"Ramzi Binalshibh, a key al-Qaeda member accused of helping plan the Sept 11 hijacked plane attacks on the United States, has been captured in Pakistan. Ramzi was not as high in the organisation as Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in Pakistan in March and turned over to US authorities, who have been interrogating him at a secret location outside the United States. It was not immediately clear whether Ramzi had been turned over to US authorities. One US official declined to say what would happen next, adding it’s a very sensitive matter," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Four British Asian passengers were turned away by the pilot of a charter flight from Gerona in north-eastern Spain to London’s Luton airport on Thursday because other passengers feared they were terrorists and refused to travel with them. They were discovered by El Pais’ Gerona correspondent, sitting despondently in the airport cafe and complaining at the intolerable racism they had been subjected to. The men were eventually put in a taxi to Barcelona and flown home by EasyJet, arriving 10 hours late at Luton. My Travel had not yet offered them compensation yesterday though a spokesman did not rule that out," reported the Guardian news agency.
"Police closed off Interstate 75, the main east-west highway in southern Florida, and detained three men while they searched their three cars for explosives after a woman in the neighbouring state of Georgia said she overheard the men discussing what she feared could be a terrorist attack. But investigators told the Herald that the three men – medical students and US citizens of what appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent – said they had only been playing a joke on a restaurant patron who had been looking at them suspiciously," reported the dpa news agency.
"Military action against states flouting international norms on weapons of mass destruction can only be justified if Britain and the US are implementing them too. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is making terrorism and proliferation far easier by accepting Bush's deliberate introduction of anarchy in international security," reported the Guardian news agency.
"Russia, Europe and Arab states piled pressure on Iraq on Friday to readmit UN arms inspectors, as key UN Security Council members discussed a deadline for Iraqi compliance to avert a US-led war. US Secretary of State Colin Powell met the other four permanent council members with veto power – Russia, Britain, France and China – to seek agreement on a council resolution giving Iraq an ultimatum to obey UN disarmament demands. Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz on Friday rejected the unconditional return of the inspectors, saying the move would not avert US military designs on Baghdad. Arab states have unanimously opposed any attack on Iraq, but some have urged Baghdad to readmit the arms monitors," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The US Central Command had announced earlier this week that a deployable headquarters and 600 staff officers will move from its Tampa headquarters to an air base in Qatar for a one week exercise sometime in November. But Air Force General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went a step further at a National Press Club luncheon by saying he expected US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to make the move permanent," reported the AFP news service.
"Communist-run Cuba launched a website on Friday to refute US charges that it sponsors terrorism and to seek support in the United States for the release of five Cubans imprisoned there for spying. The website www.antiterroristas.cu published an interview with American intellectual Noam Chomsky, who criticised his country for using the term terrorism only for acts of violence committed against the United States," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The US military has formally charged two pilots with manslaughter over the friendly fire killings of four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan," reported the AFP news service.
"For Thomas Christerson, the only person living with a self-contained artificial heart, just taking it easy is really living. Christerson, 71, on Friday celebrated the first anniversary of his new heart. He is the only surviving patient of seven who have had the heart replacement surgery. Dr Robert Dowling, one of the surgeons who performed the surgery, was clearly moved on Friday, calling the accomplishment mind-boggling," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Under a 1942 Swiss law, assisted suicide is legal for those who are terminally ill, in great pain or severely depressed as long as the drugs are self-administered and the patient has made a rational decision to die. Since then, Switzerland, alarmed by growing numbers of suicide tourists, plans to make it harder for foreigners to kill themselves, officials said on Friday. Tougher rules, which could be in place next year, may prompt a surge in the numbers heading for Switzerland to commit suicide before it becomes harder for them to do so," reported The Daily Telegraph news agency.
"A British academic is one of three women being detained for travelling without permits in the north Sumatran province of Aceh, the British Foreign Office said on Friday," reported the AFP news service.
"Indian and Pakistani forces fired across their border overnight as campaigning for the first stage of Indian Kashmir’s violence-racked election entered its last day yesterday. India and Pakistan have massed a million men along their frontier after a December raid on the Indian parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based Kashmiri separatists. Musharraf again denied Indian accusations Pakistan fed unrest in Kashmir or allowed guerillas to infiltrate the frontier," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Kuwait said yesterday an Iraqi man linked to al-Qaeda told US officials of a plot to attack American embassies in South-East Asia. Kuwait’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that the suspect was an Iraqi born in the Faw, Iraq, in 1969 and not a Kuwaiti as earlier reports had said. Kuwait has rebuffed suggestions that some of al-Qaeda’s leaders were Kuwaitis. The one exception has been Sulaiman bu Ghaith Ä who emerged as the spokesman for Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda group after the Sept 11 attacks on the United States," reported the Reuters news agency.
