Foreign Desk

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

MIDDLE EAST


ELECTORAL COMMISSION TO AUDIT REFERENDUM RESULTS


BAGHDAD, Iraq – Election workers will audit results showing unexpected ratios of “yes” to “no” votes from some parts of Iraq in the country’s landmark referendum on the draft constitution, officials said yesterday.


The American military said, meanwhile, that its warplanes and helicopters bombed two western villages Sunday, killing an estimated 70 militants near a site where five American soldiers died in a roadside blast. Residents said at least 39 of the dead were civilians.


Word of the unexpected results came as Sunni Arab lawmaker Meshaan al-Jubouri claimed fraud had occurred in Saturday’s election – including instances of voting in hotly contested regions by pro-constitution Shiites from other areas – repeating earlier comments made by other Sunni officials over the weekend.


Iraq’s Electoral Commission said numbers from most provinces “were unusually high according to the international standards” and so would “require us to recheck, compare and audit them.”


The commission said it would take random samples from some ballot boxes to check the results.


– Associated Press


ISRAEL SUSPENDS NEGOTIATIONS WITH PALESTINIANS


Israel suspended negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on issues such as prisoner releases and slapped tough travel restrictions on the West Bank after Palestinian Arab gunmen killed three Israelis and wounded five in drive-by attacks near Jewish settlements.


Sunday’s Palestinian Arab attack near the Gush Etzion block of settlements was the deadliest since July. It followed Israeli intelligence warnings that Palestinian Arab terrorists, who claim they drove Israel out of Gaza by force, would now shift their focus to the West Bank. Israel pulled out of Gaza in September in a unilateral move.


In Paris, Palestinian Arab leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the shootings.


“These events harm the cease-fire and the calm that we have respected,” he said before meeting with President Chirac of France.


– Associated Press


HEALTH


WHO: BIGGEST BIRD FLU THREAT IS ASIA


LONDON – Bird flu can be expected to spread to other countries, but the biggest threat of it mutating into a human virus that could kill millions across the world remains in Asia, the World Health Organization said yesterday.


Tests on birds from Romania confirmed the arrival of bird flu in Europe on Saturday, two days after it was verified on Europe’s doorstep in the Asian part of Turkey. The U.N. health agency emphasized that while the arrival of the bird virus in Europe complicates efforts to stamp it out, the aggressive response by Turkey and Romania was reassuring.


The bulk of the problem is in Asia, where the virus has become endemic in some areas, creating multiple opportunities for a human pandemic strain to emerge, WHO said. “There’s no question that we will expect further outbreaks of avian disease in different countries,” the director of the Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response at the WHO, Dr. Michael Ryan, said. “Certainly North Africa and other countries in the African region are potentially in line for the introduction of the avian disease.


“These introductions in Europe do represent a worrying development. We may see introductions into further countries over the coming weeks,” he said.


– Associated Press


EAST ASIA


KOIZUMI VISITS WAR SHRINE, PROVOKING IRE OF CHINA, SOUTH KOREA


TOKYO – Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan prayed yesterday at a Tokyo shrine honoring the country’s war dead, defying critics who say the visits glorify militarism and triggering angry protests from China and South Korea.


The visit was Mr. Koizumi’s fifth to the Yasukuni Shrine since becoming prime minister in April 2001 and came despite a recent court decision that the visits violate Japan’s constitutional division of religion and the state.


China and South Korea, which suffered from Tokyo’s conquest of East Asia in the first half of the 20th century, immediately filed protests with Japanese officials. The Chinese foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, summoned the Japanese ambassador, Koreshige Anami, to Beijing. The shrine visit “severely damaged China-Japan relations,” the ministry said on its Web site.


Noting that this year is the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and that Mr. Koizumi had apologized for Japan’s wartime aggression, China said the leader had “swallowed his own words.” In Seoul, South Korea’s foreign minister, Ban Kimoon, summoned the Japanese ambassador, Shotaro Oshima, to express his country’s “deep regrets” over the visit.


– Associated Press


RICHARDSON TO ASK N. KOREA FOR ‘CONCRETE STEPS’


TOKYO – Governor Richardson of New Mexico, on his way to North Korea for three days of talks, said yesterday he would press the communist country for “concrete steps” to dismantle its atomic weapons program and a commitment to allow verification that it will remain nuclear-free.


Mr. Richardson, a former American ambassador to the United Nations, also told the Associated Press during a refueling stop in Tokyo that he would urge North Korean officials to cooperate with humanitarian aid organizations and allow them to operate more freely in the reclusive country. “We’re going to focus on two important areas: one is verification, the second is what steps are the North Koreans taking to dismantle their nuclear weapons – concrete steps,” Mr. Richardson told the AP at Yokota Air Base on the outskirts of Tokyo.


– Associated Press


WESTERN EUROPE


FORMER SOMALI MILITIA LEADER ARRESTED STOCKHOLM, Sweden – A Somali suspected of being a militia leader during the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” battle that left 18 Americans dead was arrested yesterday on suspicion of war crimes while attending a conference in Sweden, police and organizers said.


A man identified as Abdi Hassan Awale, who once served as Somalia’s interior minister, was taken into custody after Somalis living in Sweden recognized him and reported him to police, said Gillian Nilsson, an organizer of the conference on development in the Horn of Africa.


Mr. Awale, also known as Abdi Qeybdiid, was a commander in warlord Farah Aidid’s militia when it fought a 19-hour battle against American troops in Mogadishu on October 3, 1993.Two American helicopters were shot down and hundreds of Somalis died, in addition to the American soldiers. The story was featured in the book and movie “Black Hawk Down.” Police spokesman Karl Sandberg would not confirm the suspect’s identity, but said the 57-year-old Somali man was arrested on suspicion of war crimes early yesterday at a hotel in Lund and taken to Goteborg for questioning.


– Associated Press


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