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Saturday,
April 19, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Iraq museum looting Egyptian
museum displays antiquities
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Inspectors
could be back in Iraq: Blix I was
ready to quit over Iraq, says Blair Patients
raped in Iraq during looting spree Iraq may
not be represented at OPEC meeting SARS
‘super-spreader’ in China NRIs for
positive Indian image in media Good
Friday: 14 nailed to cross Gas
leak in Russia sends kids to hospital
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Iraq museum looting
Baghdad, April 18 “With what I’m expecting has happened in the (archaeological) sites in the field and what happened to the Iraq museum, I would say it’s the crime of the century because it is really affecting the heritage of mankind,” said the head of the National Archaeological Museum in Baghdad, Donny George. “It looks like there was an action and there were other priorities (for the USA) besides the Baghdad museum,” George said as he briefed reporters about the firestorm over the ransacking of the museum last Friday. US troops who seized the Iraqi capital on April 9 watched as looters carted away artifacts from some of the world’s oldest civilisations. A UN conference held yesterday in Paris to examine the war damage to Iraq's cultural heritage said much of the looting of the museum was carried out by organised gangs who traffic in works of ancient art. Experts there said among the items lost was a collection of around 80,000 cuneiform tablets that contain examples of the some of the world’s earliest writing. A 5,000-year-old Sumerian alabaster vase — known as the Warka vase — also disappeared. Asked if that meant the US troops were ignorant of the value of the pieces housed in the museum, George answered “perhaps.”
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White House art advisers quit Washington, April 18 Michael E Sullivan, Richard S. Lanier and Gary Vikan each said they were disappointed by the US military's failure to protect Iraq's historical artifacts. “The tragedy was not prevented, due to our nation's inaction," Sullivan, the committee's chairman, wrote in his letter of resignation. Noting that American scholars had told the State Department about the location of Iraqi museums and historic sites in Iraq, he said the President "is burdened by a compelling moral obligation to plan for and try to prevent indiscriminate looting and destruction." Lanier criticised "the administration's total lack of sensitivity and forethought regarding the Iraq invasion and the loss of cultural treasures." AP Vikan said in a separate interview that he saw "a failure on the part of the United States to interdict what is now an open floodgate." White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said the United States "in liberating Iraq worked very hard to protect infrastructure in Iraq and to preserve the valued resources of Iraq for the people of Iraq." "It is unfortunate that there was looting and damage done," she said.
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Egyptian
museum displays antiquities Cairo, April 18 The aim is to “show the world” the glories of Iraqi civilisation, museum director Raafat Abdel Azeem said at the show’s opening yesterday. He and his staff speedily mounted the exhibition from the museum’s standing display, other collections and items that had been in storage for decades. Many exhibits date back to the Abbasid dynasty — the Muslim caliphs who made Baghdad their capital and ruled the Islamic empire from AD 749 to 1258, when the Mongols sacked the city. The early years of Abbasid rule were especially brilliant, with art and commerce flourishing.
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Inspectors
could be back in Iraq: Blix United Nations, April 18 “I think the world would like to have a credible report on the absence or the eradication of the programme of weapons of mass destruction,” he told the BBC in an interview at UN Headquarters yesterday. “We would be able not only to receive the reports of the Americans and the British of what they have found or not found, but we would be able to corroborate a good deal of this,” he said. He said the USA and Britain have found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq so far, but added that it was still too early to say whether Iraq is free of them. However, he was also quoted as saying that he was “perhaps a little more inclined” to believe Baghdad more now on his statement that it had no weapons of mass destruction than before the war began. But that view could easily change if some discovery was made, he added. He said his own inspectors had found some evidence that could be the tip of the iceberg of banned weapons, but added that the same evidence could just be the remnants of an abandoned programme. However, White House said yesterday that it was not time to discuss the possible return of UN weapons inspectors who were withdrawn from Iraq one month ago on the eve of the US-led invasion.
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I was ready to quit over Iraq, says Blair London, April 18 Mr Blair told The Sun newspaper that he had been ready to quit if he was defeated in last month’s vote authorising military action by rebel members of Parliament in his own Labour Party. “In the end, it is a decision you put the whole of the premiership on the line for,” he told Britain’s top-selling tabloid. “It was always possible that you could be in that situation. But, the point is that some people are going to die as a result of your decision,” he said. “In the end if you lose your premiership, well you lose it. But at least you lose it on the basis of something that you believe in,” he said.
