of Victoria Crater taken by the Opportunity rover
Black and white image of tracks left by the Opportunity rover on the Martian surface

A spacecraft blasted off in January on a three-billion (b) mile (4.8-billion (b) kilometres) journey to study Pluto, the solar system's last unexplored planet, and examine a mysterious zone of icy planetary objects at the outer edges of the planetary system. The New Horizons probe lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 2 p.m. local time (1900 GMT), quickly reaching speeds of 36-thousand miles per hour (57,924 kilometres per hour).

Scientists won't be able to receive data on Pluto until at least July 2015, the earliest date the mission is expected to arrive. A successful journey to Pluto would complete an exploration of the planets started by NASA in the early 1960s with unmanned missions to observe Mars, Mercury and Venus.

Pluto is the brightest body in a zone of the solar system known as the Kuiper Belt, which is made up of thousands of icy, rocky objects including tiny planets whose development was stunted by unknown causes.

Some astronomers, though, dispute Pluto's right to be called a planet as it is not rocky as Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars or gaseous like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

11:18:31
472941
NASA TV
Cape Canaveral , 19 Jan 2006
Spacecraft lifting from launch pad
Various of shuttle going into the clouds

In February, the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) shoved an unmanned spacesuit stuffed with discarded clothing and radio equipment out the door, creating a ghostly scene that resembled a cosmonaut tumbling away from the orbiting outpost. Complete with helmet and gloves, the spacesuit floated past the Russian section of the ISS, 220 miles (354 kilometres) above the Earth, before rotating away feet first and beginning its orbit around the globe.

The Russian suit was equipped with a radio transmitter which will send recorded messages in six languages to amateur radio operators for several days. The suit will eventually burn up upon re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) officials said.

11:18:43
474401
NASA TV
Space - 3 Feb 2006
Various of SuitSat-1 being released

In a majestic US Independence Day lift-off, Discovery and its crew of seven blasted into orbit on NASA's first space shuttle launch in a year. The lift-off went ahead despite objections from some within NASA who argued for more fuel-tank repairs.

NASA's first-ever Fourth of July manned launch came after two weather delays and last-minute foam trouble that added to worries that have dogged the space agency since Columbia was doomed by a flyaway chunk of fuel tank insulation foam 3 and 1/2 years ago.

Discovery thundered away from its seaside pad in Cape Canaveral , Florida but three or four pieces of debris were seen flying off the fuel tank, and another popping off a bit later. Discovery was so high by then that there wasn't enough air to accelerate the pieces into the shuttle and cause damage.

NASA's chief engineer and top-ranking safety official had objected to launching Discovery on the 12-day station delivery mission without first eliminating the lingering dangers from foam loss, considered probable and potentially catastrophic. They were overruled by shuttle managers and, ultimately, by NASA administrator Michael Griffin.

He stressed the need to get on with building the half-done, long-overdue space station before the shuttles are retired in 2010 to make way for a moonship, in accordance with President George W. Bush's orders.

In July Discovery docked with the International Space Station, delivering its newest inhabitant, a German astronaut who will return the orbiting complex's crew to three people for the first time in three years.

An hour before the docking, Discovery commander Steve Lindsey manually steered the shuttle's nose up and slowly flipped the spacecraft over so the space station's crew could photograph its belly for any signs of damage. It was only the second time a space shuttle performed the unusual manoeuvre before docking with the station.

The space station's two residents, Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and Jeff Williams, an American, planned to transmit the digital images back to Houston , where mission managers and engineers would study them.

The mission for Discovery's crew is to test shuttle-inspection techniques and deliver supplies to the international space station.

Many have speculated that if anything happens to Discovery or its crew, the shuttle program could end with this mission, and Bush's plans for moon and Mars exploration could be put in jeopardy.

11:18:55
488678
NASA TV
Cape Canaveral - 4 July 2006
Countdown to lift-off
Space shuttle in air

11:19:08
488911
NASA TV
Space - 6 July 2006
View of Discovery shuttle docked at ISS
Discovery crew entering ISS
View of ISS and earth in the background

TECHNOLOGY – GOOGLE

Internet search engine leader Google bought YouTube for 1.65 billion US dollars, in October. The all-stock deal united one of the Internet's marquee companies with one of its rapidly rising stars.
The price makes YouTube Inc., a still-unprofitable startup, by far the most expensive purchase made by Google during its eight-year history. Last year, Google spent 130.5 million US dollars buying a total of 15 small companies.

