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US copter comes down
in Iraq, eight dead Report trashes Bush build-up on WMD Bush builds hope of illegal immigrants
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SARS suspect is a waitress Lebanese girls protest veil ban
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US copter comes down in Iraq, eight dead Baghdad, January 8 “A helicopter made an emergency landing near Falluja, there were four passengers and four crew members on board and there are no survivors,” a military spokeswoman said. She did not know if the helicopter was hit by enemy fire before making the emergency landing and had no details about what sort of helicopter was involved. Meanwhile, a US soldier died and 34 were wounded when insurgents fired mortars at a military base near Baghdad while hundreds of Iraqis gathered in the capital to wait for relatives to be freed from prison under a new U.S. amnesty. A US military spokesman said at least six mortar rounds struck a logistics base west of the capital shortly after sundown yesterday, some landing close to a sleeping quarters, sending shrapnel and glass flying across a wide area. “We now know that one U.S. soldier was killed and 34 were wounded,” a U.S. military spokesman here today said. Several of the wounded were flown to a nearby military field hospital for emergency treatment. The attack came hours after Mr Paul Bremer, U.S. administrator in Iraq, announced plans to free up to 500 Iraqi prisoners as part of a new policy of reconciliation that gives those seen as a low-level security threat a second chance. Hundreds of families began gathering at dawn outside the gates of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad — now renamed Baghdad Central Penitentiary — in the hope that friends or relatives may be part of the release programme. “We heard on the radio and television that they (U.S. forces) will release detainees, so we came here in the early morning,” said Hussein Ali, who drove from Samarra, 100 km north of Baghdad, to try to find his brother Hassan. “My brother has been detained for two months and we heard that he is sick and he has no medication,” he said. It was not exactly clear when the first prisoners would be released, although Mr Adnan Pachachi, president of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, said 100 prisoners would be freed today and thousands more soon. The prisoner-release programme follows last month’s capture of Saddam Hussein, the biggest success for occupation forces since the Iraqi leader was ousted in April in a U.S.-led invasion. Yesterday’s mortar attack took the number of U.S. soldiers killed in combat in Iraq since March to 332. Officials with the U.S.-led coalition say they hope a carrot-and-stick approach — freeing low-level threats while at the same time stepping up the hunt for still-at-large members of the former regime — will create more peace and security. “It is time for reconciliation, time for Iraqis to make common cause,” Mr Bremer told a Press conference yesterday. Those suspected of serious violent crimes would not be freed, he said. Altogether, some 9,000 prisoners detained over the past eight months are being held while many others have been detained and released since Saddam was ousted in April. Along with the releases, Mr Bremer announced a renewed effort to capture or kill the 13 at-large members of the U.S. military’s 55-most-wanted list and around 30 other senior former regime members believed to be masterminding the insurgency. |
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Report trashes Bush build-up on WMD Washington, January 8 The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said in its study, “WMD IN IRAQ: Evidence and Implications,” that there was “no convincing evidence” Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear programme and that U.N. weapons inspectors had discovered that nerve agents in Iraq’s chemical weapons program had lost most of their lethal capability as early as 1991. There was greater uncertainty about Iraq’s biological weapons, but that threat was related to what could be developed in the future rather than what Iraq already had, the study said. The missile programme appeared to have been in active development in 2002 and Iraq was expanding its capability to build missiles with ranges that exceeded UN limits, it said. The U.S.A. justified going to war against Iraq last year citing a threat from Baghdad’s weapons of mass destruction. Since the US occupation of Iraq, American forces hunting for weapons of mass destruction have not found any stockpiles of biological or chemical weapons or any solid evidence that Iraq had resurrected its nuclear weapons program. It was unlikely Iraq could have destroyed, hidden, or moved out of the country hundreds of tonne of chemical and biological weapons, dozens of SCUD missiles, and facilities producing chemical and biological weapons without the U.S.A. detecting some sign of that activity, the report said. Administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq’s WMD and ballistic missile programmes,’’ the report said.
— Reuters |
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Bush builds hope of illegal immigrants Washington, January 8 “Out of common sense and fairness, our laws should allow willing workers to enter our country and fill jobs that Americans are not filling,” Bush said in a speech outlining the changes from the White House East Room yesterday. The new ‘guest worker programme’ will offer legal status, as temporary workers, to about eight million undocumented workers now employed in the USA and to those in foreign countries who seek to participate in it and have been offered employment here, Bush said. The programme, which requires Congressional approval, would enable illegal immigrants holding a job unwanted by US citizens to work in the country for three years. Guest Workers will be free like any other foreigner to apply for permanent resident permits, commonly known as the green cards, which are the stepping stones to citizenship. Bush also urged the Congress to increase the number of green cards issued every year. At present, the number is 140,000. The plan is expected to boost Bush’s prospects with Hispanic voters during the November Presidential elections as half of the illegal immigrants are estimated to be from Mexico. Illegal immigrants currently in the USA can avail of the guest worker scheme if their labour is needed by an employer, after paying a fee. Bush said: “Workers who seek only to earn a living end up in the shadows of American life — fearful, often abused and exploited. When they are victimised by crime, they are afraid to call the police, or seek recourse in the legal system. “The situation I have described is wrong. It is not the American way....We must make our immigration laws more rational.”
— PTI |
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Indo-Pak initiatives welcomed Washington, January 8 While USINPAC recognizes the benefits of peace to both nations, Sue Ghosh, international trade attorney and a member of USINPAC’s Defence and Strategic Affairs Task Force, yesterday said regional peace and stability can only come from a sincere commitment to democracy and human rights. “Since January 2002, President Musharraf has been making earnest avowals to crack down on terrorism, stop proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and re-establish democracy in Pakistan. Unfortunately, cross-border terrorism into Kashmir, as well as Afghanistan, remains unabated. Islamabad continues to trade in weapons of mass destruction and Pakistan largely remains a one-party state,” he said.
— PTI |
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SARS suspect is a waitress
Guangzhou (China), January 8 The Health Ministry said the 20-year-old waitress, was suspected of having Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome after having been in hospital for nearly two weeks. “Forty-eight people who had had close contact with her have been isolated and 52 others who had normal contacts have been observed,” the Provincial Health Department said. None of them had displayed SARS symptoms, which include a relentless high fever and dry cough. A television producer confirmed this week as China’s first SARS case since last year has recovered and he was released from hospital in Guangzhou today, Xinhua said. SARS killed about 800 people worldwide last year, about 300 of them in China. The television producer’s case has been linked to coronaviruses also found in wild civet cats, which are regarded as a delicacy in southern China. Three members of a Hong Kong TV news team have fevers and coughs and are being tested for SARS after returning from China’s southern mainland to cover the country’s latest case of the infectious disease, officials today said.
— Reuters, AP |
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Lebanese girls protest veil ban Beirut, January 8 Most of the demonstrators were students brought in by bus. They marched from the Place du Musie to the embassy, where one veiled girl gave a letter to an embassy employee. Men from the Lebanese Shiite movement acted as marshals for the march as the girls carried French flags and banners, demanding that French President Jacques Chirac block any ban. Demonstrators dispersed an hour later as about 100 soldiers and police officers guarded the exterior of the embassy.
— AFP |
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Washington, January 8
