The BBC's US World News programme recently featured a short documentary about American military deserters. It included interviews with two men who claim to be deserters and are now living in exile, in Toronto, Canada. Described by the BBC as a "safe haven, just across the border" it is believed a large number of other deserters are also living there, hiding from the wrath of the US military.

The first deserter Ryan Johnson described his experience of the US armed forces;

"Running over civilian cars, shooting rockets into ambulances and doing raids on Hospitals"

In the other interview "Chris" claimed he felt he was being encouraged to commit illegal acts as if a matter of procedure. He said:….

"The first picture the sergeant showed me was of him..lighting a cigarette off a burning Iraqi’s body. I thought this guy is not someone I want going beside me into combat..The sergeant took me to one side and talked about what would happen if you killed a civilian. He told us..unofficially...drop an AK47 behind the body"

The programme reminded me of the cases back in March such as the court martial of Flt Lt Malcolm Kendall-Smith, a Royal Air Force doctor who refused to return to Iraq for a third tour of duty on the grounds that the war is illegal. But more significant I think was the extraordinary, and unprecendented case of an SAS soldier. When after three months in Baghdad, Ben Griffin, told his commander that he was no longer prepared to fight alongside American forces and promptly resigned from the army.

The Guardian reported he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" - the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human. He added that many innocent civilians were arrested in night-time raids and interrogated by American soldiers, imprisoned in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, or handed over to the Iraqi authorities and "most probably" tortured.

His revelations though largely unreported marked the first time an SAS soldier had refused to go into combat and quit the Army on moral grounds.

Nobody should question Ben Griffin's character or motivations. By making this principled stand he chose to bring to an end his exemplary, eight-year career in which he also served with the Parachute Regiment, taking part in operations in Northern Ireland, Macedonia and Afghanistan. Anyone who knows anything about the selection process for the SAS will know it is the most gruelling of any of its equivalents in the special forces. Plainly, the loss of a soldier of this calibre would have been keenly felt by the British Army.

But it also profoundly embarrassed the British Government, a fact acknowledged by the way the case was quickly buried by the Talking Heads in the popular press. This is because it had such a potentially pivotal impact on cases of other soldiers who refuse to fight.

Mr Griffin, who spent two years with the SAS, said the American military's "gung-ho and trigger happy mentality" and tactics had completely undermined any chance of winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi population.

As this analysis continues to be confimed by cases such as Haditha and all the rest, it seems the proposed Ethics training for all U.S. troops in Iraq are in reality too little, too late. And furthermore will be to my eyes irrelevant as long as soldiers testimony that these abuses are all just "part of the program" keeps stacking up.

Germany: The United States will lose its position as the world's undisputed leading power over the next decade and a half, with China emerging as a formidable rival, according to a new survey from Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation.

In the survey, as reported by Reuters based on interviews of 10,250 people worldwide, 57 percent of respondents said they believed the United States would be a world power in the year 2020 compared to 55 percent who saw China in that role.

That compared to 81 percent who currently see the United States as a world power and 45 percent who believe China has already attained that status.

The survey, entitled "World Powers in the 21st Century" was conducted by the Gallup and TNS Emnid polling institutes in nine countries -- Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States -- between October and December 2005. Between 1,000 and 1,500 interviews were conducted in each of the countries.

The survey showed the Chinese themselves are confident they will gain influence on the global stage. A full 71 percent of Chinese respondents said their country would be a world power by 2020, compared to 44 percent who see China in that role today.

By comparison, 54 percent of Americans see China as a global power in 2020, up slightly from the 51 percent who already view China that way.

The survey showed that India would also rise as a world power, with 24 percent of respondents assigning it that status in 2020 against only 12 percent today.

Besides the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan were expected to decline in status, shedding 11, 6, 5 and 5 percentage points, respectively in the next 15 years.

Of the respondents within those five declining countries, only those in France went against the international trend and said their country would gain in status from now until 2020 -- with 33 percent of French seeing their country as a world power today and 35 percent in 2020.

The survey showed that people in the nine countries considered "economic power and potential for growth" as the most important quality for a world power.

There was disagreement on the importance of "military power" as a factor, with a third of respondents in China and the United States listing it as crucial, but only 7 percent in Germany and 16 percent in Japan viewing it as important.

There were also differences in how the countries viewed the main challenges confronting the world. In seven of the nine countries, over 50 percent of respondents listed international terrorism as the chief challenge.

But in China and Brazil less than a third of those surveyed put terrorism in that category. The Chinese listed environmental destruction and scarcity of natural resources as top threats.