Although some cynics have questioned YouTube's staying power, Google is betting that the popular video-sharing site will provide it an increasingly lucrative marketing hub as more viewers and advertisers migrate from television to the Internet.

YouTube has drawn less flattering comparisons to the original Napster, the once-popular music sharing service that was buried in an avalanche of copyright infringement lawsuits filed by incensed music companies and artists. While most videos posted on YouTube are homemade, the site also features volumes of copyrighted material - a problem that has caused some critics to predict the startup eventually would be sued into oblivion.

11:19:37
499155
AP Television
Mountain View , California – 9 October 2006
Mid shot Google sign
Close-up Google employee typing on welcome screen

Washington , DC
Wide YouTube website up on computer screen
YouTube website scrolling
Various from YouTube website

TECHNOLOGY – TERMITES


Scientists are considering the destruction created by termite colonies as a possible solution to America 's energy crisis. Termites, along with the microbes carried in their guts, could prove to an endless source of fuel as the termite digests decaying cellulose fibres, such as wood.

Jared Leadbetter of the California Institute of Technology has been studying the enzymes found in termite guts and his research suggests the process used by termites to digest wood could be a source of ethanol for fuel.

According to Leadbetter, the microbes that live in the guts of a termite produce hydrogen as cellulose passes through the digestive tract. By duplicating these enzymes in the lab, and constructing a harvesting method, scientists think it might be possible to secure ethanol or hydrogen from the digestive process.

Another form of energy found as a by-product of termite digestion is hydrogen. According to Leadbetter, the microbes that live in the guts of a termite produce hydrogen as cellulose passes through the digestive tract. By duplicating these enzymes in the lab, and constructing a harvesting method, Leadbetter believes it might be possible to secure ethanol or hydrogen from the digestive process.

If this hydrogen can be captured, or the process duplicated on a large scale, the potential for an endless source of hydrogen fuel may be only a few years away. Providing fuel for the increasing number of hydrogen powered motor vehicles on the road, whose only by product is water.

In the past, scientists used harsh acids and high temperatures in an effort to break down the cell structures of cellulose and convert the biomass to ethanol or hydrogen. Now, in scores of laboratories the research focus is on enzymes and how to economically convert plant matter or biomass to fermentable sugars and hydrogen. These enzymes are found in the guts of termites.

Scientists are focusing on the genetic composition of these enzymes and how to tap these enzymes to produce consumable fuels for humans. Once isolated, scientists can take these organic enzymes and integrate them into specific industrial processes. This is exactly what Leadbetter is trying to do in his laboratory.

Cellulosic ethanol can replace petroleum in many manufacturing processes such as plastic and could contribute to reducing the growing global "addiction to oil."

Recent advances in the relatively new field of industrial biotechnology are making it possible to convert collulosic biomass to fermentable sugars that can be used as feed stocks for a new type of "carbohydrate crude oil."

11:20:07
478714
AP Television
San Francisco , California - Recent
Extreme close up of termites in laboratory petri dish
Leadbetter looks at termites in petri dishes

Washington , DC - 30 March 2005
Close view of hydrogen fuel cell electric car engine
Hydrogen powered car drives down street
Hydrogen powered car driving down Washington street

TECHNOLOGY – HYBRID BUS


The transport authority in London recently began a new scheme to trial six environmentally friendly, hybrid vehicles. The buses are cleaner, quieter and use less fuel than a standard diesel bus -- making them better for the environment.

The vehicles, which are the first ever such vehicles in London , are cleaner, quieter and use less fuel than a standard diesel bus. This leads to a substantial reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

The new hybrid buses will operate along side six normal diesel buses on one designated route in London . The two groups will be monitored over the coming months for performance, reliability and durability. If they prove successful, London Buses will encourage their wider introduction into the fleet.

The hybrid bus works has a 336 volt battery pack which provides power to the wheels via a 120Kw electric motor. The battery pack is kept at optimum power by a 1.9 litre diesel Euro IV engine - the same engine which would normally be found in a family car.

Jermaine Kelly, one of the few drivers who have been trained to operate the new bus says it is noticeably quieter, making a long working day much more enjoyable.

