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HOT SPOTS (7#) -

# Basra Erupts: Heavy fighting to crackdown on Shiite militia. Since the police have been infiltrated by the militia, the Iraqi Army has been assigned this mission in the southern Iraqi oil port. [sky]

"The radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr today called for "civil revolt" after a crackdown on Shia factions in Basra killed 22 people."

::Q&A:: Battle for Basra.

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# Tibet: protests spread ::5 good photos::

"The Chinese authorities have made it nearly impossible for independent journalists to cover the protests in Tibet and in neighbouring provinces by imposing "suffocating restrictions" on the press, from expelling foreign reporters to censoring news coverage."

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# Geert Wilders:

:: Op-Ed in Defense of
Free Speech by Peter Van Ham.

"By now the idea is spreading all over the place that there is no movie Fitna, and never will be - that Geert Wilders simply announced that there would be to expose Islamic intolerance."

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