Carve-up of oil riches begins
US plans to ditch industry rivals and force end of Opec, write Peter Beaumont and Faisal Islam

The leader of the London-based Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi, has met executives of three US oil multinationals to negotiate the carve-up of Iraq's massive oil reserves post- Saddam.

Disclosure of the meetings in October in Washington - confirmed by an INC spokesman - comes as Lord Browne, the head of BP, has warned that British oil companies have been squeezed out of post-war Iraq even before the first shot has been fired in any US-led land invasion.
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thanks to wood s lot

Mistry suffers 'visions of Guantanamo'

An award-winning Canadian author told a Toronto literary event Saturday that he cancelled a portion of his U.S. book tour after overzealous scruinty at American airports targeted him repeatedly and started giving him "visions of Guantanamo [Bay] and of concrete slabs."

Rohinton Mistry, author of Family Matters and A Fine Balance said the security inspections were degrading and made him feel like a second-class citizen. He decided that he would simply not travel to the U.S. due to the practice.
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