"US officials said on Saturday they had disrupted a terrorist cell on American soil, arresting five US citizens who attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan before the Sept 11 attacks. Officials said they had no information that the defendants may have been plotting specific terror attacks," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Washington has intensified its hunt for al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen, now seen as one of the most troublesome hotspots in the war on terrorism. The United States has been particularly determined to track down several high-ranking al-Qaeda members who have found safe haven in Yemen’s remote tribal areas, Osama bin Laden’s ancestral home. Following the Sept 11 attacks, Yemen, under US pressure, cracked down on outlaws and suspected al-Qaeda fighters. But Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr al-Qurbi told an Arabic publication on Sept 8 that his country will not hand over any al-Qaeda captives to foreign nations and will try them at home instead," reported the AFP news service.
"The United States wants custody of an alleged organiser of the Sept 11 attacks who was arrested in Pakistan last week, US President George W. Bush’s national security adviser said yesterday. Appearing on the Fox News Sunday programme, Condoleezza Rice said US officials were eager to question Ramzi Binalshibh, a key al-Qaeda operative, to determine what he knew about last year’s attacks on America that killed more than 3,000 people," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Former Vice President Al Gore on Saturday criticised President George W. Bush’s economic policies, saying they have squandered trillions of dollars of projected US budget surpluses and ought to be scrapped. Speaking to a group of black members of the US Congress, the remarks by Gore, who lost the 2000 presidential election to Bush, were part pep rally for Democratic candidates in the Nov 5 congressional elections. But his dual themes of Republican economic recklessness and disregard for the ailing Social Security retirement fund also may have been a preview of campaign stump speeches to come, if Gore decides to seek a rematch with Bush in 2004," reported the Reuters news agency.
"As a result of the continuing investigation on the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network, the republic’s Internal Security Department (ISD) arrested 21 additional people suspected of involvement in terrorism-related activities last month. A few have reportedly undergone military training at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and at the MILF’s Camp Abu Bakar in Mindanao island in southern Philippines," reported the Asia News Network
"The United Nations should ask Iraq to allow weapons inspectors into the country and then reduce the sanctions imposed on the impoverished nation, the Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad said. He said the United States, with its wish to bomb Iraq, was practising double standards where, on one hand, it was telling the nations of the world to follow international rules but, on the other hand, if the rule was not beneficial to the United States, it would ignore it. Dr Mahathir warned that the impending US attack on Iraq would only prolong the war against terrorism. Asked whether the integrity of the United Nations was being challenged by the pressure from the United States, he said the world body was crafted by the big powers for their own interests," reported the Malaysian Star newspaper.
"Another 150 Malaysian undergraduates studying in US universities have been denied visas to continue their education this year. Deputy Education Minister Datuk Aziz Samsuddin said all of the latest batch of students denied entry into the United States were male Muslims. He said the denial of their entry could be because the United States is on a heightened security alert following the first anniversary of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks and it is clear that their names are too much like their counterparts from Middle Eastern countries," reported the Malaysian Star newspaper.
"Iran declared its opposition to any military attack on its former foe Iraq on Sunday and criticised the United States for going its own way on global problems such as disarmament. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, whose country denies Bush’s charges, accused the United States, without naming it, of undermining global efforts to control nuclear weapons testing, ballistic missiles, biological warfare and the trade in small arms. He said the tragic terror attacks of Sept 11 were a challenge to the world, but warned that fighting terrorism with unbridled use of violence would only make matters worse," reported the Reuters news agency.
"An exiled Iraqi nuclear scientist believes Baghdad is closer to building an atomic bomb than previously thought, a British newspaper said yesterday. The German-built centrifuge was dismantled by international arms inspectors before they were withdrawn from Iraq in 1998. But Hamza told the Times that Iraqi scientists had studied how the centrifuge was built and learned how to copy it," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The United States and its allies vowed to force Iraq to honour UN resolutions on Sunday as diplomats from around the world sought to convince Baghdad to readmit arms inspectors to avoid war. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he expected quick action from the international community to condemn what he called Iraq’s defiance of Security Council resolutions," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Saudi Arabia has turned up the pressure on Baghdad, hinting that it might offer its desert installations as a jump-off base for any US military campaign against Iraq – as long as such an attack had UN sanction. But the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, also said the rest of the world clearly wants the Iraq crisis resolved without the firing of a single shot. Syria’s foreign minister said blind bias was focusing global attention on Iraq rather than Israel. Jordan urged Iraq to comply with UN resolutions and avert dire consequences for its people," reported the AP news agency.
