Saddam is
alive: Iraqi opposition leader
A key Iraqi
opposition leader said Wednesday that he has
information that Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein survived an earlier air strike in
Baghdad and escaped from the capital with at
least one of his sons.
In an interview
with CNN from Nasiriya, Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi,
leader of Iraqi National Congress, said
unconfirmed reports indicated that the Iraqi
president had taken refuge in the city of
Baqubah, northeast of the Iraqi capital.
"We have
no evidence they have been killed in that
attack. We know at least that Qusay, his son,
has survived and he is occupying some houses
in the Diyala area," Chalabi said.
The same
reports also indicated that Gen. Ali Hassan
al-Majeed, nicknamed "Chemical Ali",
was wounded but alive and in the same area
with Saddam.
A US B-1 bomber
on Monday night dropped four specially
designed2,000-pound bombs on a building in a
Baghdad residential neighborhood suspected to
contain Iraqi leaders, including Saddam and
his tow sons.
However, US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a
Pentagon press briefing that he did not know
whether Saddam was dead or alive.
"He's
either dead, or he's incapacitated, or he's
healthy and cowering in some tunnel someplace
trying to avoid being caught," Rumsfeld
said.
US defense
chief warns Syria against aiding Iraq
US Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday warned
Syria against providing military assistance to
Iraq as well as shelter for members of Iraqi
regime.
"I have
accurately advised that they not provide
military assistance to Iraq, but they seem to
have made a conscious decision to ignore
that," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon press
briefing.
"Senior
regime people are moving out of Iraq into
Syria and Syria is continuing to send things
into Iraq," he said, noting that the
United States considers Syria's move as
"notably unhelpful."
At the end of
last month, Rumsfeld charged Syria sending
military equipment, including night-vision
goggles, to Iraqi forces and said the United
States would hold Syria accountable for the
"hostile acts."
Indian
Satellite to be launched on Thursday
India's
multipurpose satellite, INSAT-3A, would be
blasted into space on Thursday on board the
European Ariane-5 rocket after a technical
snap in the spacecraft, that forced called off
Wednesday's mission by a day.
The launch of
INSAT-3A from the French Guyanese spaceport of
Kourou in South America has now been
rescheduled between 0419 AM and 0500 AM
international standard time on Thursday,
Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)
announced in Bangalore, 2060 kilometers south
of here.
According to
the Press Trust of India (PTI), the launch was
called off after it was observed that the
signal strength from one of the two telemetry
transmitters was "less than normal"
during final checks midway through the two and
a half hours countdown.
As the anomaly
could not be set right before the close of
launch window, ISRO said, the launch campaign
was called off for the day after ISRO notified
European space consortium Ariane space for
additional satellite verifications prior to
the start-up of the fueling activity with
Ariane-5's cryogenic core stage.
ISRO said on
Wednesday evening that after extensive
simulations and careful analysis by its
experts at Kourou and in India, the
2958-kilogram satellite, which has a mission
lift of 12 years, has now been cleared for the
launch.
INSAT-3A was
originally scheduled to be launched in
mid-February this year but it was delayed due
to mishap on Dec. 11, last year, when a souped-up
version of Ariane-5 veered off course shortly
after lift-off and had to be destroyed by the
ground control.
UN chief
deeply concerned by Israel's air attack in
Gaza neighborhood
UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday
voiced his deep concern about Israel's air
attack in Gaza and repeated earlier calls for
an end to violence and a return to the
negotiating table.
UN spokesman
told a press briefing that Annan deplored the
use of excessive force in a densely populated
area and reiterated his opposition to
extra-judicial killings.
"While he
recognizes Israel's right of self-defense, the
Secretary-General again calls on Israel to
conduct itself in a manner fully consistent
with its obligations under international
humanitarian law," he said.
The UN chief
also reiterated his strongly held conviction
that the only way out of the cycle of violence
and retaliation is an immediate cessation of
violence by all parties.
"He
believes that the best path to a just and
comprehensive peace is through the full
implementation of the Quartet's Road Map,
which will soon be presented to the
parties," Eckhard said.
The attack in
the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City Tuesday
night has left seven Palestinians dead and
dozens more wounded.
EU provides
humanitarian aid for Palestinians
The European
Union (EU) has decided to provide a total sum
of 15 million euros (16 million US dollars in
humanitarian aid to the Palestinian victims of
the current crisis in the Middle East.
The fund would
support provision of food, medicines, water
and sanitation to meet the needs of the most
vulnerable Palestinians in the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip as well as in Jordan, Lebanon
and Syria, an EU press release said Wednesday.
T
The relief
package would be channeled through the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the World
Food Program, non-governmental organizations
and the International Committee of the Red
Cross.
This decision
brings the amount allocated for the region
since the outbreak of the second Intifada in
September 2000 to nearly 100 million euros
(106 million dollars).
The escalation
of the crisis in the Palestinian territories
over the last 30 months has made the EU's
humanitarian action as necessary as ever,
European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid
Paul Nielson was quoted as saying.
The living
conditions of Palestinians have been stretched
to breaking point. Unemployment stands at 50
percent and 60 percent of Palestinians live in
poverty with international assistance as their
primary means of survival, the press release
said.
In the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, the EU's funding decision
will support more than 550,000 people
receiving emergency food from UNRWA, and food
distribution to families having been cut off
from income-generating activities,
malnourished children and pregnant or feeding
mothers.
Meanwhile, this
aid package will also provide life-saving
medicines for 71 primary health care
facilities managed by UNRWA and providing
services to 2.4 million Palestinian refugees
in and outside refugee camps in Jordan,
Lebanon and Syria.
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