Britain will withdraw around 1,600 troops from Iraq in the coming months and aims to further cut its 7,100-strong contingent by late summer if Iraqi forces can secure the country’s south, Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday. The announcement, which came as Denmark said it would withdraw its 460 troops and Lithuania said it was considering pulling out its small contingent, comes as the U.S. is implementing an increase of 21,000 more troops for Iraq.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday fired a top Sunni official who had called for an international investigation into the rape allegations leveled by a Sunni Arab woman against three members of the Shiite-dominated security forces. A statement by al-Maliki’s office gave no reason in announcing the dismissal of Ahmed Abdul-Ghafour al-Samaraie, head of the Sunni Endowments.
Inflation at the consumer level rose by a larger-than-expected amount in January as falling energy prices only partially offset big increases in the cost of medical care, food and airline tickets. The Labor Department reported Wednesday that prices rose by 0.2 percent in January. That was down from a 0.4 percent rise in December, but it was higher than the 0.1 percent increase that Wall Street had been expecting.
Italian Premier Romano Prodi resigned Wednesday after nine months in office following an embarrassing loss by his center-left government in the Senate on foreign policy, including Italy’s military mission in Afghanistan