When the vehicle brakes for a bus stop, energy which would normally be wasted is also recycled and used to charge the battery. With continuous charging of the battery, the bus gets more miles to the gallon than a regular bus.

11:20:32
477037
AP Television
London , UK - recent
Hybrid bus pulling away from stop
Close up of bus driver
Various of bus driving
Close up of bus driver in rear vision mirror, pull out to driver in seat
SOUNDBITE: (English) Jermaine Kelly, Bus Driver:
"This bus is a lot more smoother, its a lot more gentler and the sound of the engine, you don't hear it as much.”
Close up of 'Hybrid Technology' sign on front of bus
Man opening door to engine

TECHNOLOGY – US DOG CANCER

Poodles are traditional hunting dogs famed for their incredible sense of smell, and the dogs are being trained for a new challenge - to sniff out cancer in sufferers who have not yet been diagnosed.

The Pine Street Foundation in San Anselmo California , specialises in Chinese and complimentary medicine. The clinic is conducting research into new ways of detecting this often deadly disease.

Their study, led by Professor Tadeusz Jezierski, ScD, of the Polish Academy of Sciences, into whether dogs can detect breast and lung cancers was published in March's edition of "Integrated Cancer Therapies," a peer-reviewed journal.

Cancer and non cancer patients are asked to breath into tubes, which are then placed into different boxes and placed on the floor. The dogs are then exposed to the samples, when they detect the breath from a cancer patient, they are given a prize.

The study is based on the hypothesis that cancer cells emit a different waste than healthy cells. In the four month study conducted by the foundation - five dogs were exposed to breath samples of 83 subjects with lung and breast cancer.

They were interspersed with 86 breath samples from completely healthy patients. In 12,295 scent trials the dogs accurately detected breath from cancer patients in nearly 90 percent of the cases.

Lung cancer is often detected at the latter stages of the disease when the cancer has developed secondary tumours and it is difficult to provide a cure. The Pine Street team believe these dogs are capable of spotting lung cancer in early stages when there is a greater chance to provide a cure.

11:21:05
477300
AP Television
California – Recent
Poodles training
Woman giving breath sample
Labrador dog smelling breath samples for cancer
Labrador dog smelling breath samples for cancer

TECHNOLOGY – US LYING

Scientists in the United States claim they are close to developing a test that will outwit the best of liars.
Researchers at Montclair University in New Jersey claim they can actually detect human lies - in a persons brain waves.

Researchers are working on isolating and visualising brain waves produced in the mind when lies are told. Dr Julian Keenan is working at perfecting brain imaging of human deception. Lisa, a volunteer fibber, is being asked to lie while being wired up to a cognitive neuro imaging apparatus.

Lisa is a staunch sports fan of the New York Yankees, a prominent American baseball club. In order to scientifically assess Lisa's lies within her brain, Dr Keenan is asking her to say she backs the major rival to the Yankees, the Boston Red Sox.

Lisa consistently selects the Red Sox images, despite her personal preference for the Yankees.
Dr. Keenan scans the right frontal portion of her brain, the region believed to be responsible for deception and lying. Her hand jerks as she responds.

The scan prompts an electrode to give Lisa a small electric shock which induces her hand to jerk.

When she lies her hand jerks more vigorously. The graph of her brain wave also shows a significant dip at each lie. Keenan believes that in the future brain wave detection will be far more reliable than current lie detector tests.

11:21:35
473596
AP Television
New Jersey , US - Recent
Volunteer being prepared for scan
Various of Lisa responding dishonestly to images presented to her
Screen of scan
Lisa's hand shaking when giving response
Close up of scan
Various of Dr Keenan explaining computer scans

TECHNOLOGY – HUNGARY SCIENCE


Budapest 's Millennium Park is hosting an exhibition that gives visitors a taste of things to come.
It's the first ongoing museum-exhibit of its kind in Central Europe, and it is billed as one of the most innovative in Europe .

The organisers of Budapest 's "House of the Future" hope that its exhibition will provoke and stimulate the public's imagination for how the future will unfold. The project is sponsored by the Hungarian Educational Ministry and a number of private donors.

The country's education minister Balin Magyar says he hopes the exhibition will help the formerly communist country to begin to look to future.

