Daily News Feed 5.26.08

Serena Williams Advances to Second Round of French Open
Serena Williams can be a perfectionist when it comes to her tennis game. After winning 12 of the final 13 games to beat Ashley Harkleroad 6-2, 6-1 Sunday in the first round of the French Open, the eight-time Grand Slam champion was happy enough to just get the win. “I feel like I ultimately could have played better,” Williams said. “But first round — just want to get it over with and work your way in the tournament.” Williams, the 2002 French Open champion, was broken in the first game of the match and trailed 2-0. She held in the third despite a double-fault while leading 40-0. “I never felt like I was going to lose my serve there,” Williams said, adding that Harkleroad was playing well to start. “I wasn’t nervous, though.” (Continue Reading…)

Zimbabwe’s Mugabe Threatens to Expel US Ambassador
President Robert Mugabe threatened Sunday to expel the U.S. ambassador for providing advice to the opposition opponent in the upcoming presidential runoff. Mugabe, speaking at the formal launch of his campaign for the June 27 runoff, said Ambassador James McGee had publicly urged opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to return to Zimbabwe to lead his embattled supporters. Tsvangirai returned Saturday after more than six weeks abroad. “As long as he carries on doing that, I will kick him out of the country,” Mugabe said of McGee, a Vietnam War veteran. “I don’t care if he fought in Vietnam. This is Zimbabwe, not an extension of America.” (Continue Reading…)

Forget the BBQs, Remember Baghdad
I can still see the faces of some of the men and women in the United States armed forces serving in Iraq. Some were smiling, some grimacing, most stared with piercing eyes from behind black shades. Many were hues of brown, most were white. They all deserve to be remembered. It was October 2003. I was working on democracy initiatives with the U.S. Agency for International Development and had been sent to Iraq to help coordinate the first elections to be held after the invasion. Like other members of the U.S. government, I was living in the infamous Green Zone, the heavily guarded four-square-mile center of international presence in Baghdad. It was close quarters, relatively speaking, and I became acquainted with a few soldiers. In all of my years working with the government, I had had multiple interactions with the military, but it was in Iraq that I first internalized the lives, experience and service of American soldiers in a very personal way. (Continue Reading…)