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Friday,
April 18, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Syrian draft on WMD in Security Council United Nations, April 17 In an effort to counter the American allegation that Syria is trying to develop weapons of mass destruction and to shift the focus on Israel, Damascus has asked the Security Council to approve an Arab-backed initiative calling for making the entire Middle East a zone free of nuclear weapons.
 USA for end to UN sanctions on IraqBaghdad, April 17 Declaring that life is improving in Baghdad one week after US forces marched in, Washington today shifted its focus from combat to reconstruction and urged an end to UN economic sanctions on Iraq. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov speaks with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma at a European Union summit in Athens on Thursday. Back in Moscow from Athens, Ivanov said economic sanctions against Iraq could not be lifted unless Baghdad complied with previous UN Security Council conditions.— Reuters/Pool photo Marines kill looter in BaghdadBaghdad, April 17 Marines patrolling a rough Baghdad neighbourhood where currency is exchanged on the black market traded fire with suspected looters today, killing one, US officials said. Five or six others were arrested. |
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Arab League opposes
US govt in Iraq Britain bans export of Iraqi journals Islamabad, April 17 Pakistan is heading for a constitutional crisis with the ruling party showing reluctance in convening a joint session of parliament for the customary Presidential Address fearing its disruption by the Opposition. Teenager killed in Israeli gunfire India won’t give up Kashmir: Russian envoy Explosion rocks UNICEF office
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Syrian draft on WMD in Security Council United Nations, April 17 Syria has introduced a draft resolution in the Security Council which will give it a central role in stopping the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the region and calls on all states in the area to ratify several treaties aimed at controlling arms, including the chemical weapons convention. The members are sending the draft to their governments to get their reaction and it is expected to be discussed at the experts level. But it is yet unclear if and when Syria will press for vote on the resolution in the council where the USA and Britain have veto. The resolution was moved within hours of the 22-member Arab group, angered by the American allegation that Syria might be possessing chemical weapons, decided to put Israel on the spot. Syria’s Ambassador to UN Mikhail Wehbe has denied that his country has any weapons of mass destruction and accused the USA of making false allegations to cover up “the aggression and invasion against the Iraqi people and ... the Israeli killing of the Palestinian people.” American Ambassador John Negroponte said the USA wants all of Middle East, including Israel to be free of weapons of mass destruction. But at present, the concern is finding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
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USA for end to UN sanctions on Iraq Baghdad, April 17 The White House said the USA would propose a UN resolution to end the controversial 13-year-old sanctions “in the near future” and America’s UN Ambassador John Negroponte, said Washington envisioned a “step-by-step procedure”. The sanctions imposed after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait barred all trade with Baghdad but to relieve hardship on the Iraqi people, a UN programme was established in 1996 that allowed Iraq to sell oil to buy food and essentials. “Now that Iraq is liberated, the United Nations should lift sanctions on that country,” President George W. Bush said yesterday. MOSCOW: A day after Mr Bush urged United Nations to lift sanctions against Iraq because of the plans of a regime change in the country, Russia today said that the fall of the Saddam regime is no condition for lifting of sanctions. A source in the Russian Foreign Ministry emphasised that a decision to lift sanctions against Iraq can only be made by the UN Security Council based on a conclusion made by the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and IAEA, confirming the absence of banned weapons in Iraq. In this connection, “Russia wants UN inspectors to return to Iraq to complete their work and determine whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or not,” the source underlined. ATHENS: The European Union while cautiously welcoming Mr Bush’s call for economic sanctions against Iraq to be lifted, said the decision rested with the United Nations. The European Union, split over the US-led war in Iraq, fears any rapid moves to lift sanctions could further undermine the already strained authority of the United Nations. Speaking on the second day of a summit in Athens on EU enlargement, French President Jacques Chirac said, “Lifting sanctions is a goal we have supported for a long time. “Now it is up to the United Nations to define the modalities of the lifting of sanctions,” said Mr Chirac, a leading opponent of the military campaign to oust Saddam. Greece, host of the summit and current EU president, echoed Chirac's cautious tone on sanctions.
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Marines kill looter in Baghdad Baghdad, April 17 Elsewhere, Marines removed bags of money for safekeeping from a bank that has been raided repeatedly by looters since the Iraqi Capital fell last week. A crowd gathered outside the burned-out al-Shorga branch of the al-Rashid Bank as Marines loaded the bank notes into an armoured vehicle to be taken to a secure location. US forces have begun to crack down on lawlessness in the Iraqi capital amid criticism that the Americans have not done enough to protect the city. Troops have been patrolling Baghdad night and day to crack down on looting and anarchy. Newly recovered stolen cars were parked at the Baghdad police academy, and people lined up to claim their vehicles. In yet an other sign that law and order was taking hold, looted vaccines and other medical supplies were returned today to the headquarters of the Red Crescent. The fatal shooting took place in the al-Kifah section of southern Baghdad, where people go to change dollars to dinars and vice versa on the black market. The area is said to be unsafe even in peacetime. The Marines went to investigate reports of looting and came under fire from a group of suspected looters, authorities said. The Marines returned fire. US officials said automatic weapons were found in the men's car and an ammunition clip was in the pocket of one of those arrested.
