NORTH AMERICA

OIL-FOR-FOOD HEAD RESIGNS

UNITED NATIONS – The former head of the oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, yesterday submitted his official resignation to the United Nations. In a letter to Secretary-General Annan, Mr. Sevan said that “with sadness but pride” he would relinquish his current adviser post, for which he is paid an honorary salary of $1 a year.

Mr. Sevan is expected to be the main target of an interim report by the Independent Inquiry Committee headed by Paul Volcker, scheduled for release today. On Thursday, Mr. Sevan’s lawyer, Eric Lewis, released a letter in which he said that the Volcker committee will accuse Mr. Sevan of receiving cash payments during his stint at the head of the program. Mr. Sevan denied the charge.

In addition to the Volcker committee, the Manhattan district attorney is looking into possible crimes committed in the U.N. program. Mr. Sevan is said by U.N. officials to currently be in his homeland of Cyprus.

In yesterday’s letter Mr. Sevan also wrote, “The real oil-for-food ‘scandal’ is the distortion and misrepresentation of the accomplishments and the record of the program.” Mr. Sevan accuses Mr. Annan’s chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, of failing to support him, and writes he regrets the decision to renege on a U.N. promise to reimburse his legal fees.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

WESTERN EUROPE

TERROR SUSPECT ARRESTED ON AMERICAN WARRANT

LONDON – A suspected Islamic terrorist deported to Britain was arrested yesterday on an American warrant accusing him of organizing a training camp in Oregon to prepare people to fight in Afghanistan, police said.

The American warrant accuses Haroon Rashid Aswat of conspiring with others between October 1999 and April 2000 to set up a camp in Bly, Ore., aimed at training and equipping individuals to “fight jihad in Afghanistan,” police said in a statement.

A British citizen of Indian descent, Mr. Aswat, 30, had been detained in Zambia since July 20, where he was questioned about 20 phone calls reportedly made on his South African cell phone with some of the bombers responsible for the July 7 transit attacks that killed 56 people in London. He was deported yesterday to Britain, Zambia’s Home Affairs secretary, Peter Mumba, said.

– Associated Press

MIDDLE EAST

BRITISH TERRORISTS COMMUNICATED WITH SAUDI AL QAEDA MEMBERS

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Two senior Al Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia made money transfers and used coded text messages to communicate with suspected terrorists in Britain before last month’s attacks in London, according to officials in the kingdom.

The two men, of Moroccan descent, have since been shot dead. Younis Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hayari, allegedly Al Qaeda’s leader in Saudi Arabia, was killed in Riyadh three weeks ago and Abdel Karim al-Mejati died in a shootout in the central al-Qassim region in April.

Saudi security officials suspect both men of involvement in the attacks in London on July 7 and 21 and say that Al Qaeda is definitely operating in Britain. Huge amounts of chemicals and other bomb-making materials were found at al-Hayari’s hideout. Al-Mejati is said to have planned the train bombings in Madrid in March last year.

The Saudi ambassador to London, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said that his country had warned Britain less than four months ago that such an attack was pending. Scotland Yard is investigating who received the coded messages and money – transferred from Saudi to Britain via businesses at both ends before July this year.

– The Daily Telegraph

CONSTITUTION DEADLINE LOOMS; U.S. SERVICEMEN KILLED

BAGHDAD, Iraq – With only a week until the deadline for a new constitution, Iraqi political leaders launched marathon negotiations yesterday seeking to overcome formidable obstacles blocking agreement on the draft.

Insurgent violence aimed at derailing Iraq’s political efforts killed three more American servicemen and at least 13 Iraqi civilians and government employees across the country.

President Talabani, who hosted a first round of constitution talks at his Baghdad home, expressed optimism that leaders from the Shiite, Sunni Arab, and Kurdish communities could reach agreement in time for parliament to approve the charter by the August 15 deadline. Participants said the 2 1/2-hour meeting produced no breakthroughs.

The effort to produce a constitution is being accompanied by a sharp rise in violence. The American command said yesterday that two Army soldiers and a Marine died in two bombings the previous day.

About 1,000 protesters angry with the lack of clean water and electricity clashed with Iraqi police in the southern city of Samawah. One person was killed, police said. The protest was organized by radical Shiite clerics demanding that all foreign troops leave the country.

A suicide bomber detonated an empty fuel tanker near a police station in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, killing at least two people, police said. Three Iraqi soldiers and two oil ministry employees also were killed in two separate drive by shootings in Baghdad. Three Iraqi soldiers dressed in civilian clothes were gunned down while heading to work, said Dr. Muhannad Jawad of Yarmouk Hospital. Assailants opened fire and then threw a grenade at a police vehicle in the central Iraqi city of Baqouba, killing one policeman. One civilian was also killed, police said. In southern Basra, gunmen in two speeding cars killed a policeman.

– Associated Press

EAST ASIA

AMERICA, N. KOREA CALL ON EACH OTHER TO MAKE CONCESSIONS

BEIJING – American and North Korea urged each other yesterday to make concessions as envoys to disarmament talks called a three-week recess, deadlocked over what the American envoy said was the North’s demand for a nuclear power plant.

The adjournment came after 13 days of talks failed to produce a statement of principles to guide renewed negotiations aimed at persuading North Korea to renounce nuclear weapons. The delegations said the six-nation talks would resume the week of August 29.

The American envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said talks stalled over the North’s demand for the statement to include a promise that it be given a nuclear reactor. He said all five other delegations rejected that. He expressed hope North Korea’s communist regime would drop the demand once its envoys explained the rejection, saying, “Perhaps people back in Pyongyang need to hear it directly.” But the North’s chief envoy, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, said that during the recess Washington should “change its policy on not letting us have any kind of nuclear activities.” The dispute is “one of the very important elements that led us to fail to come up with an agreement,” Mr. Kim said at a news conference in the North Korean Embassy. He did not mention the reactor cited by Mr. Hill.

– Associated Press