There's a new breed of museum guide, tailor-made specially for the "House of the Future". These so-called 'hostess' robots are capable of full-scale interactive communication with visitors.

The three robots - one female and two males, assess their environment with special sensors. They can safely move among even the tightest circle of visitors. The intelligent robots help visitors find their way around and answer any questions about the exhibits.

The organisers of the House of Future claim that it is not a museum, nor an exhibition or a science fiction park. Instead - it combines all of these experiences at once. The goal is to familiarise people with where humanity may be headed in the future.

The brain exhibition, the largest in the House of Future, gives visitors a hands-on look at how the brain functions in certain situations. People can test their own brain's capabilities through a large number of interactive displays.

The handlebars of this scooter turn in the opposite direction of the wheels, forcing the users brain to work counter-intuitively.

The exhibition covers a floor space of 3000 square metres (3,588 square yards) over two floors. The building was constructed on a former industrial site in the heart of the city, which had been derelict since 1989.

11:22:05
473041
AP Television
Budapest - Recent
Mid of performance artist 'scientist'
Wide of two boys sitting in green box studio
Various shots of monitor of boys in studio
Close up robot UPSOUND (English) Robot "I am a Hungarian Maiden"
Mid of child talking to robot
Wide of woman trying to ride scooter where handle turns wheels in opposite direction
Close up of handlebars of scooter

FEATURES – PICASSO

A portrait by Pablo Picasso of the woman who influenced the artist in the late 1930s and early 1940s sold for 95.2 million US dollars at an auction in New York in May.

It was the second-highest amount ever paid for a painting at auction, the auction house Sotheby's said.
"Dora Maar au chat," which depicts Picasso's mistress, went to an anonymous buyer in the room who was competing with telephone bidders.

The buyer, a man who appeared to be in his 40s, refused to identify himself as he was escorted out the side door by a Sotheby's employee after the sale.

The painting's selling price ranked second only to another Picasso piece, "Garcon a la pipe," which sold at Sotheby's for more than 104 million US dollars (euro82.4 million) in May 2004, the auction house said.

The auction of modern and Impressionist art brought in more than 207 million US dollars (euro164 million), the highest total for a sale of its kind at Sotheby's since May 1990.

11:22:43
482668
Agency Pool
New York - 3 May 2006
Sotheby's auction room
Staff taking telephone bids
Room during the auction of Picasso''s "Dora maar au chat"
Various of Meyer closing the sale of Picasso''s "Dora Maar au chat

File - Recent
Various of Picasso''s "Dora Maar au chat" at preview

FEATURES – JAPAN CHOCOLATE

In February the finishing touches were put to the world's most glittering chocolate sculpture at a Tokyo hotel. Jeong Hong Yeon, the chief patissier of Rhiga Royal Hotel, carefully placed 107 diamonds worth 5 (m) million US dollars on a chocolate sculpture of the music score of Mozart's Turkischer Marsch, as a tribute to commemorate the composer's 250th birthday.

It took a week for Jeong to complete the piece, and he was accompanied by a security guard at all times. The sculpture will be on sale at a Tokyo department store until Valentine's day on 14 February.

St. Valentine's day is widely celebrated in Japan , as an occasion for romance, but also traditionally a time Japanese women to give chocolates to their male bosses and colleagues.

In the run up to February 14, department stores in Tokyo are filled with women shoppers picking chocolates.

At Takashimaya , Japan 's major department store, in Tokyo , more than 60 chocolatiers put up stalls for a fortnight in the run up to Valentines day.

11:23:13
474958
AP Television
Tokyo , 10 Feb 2006
Jeong Hong Yeon, chief patissier, Rhiga Royal Hotel, decorating chocolate sculpture of Mozart music note with 107 diamonds
Close up of Jeong putting diamond on the sculpture
Various of chocolate sculpture

FEATURES – UK DIAMOND

The Diamond Stella Egg, covered in 100 half-carat diamonds, priced at 50-thousand pounds - equivalent to 87-thousand US dollars - was unveiled in April at La Maison du Chocolat in London.

The egg, which stands more than two feet (60 centimetres) tall, was made at a specialty shop in Paris .
No glue or tape was used to attach the diamonds, after the shop in London received the chocolate egg from Paris , a chef melted small sections of it in order to place the diamonds around the outside according to a store spokesman.

