Iraq faces the distinct possibility of collapse and fragmentation, UK foreign policy think tank Chatham House says. Its report says the Iraqi government is now largely powerless and irrelevant in many parts of the country.

It warns there is not one war but many local civil wars, and urges a major change in US and British strategy, such as consulting Iraq’s neighbours more. More…

BBC- “Gunmen have killed at least 13 people in the latest factional violence in the Gaza Strip, ending a third attempt at a ceasefire in as many days. A dawn raid on the home of a top Fatah official left five people dead, only hours after the truce was agreed by the feuding Hamas and Fatah factions.

Later Hamas gunmen ambushed a jeep and mistakenly killed five fighters from their own side detained by Fatah men.

Some 40 people have died since fierce fighting broke out in Gaza on Sunday.” More…

AP-
The Rev. Jerry Falwell, who founded the Moral Majority and built the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University, a school executive said. He was 73.

Ron Godwin, the university’s executive vice president, said Falwell, 73, was found unresponsive around 10:45 a.m. and taken to Lynchburg General Hospital. “CPR efforts were unsuccessful,” he said.More…

BBC- “International efforts to halt Iran’s uranium enrichment programme have been “overtaken by events”, the head of the UN’s nuclear agency has said. “IAEA Director General Mohammed ElBaradei said Tehran now possessed “the knowledge about how to enrich”.

In an interview with the New York Times, he said the focus should now be on trying to stop Iran from going to industrial-scale production.

Iran has denied accusations from the West that it seeks nuclear weapons.” More…

AP-NEW YORK – “Rescue workers and firefighters contracted a serious lung-scarring disease called sarcoidosis at a much higher rate after the Sept. 11 attacks than before, said a study that is the first to link the disease to exposure to toxic dust at ground zero.

The study, published by nine doctors including the medical officer monitoring city firefighters, Dr. David Prezant, found that firefighters and rescue workers contracted sarcoidosis in the year after Sept. 11, 2001, at a rate more than five times higher than

the years before the attacks. More…

AP-WASHINGTON – “A massive exploding faraway star — the brightest supernova astronomers have ever seen — has scientists wondering whether a similar celestial fireworks show may light up the sky much closer to Earth sometime soon. The discovery, announced Monday by

NASA

, drew oohs and aahs for months from the handful of astronomers who peered through telescopes to see the fuzzy remnants of the spectacular explosion after it was first spotted last fall.

Using a variety of Earth and space telescopes, astronomers found a giant exploding star that they figure has shined about five times brighter than any of the hundreds of supernovae ever seen before, said discovery team leader Nathan Smith of the University of California at Berkeley. The discovery was first made last September by a graduate student in Texas.”

Also see: Earth-like planet found: God must be dead?