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BAGHDAD, Iraq — Saddam Hussein stood in court today to defend former regime members implicated in the imprisonments and executions of Shiites in the 1980s, saying allegedly incriminating documents showed nothing more than "an informing operation" run by the authorities.For a second day, the chief prosecutor projected documents on an overhead screen outlining the bureaucracy behind a crackdown that led to the imprisonment of nearly 400 people, including women and children as young as 3 months old, and the executions of 148 people following a 1982 attempt on Saddam's life in the town of Dujail.After the day's testimony, the trial adjourned until March 12.On Tuesday, the prosecution presented a presidential decree with a signature it said was Saddam's approving death sentences against the 148 — the most direct evidence yet against the former Iraqi leader.Saddam and his seven co-defendants are on trial for torture, illegal imprisonments and executions in the crackdown, and could face execution by hanging if convicted.

BERLIN — The deadly strain of bird flu has been found in a cat in Germany, officials said Tuesday, the first time the virus has been identified in an animal other than a bird in central Europe.Health officials urged cat owners to keep pets indoors after the dead cat was discovered over the weekend on the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen, where most of the more than 100 wild birds infected by the H5N1 strain have been found.The cat is believed to have eaten an infected bird, said Thomas Mettenleiter, head of Germany's Friedrich Loeffler Institute. That is in keeping with a pattern of disease transmission seen in wild cats in Asia.Mettenleiter insisted, however, there was no danger to humans as there have been no documented cases of a cat transmitting the virus to people.However, Maria Cheng of the World Health Organization in Geneva said there was not enough information on how the disease is transmitted to be sure.By The Associated Press