The inside of the egg contains peach and apricot chocolate and pralines. Duttson Diamonds, also in London , provided the jewels for the Diamond Stella Egg.

The manager of the La Maison du Chocolat store Philippe Allard, said that accidentally eating a diamond from the egg would not be dangerous - except financially.

The egg will be kept at the store on London 's Piccadilly, until a buyer turns up with a 50-thousand pound banker's draft.

11:23:35
480615
AP Television
London , 12 April 2006
Various, exterior of shop, La Maison du Chocolat
Security and people looking at the egg
Guards near the egg
Various, egg

FEATURES – UK BUBBLE

In February, 37 year old Darren Thatcher took to a three metre tall transparent bubble in a bid to attract the woman of his dreams. Darren is one of five "Bubble Boys" who have agreed to enter the Match.com Love Bubble in Selfridges' flagship London store between 10th and 14th February. Darren, who works for an investment bank in the city, will spend the day being wooed online by single shoppers looking to add their ideal man to their shopping bags.

Darren and his fellow Bubble bachelors are all members of Match.com, the world's largest online dating site who, with Selfridges, are offering shoppers an all expenses paid date if they manage to win the bachelor's heart online. Darren will be joining four other guys, each taking a day in the Love Bubble.

Each bachelor will choose an eligible woman for an all expenses paid date. The date will include makeovers for the ladies, shopping vouchers for the men and a toast of champagne before the couples AP Television set out on lunch dates at one of five of London 's top restaurants, followed by a romantic cruise along The Thames to view the London 's breathtaking architecture.

11:23:58
475001
AP Entertainment
London - 10 February 2006
Darren Thatcher going into bubble
Girls on computers
MS girl e-mailing Darren
SOUNDBITE (English) Darren Thatcher, Valentine's Date:
"There's a bit of a stigma about internet dating but the thing is the guy at the end of the computer is still the same guy you're going to meet in the night club.”

FEATURES – FRANCE MIRROR

Researchers in France have developed a "mirror" that can predict what you will look like in the future.
Using digital technology and user input about exercise and diet, the mirror displays an image of how 10 years may age an individual.

They have come up with a prototype device that can look into the future and show what could happen if bad eating and exercising habits are not changed.

The "persuasive mirror" as it has been called, does not reflect a person's image like a conventional mirror, but takes a photo using two inbuilt cameras. It then runs the image through a special software and gives a projection of what you will look like in the future.

The mirror can also keep track of your general health, including your weight and how much exercise you do. Research Specialist Agata Opalach believes people who can visualise the long term outcome of their behaviour will be far more motivated to change their lifestyles.

The mirror can also use other sensors, such as pedometers, to give information about your exercise habits. The two cameras are placed at eye level to give a realistic effect that you are looking at your own reflection. Advanced image processing is used to enhance the reflection of the person.

The software could have several applications, designed to prompt people into changing their lifestyle.

11:24:20
479205
AP Television
Nice/Sophia Antipolis - Recent
Exterior of Accenture headquarters in Sophia Antipolis
Model sitting in front of mirror
Reverse shot of model's image on mirror
Transformation of models features on mirror
Agata's picture on mirror screen

FEATURES – UK NAP

London is one of the world's largest cities, and certainly one of the most exhausting to live in. With long working hours, public transport and a high cost of living, people living in the capital can often feel washed out and tired.

A new company called Metronap hopes to profit out of people's waning energy. They have produced a sleeping pod, which is designed to help lull you into a restful sleep - even at your workplace. The space-aged looking pods are designed to make you feel like you are in a cocoon, creating a semi-private environment.

The pod inclines forward to allow for easy entry, and then reclines to allow you to get in the perfect sleeping position. The slight elevation of the feet and knees promotes blood circulation and reduces pressure on the lower back. And when it's time to wake from your slumber, a programmable controller will gently wake you with a combination of lights and vibration.

Sleep physician Dr Adrian Williams from the Sleep Disorder Centre at London 's St Thomas '' Hospital says people are naturally inclined to feel tired in the afternoon and short sleeps or ''powernaps'' can be helpful.

Mid-day naps have been proven to improve memory, alertness, moods, learning and creativity - but until now few options existed for companies wanting to offer resting facilities.

