Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation: News in English, 02-09-27

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From: The Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation at <http://www.cybc.com.cy/>

CONTENTS

[01] HEADLINES

[02] Iraq

[03] Mideast

[04] G7

[05] Milosevic

[06] Southasia

[07] Tailer

[08] Weather FRIDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2002

[01] HEADLINES

Israel said a Hamas militant who tops its most-wanted list survived a helicopter attack on his car in Gaza City, a strike that revived criticism of tactics Israel says are necessary to stop suicide bombings,

and

Cuban President Fidel Castro bottle fed a Minnesota buffalo calf and tried a Californian raisin at the opening of the largest U.S-Cuban trade fair since the 1950s.

[02] Iraq

Marc Grossman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, arrives in Paris later today and Moscow tomorrow to seek support for a resolution that would warn Iraq of serious consequences if it did not comply with disarmament demands.

Britain, after earlier reservations about the language of the text, agreed to accept the U.S. draft and is sending an official to accompany Grossman in what Secretary of State Colin Powell called a difficult venture.

No text is expected to be unveiled to the 15-nation U.N. Security Council until Monday.

The U.S. draft would find Iraq in violation of previous U.N. resolutions, specify what it must do to comply with them and "determine what consequences will flow from Iraq's failure to take action," Powell said.

But France, Russia and China, all permanent members of the Security Council with veto power, still have doubts about allowing the United States to decide when to launch a miitary strike and appear to be devising a joint response.

French President Jacques Chirac has proposed two resolutions, not yet officially circulated. One lays down ground rules for the return of the U.N. arms inspectors and threatens to consider all measures to ensure compliance.

Military action would require a second resolution, depending on what the inspectors report.

[03] Mideast

Science Minister Matan Vilnai, a member of Israel's security cabinet, endorsed Palestinian reports that Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif was injured but alive after missiles blew up the vehicle on a crowded street on Thursday.

Two other members of Hamas, a radical Islamic group that has carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel, were killed in the attack. Palestinian hospital officials said 27 people, many of them youngsters, were hurt.

Hamas vowed more bombings, raising the spectre of a sharp rise in violence at a time when the Washington wants to keep Israeli-Palestinian tensions low ahead of a possible U.S. military assault on Iraq.

[04] G7

The Group of Seven finance ministers, hosted by U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, were set to meet in the mid-afternoon at a government guest house directly across from the White House under heavy security.

The G7 is comprised of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Germany and Japan. An eighth country, Russia, will share a substantial portion of the meeting, which occurs on the fringes of annual sessions of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Police were braced for protests, already mounting a high-visibility show of force although only a few dozen protesters beat drums and waved anti-capitalist signs in a rain-soaked park near the sprawling IMF headquarters.

Police officials said they thought hundreds of protesters would try to disrupt traffic on Friday and into the weekend as IMF and World Bank sessions continued.

[05] Milosevic

A day earlier, U.N. prosecutors, who have already put their case against him relating to war crimes in Kosovo, launched the Bosnia and Croatia phase of Europe's biggest international war crimes trial since Hitler's henchmen were tried at Nuremberg.

They argued that Milosevic masterminded a grand ethnic cleansing plan to carve out a Greater Serbia in the early 1990s , but the toppled Yugoslav leader insisted his ethnic kin were the victims, not perpetrators, of the war.

Prosecutors plan to call 177 witnesses, including former Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic and Croatia's President Stjepan Mesic, to prove their contention that Milosevic committed genocide in Bosnia and crimes against humanity in Croatia.

The former Serbian and Yugoslav president faces 61 charges for Croatia and Bosnia covering the 1991-5 period.

[06] Southasia

Tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals were raised this week by the massacre of 28 people by two Muslim gunmen at an Indian temple.

India said it suspects the gunmen had links to Pakistan-based Islamic militant groups.

New Delhi has blamed a string of attacks on religious, military and political targets in recent months on Pakistan-based militants.

Pakistan says it has cracked down on the groups and that infiltration into India by extremists had stopped.

The countries came close to war in June over the disputed Kashmir region, and one million troops are still massed along the Line of Control separating the two countries in Kashmir.

Musharraf said India should stop blaming his country for security breaches on its soil.

He said India may have been behind the attack on a Christian charity in Karachi, although others could also be to blame.

[07] Tailer

More than 280 companies from 33 U.S. states hope to recover a lost market for U.S. food products as they push for further lifting of sanctions imposed on Cuba after Castro's 1959 revolution.

Castro, 76, the son a cattle rancher, took most interest in the U.S. livestock when he toured the fair. He held a milk bottle in two hands to feed a five-month-old buffalo and entered a pen to pat a beef breed bull.

[08] Weather

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