"The Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested a sixth man of Yemeni descent in its probe of an alleged al-Qaeda terror cell based in up-state New York," reported the Reuters news agency.
"The US Government has taken steps to substantially reduce the time taken to process visas for Malaysian students, according to its US Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge," reported the Malaysian Star newspaper.
"The Malaysian Medical Relief Society (Mercy) is seeking the co-operation of the Israeli authorities to allow a team of doctors to enter the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to train Palestinians doctors in dealing with trauma, especially during an emergency. Mercy president Datuk Dr Jemilah Mahmood said the team would be led by Mercy vice-president Assoc Prof Dr Azhar Abdul Aziz, and would also include a traumatologist from Qatar and a member of the Qatar Red Crescent Society, adding that this would be its 50th mission overseas," reported the Malaysian Star newspaper.
"Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, under intense world diplomatic pressure backed by the threat of US military action, has agreed to readmit UN weapons inspectors without conditions. But the White House reacted sceptically to the Iraqi move, calling it an evasive tactic that would fail, while Russia said Iraq’s decision would deflect military action," reported the Agencies.
"The World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruled on Monday the United States violated key trade agreements with a law that channels anti-dumping duties on imports to US firms making similar products. US officials in Washington said they would appeal against the decision, which is the latest in a series of WTO rulings against duties imposed by the United States to protect domestic producers against “unfairly” priced or subsidised imports," reported the Reuters news agency.
"US counter-terrorism officials have identified two key lieutenants of Osama bin Laden – including an alleged mastermind of the Sept 11 attacks – as the most active plotters of several al-Qaeda attacks during the past year. While many top al-Qaeda leaders went into hiding after Sept 11, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri have taken the lead in arranging new attacks with cells in the field, US officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity," reported the AP news agency.
"An explosion apparently triggered by a bomb went off in the courtyard of a Palestinian school in the West Bank yesterday, injuring five students," reported the AP news agency.
"Israel will not allow Lebanon to divert water from a border river shared by the two countries, Israel’s defence minister warned yesterday, a day after a US water expert inspected a Lebanese pumping project there. Lebanese President Emile Lahoud has said the project would continue. The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group has said Hezbollah would cut off Israel’s hands if it used military force to stop the scheme," reported the AP news agency.
"Officers from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation are expected in Kuala Lumpur shortly to question a man police say provided lodging to hijackers involved in the Sept 11 attacks. Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, who is in the United States, gave the FBI the go-ahead to question Yazid Sufaat, who was arrested last December," reported the Malaysian Star newspaper.
"India has ruled out any reduction of troops along its frontier with Pakistan where more than a million soldiers from the two nuclear-armed nations are massed and clashes are frequent. India's Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday also said there would be no resumption of peace talks with Pakistan, a country with which it has fought three wars, two of them over claims to the Himalayan region of Kashmir," reported the AP news agency.
"UN weapons inspectors moved ahead with plans to return to Iraq as the United States fought to hold together a fragile coalition that would set tough new terms for Iraqi disarmament. Iraq’s offer to readmit arms experts without preconditions appeared to sap momentum from the Bush administration’s campaign for a UN Security Council resolution that could threaten military force if Baghdad did not comply," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Exiled Iraqi opposition leaders expect President Saddam Hussein to fall soon despite Baghdad’s saying it will allow UN arms inspectors to return, Sharif Ali bin Hussein, the cousin of former Iraqi King Faisal, was quoted as saying yesterday. The newspaper quoted him as demanding that, if European nations did not want to use military force, they should at least stand up and say that Saddam is a criminal," reported the dpa news agency.
"US Interior Secretary Gale Norton and one of her top aides have been found in contempt of court for failing to co-operate with a probe of charges that the federal government had mismanaged money from a Native American trust fund. US District Judge Royce Lamberth wrote in an opinion issued on Tuesday that there is no longer any doubt that the secretary of interior has been and continues to be an unfit trustee-delegate for the United States," reported the AFP news service.
"Playwright Harold Pinter, actress Jemma Redgrave and filmmaker Ken Loach were among a hundred artistes who petitioned Prime Minister Tony Blair Wednesday to pull back from war with Iraq," reported the AP news agency.
