Not so good news

US withdraws from international death-penalty agreement

In a two-paragraph letter dated March 7, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that the United States "hereby withdraws" from the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The United States proposed the protocol in 1963 and ratified it -- along with the rest of the Vienna Convention -- in 1969.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21981-2005Mar9.html

Italy seriously pissed off at US
Some Italian politicians believe shooting was deliberate retaliation for Italian bargaining for release of hostages

[World News]:
WASHINGTON, March 9 :
Italian parliamentarians listened fascinated as Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini described Wednesday a clandestine operation that, but for its tragic ending, would never have been revealed.This was the Italian government's official reconstruction of the friendly fire incident in Baghdad that left an Italian intelligence officer dead and a just-released hostage injured.Fini's report went beyond the nation's emotional tribute to Nicola Calipari, the military intelligence operative who had died shielding journalist Giuliana Sgrena with his body, to point out contradictions between the Italian version and what the U.S. command in Baghdad said had happened.At the same time Fini was emphatic in discounting the left wing journalist's subsequent claim that she had been the American soldiers' real target.

http://www.newkerala.com/news-daily/news/features.php?action=fullnews&id=83255