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Patients
raped in Iraq during looting spree
Geneva, April 17 The Director of Al-Rashad Hospital in eastern Baghdad told representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross that the rapes took place as looters stripped the hospital —burning what they could not take — between April 9 and 11. All 1,050 patients fled the hospital, the ICRC said. “Only 300 patients have so far returned, but their living conditions are dire. The hospital lacks sufficient water, it has no water for washing or cleaning, meaning it is extremely dirty, and only very limited food is available for patients,” the agency said in a statement. “They stole everything from the hospital and from the office. They destroyed all the papers, all the files belonging to the patients,” hospital Director Amir Abu said.
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Iraq may not be represented at OPEC meeting Washington, April 18 “Until the Iraqis have the ability to decide their representation, maybe, they won’t be there,” US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday when asked who would attend an OPEC meeting in Vienna on April 24 on Iraq’s behalf. On the one hand, the USA has de facto control of the country following the US-led war and, on the other, it is reluctant to be seen as dictating Iraqi policy.
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SARS ‘super-spreader’ in China Beijing, April 18 The first SARS case in Shanxi province was found on March 7 in the woman, who travelled to the South China’s Guangdong province, thought to be the epicentre of SARS, before falling ill. Subsequently, 18 of her close relatives and friends were infected. According to WHO, a “super-spreader” is a source case who has, for as yet unknown reasons, infected a large number of
persons. Shanxi has reported 104 cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) so far, with seven recoveries and seven deaths. Meanwhile, Shi, a 20-year-old SARS patient in Beijing, became the first person to be discharged from You’an hospital yesterday. After a brief send-off party by doctors and nurses, Shi said he was excited to resume his healthy life. Shi was diagnosed with SARS on March 30. According to Jin
Ronghua, the doctor in-charge of Shi’s case, his illness was brought under control within only two or three days of
hospitalisation. Yang Jianguo, Deputy Director of You’an hospital, said facts had proved that SARS could be defeated. Meanwhile, China today reported 25 new cases of the deadly atypical pneumonia epidemic, including the first case in central China’s Henan province, taking the nation-wide cumulative total of infections to 1,482. According to figures announced by the Ministry of Health, on the guidelines of the WHO, 25 fresh cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) were reported from 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. Of the 25 new cases reported, 17 were from Shanxi province in the north, six from south China’s worst-hit Guangdong province, one in Shanghai and one in Henan province.
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NRIs for positive Indian image in media New York, April 18 “The opinion of India's English print media is the source of many news stories in the western media. It is the opinion of many outside India that in an attempt to appear unbiased, India's English print media at times starts the process of portraying India negatively,” it said in a report released yesterday. Stating that censorship is "definitely" not the solution, it said it was important for the government to "keep an eye on how Indian media portrays India," adding "a positive image has to also start from within India." The Indian Government, it said, had to be ever vigilant to "identify the reporters in the Western media who are prejudiced and do the reporting without paying attention to facts or just knowingly ignore facts and intentionally try to depict India in poor light."
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Good Friday: 14 nailed to cross
Cutud (Philippines), April 18 Thousands of local and foreign tourists flocked to the village of Cutud in Pampanga province, some 70 km north of Manila, to witness the crucifixions, ignoring pleas from the Roman Catholic church which disapproves of the violent ritual. The play began mid-morning when a group of villagers on horseback dressed as Roman centurions arrested an actor playing Jesus Christ. He was then brought before a local Pontius Pilate who condemned him to the cross. ‘Christ’ then led a procession of 13 other ‘Kristos’ in carrying heavy wooden crosses on to a hillock where the guards hammered five-inch nails dipped in alcohol into their palms and feet. Each devotee hung on the cross for five minutes under the searing noon-day sun and amid the cheers of the crowd. They were then brought down and sped off by a waiting ambulance. Ruben Enaje, 42, this year’s lead Kristo, is a house painter who has been nailed to the cross for the past 17 years. He made a vow to have himself nailed to the cross yearly for 20 years after escaping death after a fall from a three-storey building. Officials said the annual tradition, while not sanctioned by the influential church, enjoys widespread support from Catholics.
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Gas leak in Russia sends kids to hospital Rostov-On-Don, April 18 A mix or propane and butane leaked from a damaged pipe collar at a Lukoil refinery in the southern city of Volgograd, said Alexander Lemeshev, a regional spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry. The gas cloud hovered over a school before drifting away from populated areas of the city, said Lemeshev, who said that the hospitalised children ranged in age from 9 to 12 and that three of the 28 were released later in the day. There were no reports of other cases of poisoning. President Vladimir Putin ordered Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov to get involved in the investigation into the incident, Russian news agencies reported.
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