"Israel turned down a Palestinian offer to halt attacks on civilians as the first stage of a gradual truce, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday he would settle for nothing less than a total cessation of violence," reported the AP news agency.
"Indonesian police say they are questioning a German man of Arab descent over connections to another Arab who allegedly planned attacks on US targets in South-East Asia and who has been linked to al-Qaeda," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Philippine officials said yesterday they would charge an Indonesian arrested during recent anti-terrorist raids for allegedly helping plot bomb attacks that killed 15 people in a southern city last April. At least two Filipino suspects in three bombings outside a shopping mall in General Santos city on April 21 have identified Uskar Makawata as being among a group of Indonesians, Malaysians and Filipinos who planned the attacks," reported the AP news agency.
"Afghan authorities have arrested a senior Taliban official and three of his aides. Mullah Sher Mohammad Malang, governor of the southwestern province of Nimruz during Taliban rule, and his aides were caught in a raid on a mosque there last week," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Pakistani security forces have arrested two Islamic militants suspected of planning to assassinate President Gen Pervez Musharraf," reported the AP news agency.
"One of Japan's largest power companies ordered a nuclear power reactor be shut down Friday for an emergency inspection, reportedly because of possible cracks in its cooling system," reported the AP news agency.
"A top U.N. official warned that the security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious and the fragile transitional government of President Hamid Karzai needs more international support to survive," reported the AP news agency.
"Israeli tanks surround Arafat's headquarters after Palestinian suicide bombing. In huge explosions that sent a cloud of dust high into the air, Israeli forces blew up buildings next to Yasser Arafat's office in Ramallah early Friday, witnesses said, hours after tanks entered the city-block-sized compound in response to a suicide bombing that killed five people and wounded dozens on a Tel Aviv bus. Palestinian officials said the explosions wrecked a building under construction for the national security force and a Palestinian intelligence structure that had been partially destroyed in an earlier attack," reported the AP news agency.
"America's most famous demand that another country pull back weapons of mass destruction was delivered hand in hand with damning photographs of the weapons themselves. This time, the evidence is not yet so black and white. The president's speech to the United Nations last week, outlining what he called Iraq's decade of defiance, was largely about Iraqi misdeeds in the 1990s. But there's a tactical dimension as well: Challenging the international community to enforce Iraqi compliance sets up Saddam for further defiance - the tripwire for the United States to attack," reported the AP news agency.
"Saddam Hussein declared that Iraq is free of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and invited any country to see for itself that the United States has been lying about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as a pretext to wage war. The Iraqi president - in a letter read to the United Nations on Thursday - accused U.S. President George W. Bush of portraying the weapons issue as the greatest danger to the future of the world and insinuating that Iraq was linked to the Sept. 11 attacks to incite Americans to accept the U.S. administration's schemes of aggression as a fait accompli. He charged that the United States was working in concert with Israel and that an important U.S. motive was access to oil. The United States, he said, does not want to embarrass Israel - which he referred to as the Zionist entity - or deprive it of the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons it possesses," reported the AP news agency.
"OPEC's decision to hold crude output steady with prices at almost dlrs 30 per barrel got a chilly reception Friday from major oil-consuming nations who worry their economies will suffer. The West had called for OPEC to put more oil on the market and provide some relief from prices that have soared recently amid fears U.S. President George W. Bush will wage war on Iraq to try to topple President Saddam Hussein, possibly causing supply disruptions in the Middle East," reported the AP news agency.
"A judge sternly lectured a former California teacher who kidnapped a 15-year-old student and had sex with him in a Las Vegas hotel, but gave her a sentence that allows her to be released from Nevada custody next month. The judge ordered her to be placed on strict sex offender probation and lifetime supervision," reported the AP news agency.
"President George W. Bush asked Congress Thursday for authority to use all means, including military force if necessary, to disarm and overthrow Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein if he does not quickly meet United Nations demands that he abandon all weapons of mass destruction. At the U.N., Iraqi President Saddam Hussein delivered a defiant written message taunting the United States while claiming that Iraq has no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons - and saying he welcomed inspections to prove it," reported the AP news agency.
"Germany's weekend election was shaping up as a referendum on the limp economy until the Iraq crisis came along and injected late drama into the contest for leadership of Europe's biggest nation. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's anti-war stand on Iraq and defiance of the United States has re-ignited his campaign for a second term against conservative challenger Edmund Stoiber, the Bavarian governor who has battered the incumbent over the economy and 10 percent unemployment rate. Schroeder's comeback in the weeks before Sunday's election could make him the first postwar chancellor to win an election on a platform of opposing the United States, Germany's bedrock ally since the end of World War II," reported the AP news agency.