11:24:49
479505
AP Television
London - March 2006
Wide of sleep pods in lobby of advertising agency
Woman walking towards pod
Various of woman getting into pod, closing lid
Pan up woman sleeping in pod
Close up of sleeping woman's face
Cutaway to hand on control panel
SOUNDBITE (English) Samantha Quinn, advertising account manager:
"When you're in the pod it feels very cocoon-like, you feel like you're in a bit of bubble and you kind of zone out from everything that's around you. It's very wide, it's very comfortable and it is very like a bed."

FEATURES – GEORGIA EARS

A Georgian engineer set a Guinness record in April, pulling two trucks tied with a rope around his ear.
Lasha Pataraya, 26, pulled two vehicles weighing 4.5 tons for 41 metres (44 yards).
A group of spectators watched on and cheered. After completing his task, Pataraya said it felt extraordinary to be a record holder.

11:25:18
482040
AP Television
Tbilisi , 27 April 2006
Spectators
Pataraya with rope around his ear pulling cars

FEATURES – GEORGIA THEATRE

The Georgian capital Tbilisi is home to the world's first and only Finger Theatre, where actors convey the drama of Bizet''s Carmen with just two fingers and palms of their hands. Everything in this theatre is on the small side - from the auditorium which seats only 47, to the seven-person troupe whose costumes and props fit into one bag.

Four evenings a week, the show plays to a full house. The repertoire is varied and exotic - from traditional Georgian folk dances to Carmen, and the Can Can. The Finger Theatre was founded back in 1991, during the Civil War which turned Georgia from one of the Soviet Union 's richest republics into a third-world country.

Amidst the turmoil and ethnic unrest a young theatre director Beso Kupreishvili hit upon the idea of a finger theatre. With most actors unemployed due to the war Kupreishvili had no problem recruiting his troupe.

The biggest challenge in those days was convincing the audience to watch a show where the actors perform only with their fingers. And with Georgia suffering from a permanent energy crisis, the theatre was often forced onto the streets in a search for an audience.

Two years ago they rebased to Tbilisi and make regular tours of Europe . The tours are easy on the budget as all the costumes, props and kit fit into one small suitcase.

Seven actors work in the theatre. They say they prepare for their parts just as a regular actor would, learning to convey emotions and humour just with small finger movements. Among the troupe's ambitious plans for the future are a production of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Pink Floyd's "The Wall".

11:25:38
482333
AP Television
Tbilisi , Georgia April 29-30
Close up theatre poster
Wide audience enters theatre
Wide performance starts
Wide several hands perform Carmen
Close up same

STOP PRESS – GEMAYEL


Prominent anti-Syrian Christian politician Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut in November. His fatal shooting is expected to further threaten instability in Lebanon at a time when Hezbollah and other parties allied with Syria are planning a mass wave of street protests unless Saniora reforms his government to give them more power.

Witnesses said Gemayel, who was Industry Minister, was shot in his car in the Christian neighbourhood of Jdeideh, his constituency on the northern edge of Beirut . Gemayel had just left a church and was being driven in his car in Jdeideh when another vehicle slammed to a stop in front of him, causing his car to ram into it, security officials said.

Three gunmen stepped out of the attack vehicles and shot Gemayel at point-blank range with automatic weapons, security officials said. Gemayel's driver, who was wounded but survived, rushed the seriously wounded politician to nearby St Josephs's hospital.

Gemayel was the scion of one of Lebanon 's most prominent political families and had been expected to carry it into the next generation.

His father, current Phalange leader Amin Gemayel, served as Lebanon 's president between 1982 and 1988 and his grandfather, the late Pierre Gemayel, led the right-wing Christian Phalanage Party that fielded the largest Christian militia and was allied with Israel during the 1975-90 civil war between Christians and Muslims.

Amin Gemayel's brother, Bashir, was elected president in 1982 but was assassinated days before he was to take office in an explosion. Gemayel, was a member of the Phalange party and supporter of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, which is locked in a power struggle with pro-Syrian factions led by Hezbollah.

A few days later, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese gathered to bid farewell to Gemayel, 34, whose coffin, wrapped in the flag of his right wing Phalange Party - white with a green cedar emblem - was brought from his hometown of Bikfaya and carried through applauding throngs to the St. George's Cathedral.

