Pictures of Saddam Hussein contravened his rights - U.S. military

A picture of Saddam Hussein in his underpants was splashed across the front-page of the Sun on Friday. The U.S. military on Friday condemned a British newspaper’s decision to print photographs.

The photos appear to have been taken in his prison cell, but The Sun has not revealed how they got the pictures, or how they were actually taken.

Other photographs showed Saddam, with short, dyed-black hair and a moustache, washing clothes by hand and asleep on his bed.

But a U.S. military statement said the pictures might be a year old that contravened Saddam’s rights as a prisoner and could have broken the Geneva Convention which forbids the release of photographs of prisoners of war.

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US continues to pressure China on currency and clothing

While the United States continues to put pressure on China to float its currency, it is also imposing new limits on the amount of clothing China can ship to the United States, intensifying trade tensions between the two global giants.

U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow on Thursday named a new special envoy to head up a bid to persuade Beijing to let its yuan currency rise in value against the dollar.

The Bush administration has been urging China for two years to modify its pegged currency regime, which holds the yuan at about 8.28 per dollar, and this week raised the threat of potential trade retaliation if China continues to balk.

In a semiannual report to Congress, Treasury on Tuesday said that China “likely” will be named as a manipulative trade partner later this year unless it modifies its exchange-rate policies. In the U.S. Congress and industry sectors, anger has been mounting as China piles up record trade surpluses.

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Uzbek Government troops recapture rebel town

Government troops retook an eastern Uzbek town from rebels who said they would build an Islamic state, arresting the group’s leaders, amid a growing international outcry over security forces’ actions against unarmed demonstrators last week.

The arrest and takeover of the town of 20,000 quelled the last open bastion of resistance to the U.S.-allied government in the volatile Fergana Valley.

Gen. John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, said the U.S. military has scaled back its operations from Uzbekistan since the violence broke out last Friday. American forces operate out of an air base in the country in support of operations in Afghanistan.

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US, South Korea efforts to rejoin North on six-nation talk

South Korean media is critical of the government’s failure to persuade the North to return to negotiations on its nuclear arms but now is focusing on secret meeting last week between US and North Korean officials.

The US made its first direct contact with North Korea in nearly half a year via Pyongyang’s UN mission in New York amid a deadlock over the communist state’s drive for nuclear weapons, a US embassy official said Thursday.

The Japanese newspaper said US officials had told North Korea that Washington recognizes it as a sovereign state and had no intention of attacking it.

Asked about the report, a US embassy official confirmed there was “working-level contact” in New York.

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