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New Zealand
PM hopes for "miracle to avoid war"
New
Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark has said
that people can now only hope for a miracle to
avoid war as diplomatic possibilities to end
the Iraq crisis appear almost extinguished.
Clark said
Sunday night that briefings from New Zealand
diplomatic missions suggested that last-minute
attempts to get a United Nations resolution
giving more time for weapons inspection steams
in Iraq had cooled, The Dominion Post reported
Monday.
United States
President George W Bush, British Prime
Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister
Jose Maria Aznar were Sunday night discussing
a "final pursuit" of a United
Nations resolution on disarming Iraq, the
White House said.
But Clark, who
last week predicted war could begin as early
as Monday, said her advice was that the
meeting was not so much a last diplomatic
effort but more a preparation for war. She
said it was looking bad, "but we all hope
for a miracle."
"If the
diplomatic timetable could have run, it could
have worked. But the timetable for war and
diplomacy are not synchronized," Clark
said in a reference to the American-led forces
need to attack Iraq soon, before higher spring
and summer temperatures make such a campaign
harder.
Meanwhile, two
experienced New Zealand Red Cross nurses flew
out of Auckland Sunday to help in the
potentially enormous humanitarian effort that
could be needed in the looming war.
Louisa Akavi of
Otaki and Judy Owen of Auckland, who have both
had experience as war zone relief workers, are
scheduled to arrive in Geneva for briefings at
the International Red Cross headquarters and
are expected to be deployed to the Middle East
later in the week.
New Zealand Red
Cross Acting Director-General Michael Smith
said they were likely to be stationed in Iran
to help Iraqis fleeing across the border in
the event of war.
The Red Cross
had been preparing contingency plans for
months to provide humanitarian aid for war
refugees.
France to
veto Iraq resolution, reaffirms Chirac
French
President Jacques Chirac reaffirmed on Sunday
that his country would veto the
US-British-Spanish-drafted resolution which
seeks UN authorization of use of force to
disarm Iraq.
The UN weapons
inspection in Iraq should continue, and France
would pursue a diplomatic solution to the
Iraqi crisis, Chirac said during an interview
with US television networks CNN and CBS
broadcast on Monday.
"France is
not pacifist. We are not anti-American either.
We are not just going to use our veto to nag
and annoy the United States. But we just feel
that there is another option, another way,
another more normal way, a less dramatic way
than war," he said.
"We have
to go through that path. And we should pursue
it until we've come a dead end, but that isn't
the case," the president said.
On the
anti-French sentiment in the United States
over France's refusal to side with the United
States in the Iraq crisis, Chirac said he was
disappointed about that.
"I think
that the relationship between the French and
Americans... is a relationship of friendship.
But if I see my friend or somebody I dearly
love, going down the wrong path then I owe it
to him to warn him be careful," he said.
Chirac said he
did not believe there was a majority in the
15-member UN Security Council in favor of a
resolution authoring the use of force against
Iraq.
Chirac also
said his country is willing to compromise on
the issue of how long the UN arms inspectors
in Iraq should last but that this would depend
on what the arms inspectors asked for and
should be approved by them.
The president
said the inspections designed to rid Iraq of
any and all weapons of mass destruction should
continue as long as the inspectors said there
was cooperation and progress.
"One
month, two months, three months, I do not
know, but as long as the inspectors tell that,
there is no reason for us to change,"
Chirac added.
Saddam vows
to widen conflict amid tug-of-war in UN
Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein on Sunday vowed to
take war "anywhere in the world," if
his country is attacked, as a tug-of-war in
the United Nations over Iraq reaches the home
stretch.
"When the
enemy launches the war on a large scale, it
must realize that the battle between us will
be waged wherever there is sky, earth and
water in the world," the Iraqi strongman
told his top aides.
Foreign
Minister Naji Sabri told reporters on Sunday
that Iraq will be the master of a ground
battle in spite of the US supremacy in the
air.
"We are
ready to bury the aggressors in the deserts of
Iraq, and nobody who sets foot on the Iraqi
soil will come out safely," he said,
referring to a just-concluded
US-British-Spanish summit on Iraq in the
Portuguese Atlantic Azores islands.
"What they
said at the press conference amounts to
arrogance vis-a-vis the international
community and a threat against the United
Nations," he said.
"Holding
the summit on this remote and isolated island
is proof of the isolation Bush and Blair have
put themselves in as a result of their war
plans," he said.
Speaking to
al-Arabia TV channel on the same day, Sabri
said Iraq is preparing for war as if it breaks
out in an hour.
"We have
been working on two fronts, one is that we
have taken all measures to avoid war,
including offering full cooperation with UN
arms inspectors, the other is that we have
been well prepared for any war," he said.
On the ground,
UN arms inspectors have continued their search
for alleged weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq since last November after a four-year
break.
The inspectors
visited several suspected Iraqi weapons sites
on Sunday, while Iraq sent to chief UN arms
inspector Hans Blix a letter with a detailed
82-page report on the analysis of deadly VX
agents destroyed and buried at Muthanna site,
some 120 km to the northwest of Baghdad.
The Iraqi
Information Ministry said at a daily briefing
that an UNMOVIC biological team headed to the
southwestern Iraqi town of Kerbala to search a
technological institute suspected to be
related to Iraq's weapons program.
American
protesters across country join in global
anti-war rally
Waving
banners and chanting slogans, tens of
thousands of protesters from more than 100
cities in the United States marched around the
White House Saturday for what might be a last
chance to dissuade the Bush administration
from launching a war against Iraq.
They joined in
hundreds of thousands of protesters in other
parts of the world in a rally against an
imminent US-led war on Iraq. US President
George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony
Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria
Aznar will meet in the Azores Islands on
Sunday for urgent consultation, which might
include talks about waging war without UN
approval.
"More and
more people have come to realize that Bush has
lied about every excuse he made for going to
the war," Sara Flounders, one of the
coordinators, said, as people holding banners
with words such as "Listen to The
World" or "War With Iraq Will Not
Stop Terrorism" marched nearby.
US Park Police
said permits were issued for 20,000 to march
but the gathering seemed much larger.
Additional police officers from New York and
San Francisco were sent in to help handle the
large crowds, but the rally went on
peacefully.
"This war
is no difference from all other wars in the
last 100 years," Sarah Sloan, one of the
organizers, said in a speech. The Bush
administration is waging the war only to
pursue interests on behalf of American
corporations and banks, she said to applaud.
The
demonstration brought together people from
various of political or ideological
backgrounds in the country, including
conservatives, liberals, religious people and
atheists. Taking part in the rally for
different reasons against the war, they shared
the same urgency that a war was imminent.
"I feel
hopeless because I can't do anything to avoid
the war," said Amnelies Visser, who is in
her 60s, holding a sign with a hand-drawn
dove, a sign of peace. She said she still
hoped that the White House would hear the
anti-war voices of hers and millions of others
before ordering an invasion of Iraq.
Hundreds of
thousands of people also took to the streets
Saturday in major cities in countries such as
Spain, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand
as well as Japan and South Korea. This was the
second large-scale worldwide demonstration
since Feb.15, when millions of protesters
rallied in cities from Europe to the Middle
East to Asia.
Activists
planned peace vigils in hundreds of cities
worldwide on Sunday evening. Organizers at
International ANSWER, a coalition of anti-war
groups, also asked people to leave their jobs,
their homes or whatever they are doing on the
day that war begins, and walk outside
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