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Friday,
February 7, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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UK anti-terrorism police arrests
7 NEWS ANALYSIS
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N. Korea may ‘strike’ USA
first UK lawyers threaten to prosecute
Blair NASA doubts foam theory NASA space shuttle programme manager Ron Dittemore holds a piece of insulation foam from an external fuel tank to describe how a piece hit the underside of the shuttle during the craft’s liftoff, during a NASA briefing in Houston on Wednesday. |
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Astronauts’ remains
brought to Delaware
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UK anti-terrorism police arrests 7 London, February 6 The arrests in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Manchester are being linked to an operation in December in which seven North African men were detained. The Lothian and Border police made the arrests under the Terrorism Act 2000. Two men were arrested in the Scottish capital Edinburgh, one man in Greater Mancheser, a man and woman in Glasgow and two men in London, the police said, adding that the premises where the arrests were made were being searched and “no dangerous” substance had been found so far. Britain has been on heightened alert since the discovery of traces of the deadly ricin poison in a London apartment last month, following which the anti-terrorist police made a string of arrests. Deputy Chief Constable Tom Wood of the Lothian and Border police said “no dangerous substances” had been discovered in connection with the latest raids.
“This was a carefully co-ordinated operation which was executed successfully,” he told
BBC. PTI |
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NEWS ANALYSIS US Secretary of State Colin Powell may have presented a strong case in the Security Council on Wednesday that Iraq is deceiving UN weapons inspectors and is hiding weapons of mass destruction, but there is no evidence as yet that all council members are convinced that war is the only alternative to force Mr Saddam Hussein to obey the United Nations. The UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, summed up the message from the Security Council thus: “Everyone wants Iraq to be pro-active in cooperating with the inspectors and fulfil the demands of the international community. I think if they do that, we can avoid a war.” “I still believe that a war is not inevitable but a lot depends on President Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership,” Mr Annan told reporters, following the Security Council meeting and an informal luncheon discussion. Judging from the comments of the members of the Security Council, most of them represented by Foreign Ministers, it seems clear that Mr Powell had not succeeded in securing new support to the US position. Those already siding with the USA, like the United Kingdom, argued that time was running out. But countries like France and China —permanent members of the council — continue to urge that weapons inspectors should be given more time. The French Foreign Minister, Mr Dominique de Villepin, told the council: “With the choice between military intervention and an inspectors regime that is inadequate for lack of cooperation on Iraq’s side, we must choose to strengthen decisively the means of inspection.” Only four countries — Britain, Spain, Chile and Bulgaria —endorsed the US claim that Iraq has already violated the Security Council resolution and faces military action. Most others went along with the French and Russian view that the current mission of the inspectors should be intensified. The Russian Foreign Minister, Mr Igor Ivanov, noted that Security Council resolution 1441 imposed no time limits on the inspectors’ work. Iraq, which was given permission to address the council, stuck to its known stand, rejecting the US claims and saying that Secretary of State Powell’s objective was “to sell the idea of war and aggression against my country.” In Baghdad, a senior member of Iraqi parliament dismissed Mr Powell’s evidence as “lies”. |
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N. Korea may ‘strike’ USA first Seoul, February 6 “The USA says that after Iraq, we are next”, the Guardian website quoted Ri Pyong-Gap, a North Korean Foreign Ministry Deputy Director, as saying yesterday amid rising tension over a nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula. “But we have our own countermeasures. Pre-emptive attacks are not the exclusive right of the USA,” he said, according to the website. His reported remarks went further than numerous recent dire warnings issued by Pyongyang’s state media. A Guardian correspondent, one of the several British journalists admitted to secretive North Korea this month, quoted the official as saying that the current nuclear stand-off was more dangerous than that a decade ago when Washington and Pyongyang nearly went to war. “The present situation can be called graver than it was in 1993. It will be touch and go,” the daily quoted him as saying.
Reuters |
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UK lawyers threaten to prosecute Blair London, February 6 “There is a 100 per cent certainty that Blair will be investigated by the ICC for war crimes if he attacks Iraq,” said Mr Phil Shiner of the Public Interest Lawyers firm in Birmingham. Mr Shiner is leading a campaign to prosecute British leaders in the seven-month-old ICC if military action goes ahead without a second United Nations resolution expressly authorising force, or if any Iraqi civilians are killed in bombing campaigns.
Reuters |
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NASA doubts foam theory Cape Canaveral, February 6 The foam debris, about the size of a small suitcase, was captured on video breaking away from the shuttle’s external fuel tank shortly after liftoff from Florida. The foam was seen vaporising after it hit the underside of the orbiter. NASA shuttle programme manager Ron Dittemore, casting doubt on one of the leading theories on the cause of the shuttle’s disintegration on Saturday over Texas, said yesterday that the foam simply was not heavy enough or travelling fast enough to damage the shuttle’s heat-resistant tiles. ‘’We’re focusing our attention on what we didn’t see. We believe there was something else ... there’s got to be another reason,’’ Mr Dittemore said. Mr Dittemore was speaking during a briefing at Johnson Space Center in Houston. Mr Dittemore said the shuttle’s management team did not believe there was any ice under the foam that might have contributed to damage, another theory that had been offered as the root cause of the destruction of NASA’s oldest space shuttle and the death of the seven astronauts as they returned from a 16-day science mission in space.
Reuters |
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Astronauts’ remains
brought to Delaware Washington, February 6 Among them are the remains of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, which will be returned to his family in Israel, where a funeral is being organised. Funeral arrangements for the other six have not been announced.
AFP |
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Cape Canaveral, February 6
