Morning News Roundup (02 June)

• George W. Bush said the other day that new Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki understands his duty to "deliver real improvements in the daily lives of the Iraqi people." Somehow, we doubt this is what he meant.
  
  As the New York Times reports today, Maliki is complaining about what he calls the "daily phenomenon" of violence perpetrated on Iraqi civilians by soldiers in the American-led coalition. "They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion," Maliki said of the troops. "This is completely unacceptable."
  
  Iraqi officials say they're demanding access to investigative files on the massacre at Haditha so that they can conduct their own investigation into what happened there. Meanwhile, Maliki said violence against innocents could influence his government's thinking on the desirability of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq. [Salon's War Room]
  
  
• A third set of allegations that U.S. troops have deliberately killed civilians is fueling a furor in Iraq and drawing strong condemnations from government and human rights official. "It looks like the killing of Iraqi civilians is becoming a daily phenomenon," the chairman of the Iraqi Human Rights Association, Muayed al-Anbaki, said Friday after video ran on television of children and adults slain in a raid in Ishaqi in March. [Seattle P-I]
  
  
• Bush’s nomination of Henry Paulson to be Treasury Secretary has riled some conservatives, who now want to “find a senator who will place a hold on the nomination.” Paulson chaired the Nature Conservancy and supports the Kyoto Protocol. “He’s a lefty Nature Conservancy nut,” said one “outside-the-White House adviser.” [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• Russia and China endorsed a package of incentives and penalties Thursday designed by Western nations to push Iran to suspend its nuclear program. Diplomats close to the issue said incentives were similar to previous proposals, including helping Iran obtain a civilian nuclear reactor. The term "sanctions" was noticeably absent from discussion, but diplomats strongly signaled that should it refuse the offer, Iran would be subject to the full array of United Nations Security Council punitive measures. [LATimes]
  
  
• The 100 most sustainable public corporations, as measured by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors Inc., an environmental investment research advisory firm, outperformed the Morgan Stanley Capital International index by 7.1% during the past five years, according to research by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors Inc. Even more impressive is the 23% gain the Global 100 earned during 2005, outperforming the index by a whopping 13.5%. [Canadian Business via Treehugger]
  
  
• They have been warned, as always, not to rampage through the streets, destroying things and attacking people. But as England's soccer fans prepare to visit Germany for the World Cup this month, another item has been added to their long "verboten" list: Don't mention the war.
  
  "It's not a joke," Charles Clarke, then the home secretary, warned at a pre-World Cup briefing earlier this spring. "It is not a comic thing to do. It is totally insulting and wrong."
  
  That means, basically, no getting drunk and goose-stepping in a would-be humorous manner. No Nazi salutes. No shouting "Sieg Heil!" at the referees. No impromptu finger-under-the-nose Hitler mustaches. [NYTimes]
  
  
• Chelsea have completed the signing of striker Andriy Shevchenko from AC Milan for a fee of about £30m. [BBC]
  
  
• If she could turn back time, she’d get safer helmets to our troops. On the Sunday morning edition of C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” a caller “launched into a passionate argument for helmet safety upgrades for troops.” Host Steve Scully recognized the caller: “Is this Cher?” he asked. “Yeah,” Cher replied. The entertainer’s new cause, Operation Helmet, has given 6,850 safety liners to troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• Mozilla on Thursday released a new version of its Firefox Web browser to correct 13 security holes, including at least five that Mozilla said could let attackers install software without any action on the part of the user. The update brings Firefox to version 1.5.0.4. [WaPo] (If you're not using Firefox, you're missing out.)
  
  
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a massive article (and I do mean massive) on the effort by Republicans to undermine voting rights in Ohio in 2004 (that's a nice way to put it--another way would be "to steal the election") in the new Rolling Stone. It's an eye-opener and a page turner, even though it is weighed down with tonnes of numbers and footnotes. It's very worth a full read, so get comfy... I'll also post some of the more eyebrow-arching tidbits later this weekend.