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Arab League opposes US govt in Iraq Hamburg, April 17 “The Iraqis have to govern themselves. Iraq must not become a country that distances itself from the values of the Islamic world,” Mussa told Der Spiegel magazine in its edition to be released on Saturday. He said that work to rebuild Iraq following the US-led war should be run by the United Nations and the Arab League. The former Egyptian foreign minister also warned the USA against the temptation to indulge in “suspicious commercial practices” by giving contracts to selected companies. On Tuesday, Mussa called on Iraq’s ethnic and religious factions which were holding the first meeting to discuss the future of their country, to unite so that Iraq can “stand on its own two feet”. He asked those leaders meeting near the southern city of Nasiriyah, “Arabs, Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, Turkmens, Christians and Assyrians, to form a single bloc in these serious and critical times through which Iraq is passing”. They pledged to work for a democratic Iraq and to hold more talks in 10 days after the meeting was marred by angry protests over the nation’s future after Saddam Hussein.
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Britain bans export of Iraqi journals London, April 17 The letters and diaries were written by Briton Claudius James Rich, an academic who represented East India Company in Baghdad between 1808 and 1821. They describe his journeys from Baghdad to Vienna in 1813 and from Geneva to Baghdad in 1815, when he stopped off at the ancient ruins of Nineveh in what is now northern Iraq. The journals are currently in British hands and the government wants them to stay there. Arts Minister Tessa Blackstone said in a statement that yesterday’s temporary ban represented ‘’a last chance to raise the money to keep the material in the United Kingdom.” She appealed for anyone interested in buying the journals to come forward before the ban expires on June 16. Experts have valued the documents at £ 61,575 ($ 96,940). The journals, related to a larger collection of Rich’s writings in the British Museum in London, offer an insight into the religious make-up of Iraq in the early 19th century. One of them includes a lengthy list of religious affiliations in the villages of Mosul province, now part of northern Iraq. Rich’s most famous works were his two memoirs on the Ruins of Babylon published in 1815 and 1818. The books, based on sketches and measurements taken during a 10-day trip to the ruins in 1811, were widely read in Britain and earned Rich a mention in Don Juan, the great comic masterpiece of romantic poet Lord Byron. Byron describes how Rich ‘’some bricks has got’’ and how his books accurately pinpoint the location of the ruins. Rich was just 35 when he died of cholera in Baghdad in 1821. The bulk of his collection of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Armenian manuscripts, along with coins, ceramics and Assyrian sculpture was bought after his death by the British Museum, which has housed it ever since. The government’s announcement yesterday comes amid widespread alarm at the looting in modern Baghdad of the Iraqi National Museum in the wake of the US-led invasion to topple President Saddam Hussein. Looters have stolen priceless treasures from ancient Mesopotamia in the past week, including vases and statues dating back to between 3,000 and 2,500 BC. Reuters |
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Constitutional crisis in Pakistan likely Islamabad, April 17 Three days ago, the National Assembly session was adjourned till tomorrow because the Opposition refused to allow the proceedings to go on until their demands were met. The Opposition has been critical of Gen, Pervez Musharraf’s retaining two posts that of the President and the Army Chief, and have also termed the legal framework order issued by General Musharraf as unacceptable to them. Mr Shujjat Hussain, who is the president of the ruling Quaid Muslim League (QML), said yesterday that the joint session of parliament could not be convened because of the attitude of the opposition. Mr Hussain said he did not want the Opposition to shout slogans against the President when he comes for his address to the joint House. The Opposition wants General Musharraf to take off his Army uniform and present himself as the President, but Mr Hussain told BBC : “This is our army. It has its own code of discipline. He will take off the uniform when the time comes.’’ It says it does not accept General Musharraf as the country’s President nor his constitutional amendments known as the legal framework order—popularly referred to as LFO.
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Teenager killed in Israeli gunfire Jenin, West Bank, April 17 Yussef Yahia (16), was part of a group of Palestinian youths throwing stones at soldiers, who earlier imposed a curfew on Tulkarem to carry out a search for wanted Palestinian militants. According to Israeli military officials, the teenager was killed after he threw two petrol bombs at soldiers, who opened fire as he prepared to hurl a third one. Palestinian medical sources, meanwhile, said a Palestinian man seriously wounded in an Israeli air strike on April 8 in Gaza City died today in hospital. Mamduh al-Ouh’s death brought the death toll for the strike to nine, including three members of the Islamic radical movement, Hamas, and another man who died of his injuries on Wednesday. The latest deaths raised to 3,164 the number of people killed since the September 2000 outbreak of the uprising against the Israeli occupation, including 2,382 Palestinians and 724 Israelis. In the central Gaza Strip, meanwhile, the Israeli troops shot and wounded three Palestinians during an Army incursion in Deir el-Balah, the sources said.
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India won’t give up Kashmir: Russian envoy Islamabad, April 17 Ruling out any third party mediation, Russian Ambassador to Pakistan, Eduward S. Shevchenko, said in Karachi yesterday that India and Pakistan should resolve their conflicts through peaceful means. Russia, along with the USA, Britain and France, was ready to offer its good offices but India was not prepared to accept any third party mediation, he told a meeting of the Members of the English-speaking Union.
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Explosion
rocks UNICEF office Islamabad, April 17 Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) agency quoted eyewitnesses as saying the explosion occurred in Nangarhar province in one of the UNICEF offices and was powerful enough to shake houses in the vicinity. No casualties were reported. Local and UN security personnel surrounded the premises but were silent on the damage details, AIP reported. Located about 2 km east of Jalalabad city in Nangarhar province, the UNICEF office was hit in a rocket attack last year, which killed one security guard.
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