<B>USA .Veto awaits Iraq troops withdrawal bill. </B>President Bush next week is expected to receive, and swiftly reject, legislation ordering US troops to begin coming home from Iraq this fall. The veto could fall on the fourth anniversary of the president’s Iraq “victory” speech.

Defying President George W. Bush’s veto threat, the House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a bill providing new war funds while setting a timeline for the withdrawal of all US combat troops from Iraq by March 31 next year.By a mostly partisan vote of 218-208, the Democratic-led House narrowly approved the $124-billion emergency spending bill, ignoring Bush’s promise to veto any bill that sets deadlines for withdrawing US troops from Iraq.The Senate is expected to approve the legislation on Thursday, sending it to Bush for what would be only his second veto in more than six years as president.

<B>UK.BOY gets toilet seat stuck on his head. </B>British firefighters said on Wednesday they had come to a boy’s rescue after he got a toilet seat stuck on his head.The toddler, aged two-and-a-half, and his mother walked into a fire station in Braintree, Essex, Tuesday saying the boy had put his head through a small trainer seat for the toilet and now could not remove it.

“His mum had tried to get it over his head but couldn’t budge it so she walked him down here and asked us to have a look at it and we went to work and we managed to get it off in no time,” firefighter Chris Cox said."We simply put some dish washing liquid on his head and ears and it slid off nice as pie. He said the boy had been “very brave” and “toddled away as happy as can be” after his ordeal ended.

<B>SPIN BOLDAK. Taliban video of boy executioner causes anger. </B>A Taliban video of a 12-year-old boy beheading a man accused of spying has angered many Afghans, drawing condemnation from tribal and religious leaders. “It’s very wrong for the Taliban to use a small boy to behead a man”, religious teacher Mullah Attullah told “Reuters” yesterday. “I appeal to the Taliban to please stop this because non-Muslims will think Islam is a cruel and terrorist religion. The Taliban do not follow the laws of Islam. They are taking advice from foreigners.” The video released this week shows the boy in a camouflage jacket and a white headband using a knife to behead a blindfolded man accused of being a spy for foreign forces as men cry “Allahu Akbar! (God is Great)”. The Taliban frequently behead suspected spies and often release video footage.

<B>COLOMBO. Sri Lanka forces bomb rebel “leaders’ gathering”. </B>Sri Lanka’s air force bombed a gathering of Tamil Tiger leaders in the rebel-held north yesterday, two days after the rebels staged their second-ever aerial attack, a military spokesman said. “We took one target today, it was an LTTE leaders’ gathering east of Kilinochchi”, said air force spokesman Ajantha de Silva, referring to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The bombing took place a day after intense battles in the northwestern district of Mannar, which the military said killed 21 tamil Tiger rebels and 2 government soldiers. The Tigers said they sustained no casualties, but that the government lost 10 soldiers and some 50 were wounded. Over the past 16 months, Sri Lanka has slipped deeper into a civil war that has claimed some 68,000 lives since 1983 – including more than 4,000 since late 2005. The intensified violence has left a 2002 ceasefire in tatters.

<B>TOKYO. Japan’s Hirohito shunned shrine over war criminals. </B>Emperor Hirohito, in whose name Japanese soldiers fought in World War Two, stopped visiting Japan’s main shrine for war dead because he was unhappy that convicted war criminals were also honoured there, a newspaper said yesterday, confirming a previous report. Visits by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, seen by many in Asia as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism, drew angry reactions from China and South Korea. Incumbent Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has visited the shrine in the past but has not said whether he would go while in office, in an attempt to court China without angering his conservative base.

<B>THREATS. Iran says will strike US and Israel if attacked.</B> Iran will strike US interests around the world and Israel if attacked over its disputed nuclear programme, a senior official was quoted yesterday by the official “IRNA news agency” as saying. “Nowhere would be safe for America with (Iran’s) long-range missiles ... we can fire tens of thousands of missiles every day,” said Mohammad Baqer Zolghadr, the deputy interior minister in security affairs. “With long-range missiles Iran can also threaten Israel as America’s ally.”

The West fears Iran wants to make an atomic bomb but Tehran says its atom activities are aimed only at generating electricity. The European Union’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he did not expect a “great breakthrough” in his talks with Iran yesterday .