The father of the assassinated cabinet minister, Amin Gemayel, a former president, was flanked by prominent Christian politicians, Saad Hariri and Samir Geagea, as he came to address the crowds.

Police estimated some 800,000 people participated in the rally and funeral.

Damascus ' opponents in Lebanon have accused Syria of being behind previous assassinations, particularly that of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was killed in a massive explosion in downtown Beirut in February 2005. Syria has denied any role in Hariri's killing.

11:26:14
503818
AP Television
FILE: Beirut - recent
Pierre Gemayel arriving in car
Various of Pierre Gemayel with father Amin, a former president

11:26:14
503818
AP Television
Beirut - 21 November 2006
Bullet holes in Gemayel's car window
Bullet holes in door on other side of car, zoom in to bloody interior of car

11:26:32
504087
Pool
Beirut , 23 Nov 2006
Various of rally attended by hundreds of thousands in Martyrs' Square
Amin Gemayel, father of Pierre, and former President of Lebanon, walks to podium to address crowd, flanked by Samir Geagea on left and Saad Hariri on right, breaks down into tears

11:26:46
504094
AP Television
Bikfaya – 23 November 2006
Pierre Gemayel's coffin being brought out of house and raised up on shoulders of crowd

STOP PRESS – UK LITVINENKO

Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko's last steps in the English capital were being traced to pinpoint how the fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin could have been poisoned by Polonium-210, a rare radioactive substance that killed the former agent.

Radioactive traces have been found at both haunts in London - the Millennium Hotel's dimly lit Turner Bar near the US embassy in Grosvenor Square and Itsu Sushi near Piccadilly Circus - as investigators try to piece together details of what company he was keeping in his last days and
who might have wanted to kill him.

Most clues point to the two meetings Litvinenko had before he was taken to the emergency room suffering from stomach pains and nausea. On the morning of November 1st, the former agent met with another former KGB spy Andrei Lugovoy - who had come to watch the Russian soccer team CSKA Moscow - and two other men he had never met before.

Drinking a cup of tea the men had ordered, Litvinenko discussed a joint business venture and said he was homesick for Russia .

In a dramatic deathbed statement, Alexander Litvinenko blamed a "barbaric and ruthless" Putin for the attack. Putin called the death a tragedy, but accused his opponents of "political provocation."
The former KGB agent and vociferous Kremlin opponent died after spending days in intensive care in a London hospital.

At a meeting with Russian Ambassador Yury Fedotov at London 's Foreign Office, British diplomats asked Moscow to provide all assistance necessary to a police inquiry into the death, government officials said.

Polonium-210 occurs naturally and is present in the environment at very low concentrations, but can represent a radiation hazard if ingested.

Litvinenko suffered heart failure late at London 's University College Hospital after days of battling a poison that had attacked his bone marrow and destroyed his immune system.

His statement, read by his friend Alex Goldfarb to reporters outside the hospital the following day, accused Putin of having "no respect for life, liberty or any civilised value."

Putin said the fact that Litvinenko's statement was released only after his death showed it was a provocation. "It's extremely regrettable that such a tragic event as death is being used for political provocation," he said.

Litvinenko, 43, had told police he believed he had been poisoned on November 1st while investigating the October slaying of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of Putin's government.
His hair fell out, his throat became swollen and his immune and nervous systems were severely damaged.

Doctors treating him acknowledged they could not explain his rapid decline. They discounted earlier theories that the 43-year-old father of three had been poisoned with the toxic metal thallium.

Litvinenko worked for the KGB and its successor, the FSB. In 1998, he publicly accused his superiors of ordering him to kill tycoon Boris Berezovsky and spent nine months in jail from 1999 on charges of abuse of office. He was later acquitted and in 2000 sought asylum in Britain .

11:27:03
504212
AP Television
London , England - 24 November 2006
++Night Shots++
Various of the Millennium Hotel, with police officers inside
Various of Litvinenko's house with police outside

AP Television
Helsinki – 24 November 2006
SOUNDBITE: (Russian) Vladimir Putin, Russian President:
People who did this are not the Lord, while Mr. Litvinenko is not Lazarus. It's extremely regrettable that such a tragic event as death is being used for political provocation."


11:27:33 END