The recipient of the headbutt heard round the world is suing some British newspapers. Italian soccer player Marco Materazzi says the papers libelled him in their speculation over what he told French superstar Zenedine Zidane to prompt the incident.

Materazzi also revealed what he said to Zidane.

From the BBC:

Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has admitted that securing oil supplies is a key factor behind the presence of Australian troops in Iraq.

He said maintaining "resource security" in the Middle East was a priority.

But PM John Howard has played down the comments, saying it was "stretching it a bit" to conclude that Australia's Iraq involvement was motivated by oil.

The remarks are causing heated debate as the US-led Iraq coalition has avoided linking the war and oil.

From the Washington Post:

Nearly five months into a security strategy that involves thousands of additional U.S. and Iraqi troops patrolling Baghdad, the number of unidentified bodies found on the streets of the capital was 41 percent higher in June than in January, according to unofficial Health Ministry statistics.

During the month of June, 453 unidentified corpses, some bound, blindfolded, and bearing signs of torture, were found in Baghdad, according to morgue data provided by a Health Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

In January, 321 corpses were discovered in the capital, a total that fell steadily until April but then rose sharply over the last two months, the statistics show.

Overall, the level of violent civilian deaths in Iraq is declining, according to the U.S. military and Health Ministry statistics, and there has been a steady drop in fatalities from mass-casualty bombings that have torn through outdoor markets, university bus stops and crowds assembled to collect food rations.

But the number of unidentified bodies found on the streets is considered a key indicator of the malignancy of sectarian strife. While the declining number of bombing victims suggests that efforts to control violence are showing some success, the daily slayings of individuals, in aggregate, speak to an enduring level of aggression.

This Washington Post story talks about how al Qaeda mayhem mentors tell wanna-be jihadists to go the low-tech route in planning terror attacks.

From the man himself:

BBC reporter Alan Johnston has said it is "just unimaginably good to be free" after 114 days in captivity in Gaza.

He said his ordeal felt like being "buried alive", and was "sometimes quite terrifying". ...

He thanked colleagues, international media and ordinary people for organising "the most extraordinary international campaign" for his release.

"The thing you don't want is to be left behind, buried alive, and have the world go on around you," he said.

He appeared with a cleanly-shaven head, saying one of his first acts after his release was "going to the barbers and getting rid of that just-kidnapped look".

"Maybe you have to have been a prisoner of some kind, for some time, to know how good it is just to be able to do the basic things that freedom allows," he said.

"You want to do everything at the same time, to read books and newspapers, go to the movies, go to the beach and sit in the sun, and eat and talk and all the rest of it."

A related BBC feature -- Journalism: A dangerous profession

Actually, here's the full-meal-deal Alan Johnston page.

This Guardian story suggests Johnston's next posting will be in London at the BBC World Service:

Johnston also suggested it would be some time before he returned to a danger zone. "I probably spent too much time working in the most appalling places I could think of and working too hard, and not enough with family and friends," he said. "I'm going to be careful, I think, and keep out of trouble for a while."

I did this one this evening on the tragic day in Afghanistan: Time for a strategic re-think in Afghanistan?

And here's one from earlier in the week: How the political leaders will spend their summer