Taleban Release New Footage of US Soldier Bowe Bergdahl
TIMES ONLINE: The Taleban have released a video of the only American soldier in captivity, offering to release him as part of a prisoner exchange.

Bowe Bergdahl, who was taken hostage in Afghanistan last June, is pictured saying he wants to return to his family in Idaho and that the war in Afghanistan is not worth the number of lives that have been lost or wasted in prison.

His voice falteringly, Mr Bergdahl dressed in an army shirt and fatigues, clasps his hands together and pleads: “The pain in my heart to see my family again doesn’t get any smaller. Release me. Please, I’m begging you, bring me home.”

The footage shows the soldier with a beard and doing press-ups to demonstrate that he is in good physical condition. He tells the camera that he is strong and is “given the freedom to exercise; and to be a human being, even though he is a prisoner. >>> Joanna Sugden | Thursday, April 08, 2010

Lord Carey Makes New Iraq Hostage Plea
Watch BBC video: Lord Carey makes his appeal
BBC: Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has made a direct appeal for the freedom of five British hostages who were abducted in Iraq last year.

In a video, released through the Times newspaper, he addressed the kidnappers as "honourable men" and "men of faith".

The four guards and a computer expert were seized from Baghdad's finance ministry by gunmen on 29 May.

Whitehall sources told the BBC Lord Carey did not speak for the government and it preferred discreet negotiation.

The former Archbishop, speaking in English and Arabic, recorded his appeal on Friday at the House of Lords, accompanied by Canon Andrew White, his former Middle East envoy and now Anglican chaplain to Iraq, the Times said.

"I greet you as honourable men. I greet you as men of faith. I believe, as you do, that faith is important in this broken world," Lord Carey said.

"I appeal to you, as good people, to release these men who long to be back home once more." Carey Makes New Iraq Hostage Plea >>> | May May 16, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)