In only China and Germany was a majority of the population of the opinion that peace and stability in the world could best be achieved under the leadership of the United Nations.

UK: Recent news that British police almost killed another "terror suspect" under the shoot first, ask questions later policy suggests that any lessons drawn from the death of Charles De Menezes have been soon forgotten

The family at the centre of this latest counter terrorism operation are described as "respectable and "nice people" by neighbors. Police officers raided a London home in the early hours on Friday shooting a 23-year-old man in the process.

The identity of the suspects and the nature of their alleged crime is so far unclear but when we consider that only seventeen of the 700 plus individuals grabbed from their own homes have ever been charged with a terrorist offence under the 2000 Terrorism Act you could be forgiven for feeling skeptical over the substance if any of the evidence against them. Even though there has been no halt in the barrage of propaganda from the usual media and government sources telling us we are under constant threat .

In March, the Association of Chief Police Officers in Britain concluded in its inquiry that the shoot to kill policy which was carried out in the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes was acceptable and should not be altered. Since de Menezes' behavior gave no sign whatsoever that he was a potential suicide bomber, this latest incident raises further questions over their conclusion

UK author and journalist Paul Watson has been vocal in his criticism
of the UK police over this and previous incidents. In a recent article for prisonplanet.com he remained defiant in his rejection of their methods

"We are expected to place our trust in the reasoning of the same people who chased and gunned down Charles De Menezes, a completely innocent man who didn't even show signs of suspicious behavior, shortly after the London bombings last year.

New glorification of terrorism legislation is so broadly and loosely defined that this writer could be vanished by the thought police for disagreeing with the government's version of events"

Globalization is rapidly reshaping world stock markets with the New York-Euronext merger raising questions about the future of European bourses sidelined by the new transatlantic mega-market.

The New York Stock Exchange and Euronext moved Thursday to end the long-running battle for control of the Paris-based bourse by agreeing to a forge a new share market that would bring together companies with a total market value of about 27 trillion dollars.

But the landmark deal with Euronext, which operates stock markets in Paris, Brussels, Lisbon and Amsterdam, is likely to keep up the pressure for consolidation among Europe's stock markets especially as a way trimming costs and broadening the platform for share sales.

In particular, the 10 billion dollars merger agreement will put the spotlight on the Frankfurt stock exchange operator, Deutsche Boerse AG, which had been locked in a battle with the New York exchange for taking over Euronext.

Deutsche Boerse declined Friday to comment on the merger.

But the New York-Euronext merger is also likely to spark speculation about how the bourses such as Rome and London face up to the new fast-paced globalised stock market competition.

Apart from being Europe's biggest equities market, London has also been the subject of takeover manoeuvrings in recent years including from New York's Nasdaq Stock Market Inc which already has built up a 25 per cent stake in the LSE.

Milan stock exchange chief Massimo Capuano is to meet his Euronext counterpart Jean-Francois Theodore later on Friday for talks.

In the meantime, investors appeared to give the thumbs up to the Thursday's merger announcement with Eurnoext shares rising by 2.5 per cent in trading Friday and shares in the New York Stock Exchange group jumping by more than four per cent. Deutsche Boerse's stock, however, fell by more than one per cent.

However, in the wake of the New York-Euronext deal, the German government threw its weight behind greater integration of Europe's stock markets.

While stressing it was up to the respective groups' shareholders to finally decide on the merger, the German government's deputy speaker Thomas Steg told reporters Friday that the Deutsche Boerse had made 'an extraordinarily attractive offer.'

He went on to say that Berlin 'backed European stock market alliances' adding that only then would the bourses have a chance 'to establish competitive structures.'

But with Deutsche Boerse having rejected raising its bid as New York and Euronext edged closer to a deal in recent weeks, analysts are not expecting the Frankfurt group to top up the offer for its Paris-based rival, which is Europe's second biggest stock market.

More to the point, the so-called merger between the NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Boerse along with the other possible new partnerships could leave the Deutsche Beorse isolated and at the same time cast fresh doubts on Frankfurt's role as a world financial centre.

Despite Germany being Europe's biggest economy and Frankfurt being home to the European Central Bank, many financial houses have been seeking to focus their operations on what are considered to be the more free-wheeling Anglo-Saxon financial markets, such as in London.

The Deutsche Boerse only hope now to emerge as the victor in the struggle for Euronext would be if the Paris-based group's shareholders voted down the New York Stock Exchange merger bid.

This is not entirely out of the question as a large group of Euronext stockholders support teaming up with the Deutsche Boerse.