"Osama bin Laden targeted the heads of the US Defence Department, State Department, CIA and FBI, and offered a US$9mil bounty for the assassination of four top intelligence officers," reported the Reuters news agency.
"A US congressional hearing was told on Wednesday that three years before the Sept 11 attacks intelligence agencies had information about a group that planned to fly an explosives-laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade Centre. But none of the threats provided a specific time, date, and place of the attack. US intelligence agencies had known about a rising al-Qaeda leader since 1995 but had not recognised his growing importance in Osama’s network until recently," reported the Reuters news agency.
"US President George W. Bush was expected yesterday to send to Congress a draft resolution of support for his Iraq policy, as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged Baghdad to co-operate with weapons inspectors. Saying Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was not going to fool anybody with his offer to re-admit UN weapons inspectors, Bush stepped up the pressure on both Baghdad and the world body, announcing that top lawmakers had pledged to vote on an Iraq resolution before the Nov 5 mid-term elections," reported the AFP news service.
"The lavish lifestyles of US corporate chieftains have sparked a backlash from regulators and shareholders after revelations of extravagance taken to a new level by some top executives. The latest tale of greed and excess has focused on the disgraced former chief executive of Tyco International, Dennis Kozlowski, who allegedly used company funds for purchases ranging from a US$6,000 shower curtain to a swanky US$7mil Manhattan apartment," reported the AFP news service.
"A British-based computer programmer has been charged with allegedly collecting or possessing information which could aid a terrorist attack, police here said on Wednesday. A Scotland Yard spokesman said Mohammed Abdullah Azam, 32, was arrested on Sunday in Luton, where he lived," reported the Reuters news agency.
"A suicide bomber blew himself up on a crowded bus in downtown Tel Aviv yesterday, killing at least five people and wounding about 40 in the second such attack in two days, police said. Palestinian Authority officials were not immediately available for comment. A spokesman for the Islamic militant group Hamas, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, said he did not know who was behind the attack but welcomed it, arguing that the Zionists are paying for the crimes and terrorism of their leaders and they should know that we are the real owners of this land and we would never give it up," reported the AP news agency.
"Israeli tanks entered Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s headquarters compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah yesterday, Palestinian security officials said, after a suicide bomber blew himself up on a Tel Aviv bus, killing five other people. The Israeli military had no immediate comment, but military sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that an Israeli military operation was underway," reported the AP news agency.
"S military planners see February as the best time to start a war against Iraq and would depend greatly on defecting Iraqi troops to help topple Saddam Hussein, the Washington Times reported yesterday, citing senior defence officials. The newspaper quoted two defence sources as saying February would be the most likely time to strike and that hostilities would probably be over no later than April, before the oppressive heat of the Persian Gulf spring and summer sets in," reported the Reuters news agency.
"As UN weapons inspectors disclosed plans to go to Iraq next month, President Saddam Hussein appealed to the United Nations to stop the Bush administration from attacking his country. He accused the United States of wanting to destroy Iraq in order to control the oil-based economy of the Middle East and hinted at limits to where the inspectors could go, saying Iraq’s rights, sovereignty and security had to be respected," reported the Reuters news agency.
"An alleged remark by Germany’s justice minister likening US President George W. Bush’s methods to Hitler’s threatened to hurt Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder yesterday, two days before a cliff-hanger election. Newspapers gave front-page coverage to Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin’s alleged remarks at a campaign rally saying Bush’s sabre-rattling on Iraq was a way of diverting attention from domestic issues that Hitler had also used," reported the Reuters news agency.
"US intelligence agencies are looking for a Sudanese air force pilot who is said to be plotting to hijack an airliner and crash it into the White House, The Washington Times reported yesterday. Citing US intelligence officials, the report said the pilot trained in Afghanistan and was linked to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network," reported the Reuters news agency.
"Israeli forces kept Yasser Arafat under siege in his West Bank presidential compound and sent tanks deep into the Gaza Strip yesterday after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed five people on an Israeli bus. The militant Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility for Thursday’s blast in Tel Aviv, saying it was avenging the deaths of one of its top militants, his lieutenant and 14 civilians in an Israeli air raid in Gaza in July," reported the Reuters news agency.
"US special forces soldiers in eastern Afghanistan were attacked at dawn yesterday with 107 mm rockets and heavy machineguns, but suffered no casualties," reported the Reuters news agency.
