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Iraq refuses to receive UN human rights mission, Arab News - Nov 6, 1999 UAE/Iraq ferry gets UN backing for more routes-INA / Reuters - Nov 08, 1999 10:29 a.m. Eastern Iraq and Yugoslavia vow to resist Western siege, Reuters - Nov 08, 1999 08:42 a.m. Eastern British MP attacks UN bids to ease Iraq sanctions, Reuters - Nov 08, 1999 01:34 p.m Eastern ++++++++++ Iraq refuses to receive UN human rights mission AN - Nov 6, 1999 Iraq refused yesterday to allow the UN's special rapporteur on human rights into Iraq to investigate allegations concerning the human rights in Iraq. Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Nizar Hamdoun said that Iraq is ready to receive someone other than Max van der Stoel, saying, "He visited Iraq, yet his behavior and dealing with Iraq proved his bias and lack of objectivity." Hamdoun added, "Iraq will take care of the human rights issue, and it does not wait for anybody to improve the relation with the Iraqis," adding that Iraq is "free of any weapons of mass destruction and that all statements by the USA are allegations aimed at terminating the Iraqi people and government." ++++++++++ UAE/Iraq ferry gets UN backing for more routes-INA Reuters - Nov 08, 1999 10:29 a.m. Eastern BAGHDAD, Nov 8 (Reuters) - The United Nations has approved the expansion of a ferry service which now runs between Iraq and the United Arab Emirates to include Qatar and Bahrain, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) quoted the ferry operator as saying on Monday. Salem Mubarak, general manager of the Dubai-based Naif Marine Services, said the U.N. Sanctions Committee had approved using his company's Jabal Ali 1 ferry to transport passengers and goods between Iraq, Qatar and Bahrain. Mubarak said his company would use a new ferry bought from Greece to run between the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr and Port Rashid in Dubai. The ferry is due to arrive in Dubai and will go into service early next year. Company officials in Dubai, the UAE's commercial hub, could not confirm the U.N. approval but said discussions were still ongoing with the Bahraini and Qatari governments about starting the service to Iraq. They said Mubarak was currently in Iraq. ``We have not got a firm commitment from the two governments, or authorisation, to go ahead with the plan,'' one official told Reuters. The ferry service began weekly trips between Dubai in the UAE and Umm Qasr late last year after its owners secured U.N. approval for the service. According to INA the ferry has so far carried out 50 trips carrying 13,842 passengers from the UAE to Iraq and vice versa. Iraq has been largely cut off from the outside world under sanctions imposed by the United Nations over its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The UAE has been at the forefront of calls to bring Iraq out of its isolation and back into the Arab fold ++++++++++ Iraq and Yugoslavia vow to resist Western siege Reuters - Nov 08, 1999 08:42 a.m. Eastern By Hassan Hafidh BAGHDAD, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Iraq and Yugoslavia, both internationally isolated and under sanctions, pledged to work together to resist the United States and its Western allies. ``Iraq and Yugoslavia have to work together...against the aggression which is still continuing,'' Monday's Baghdad press quoted Yugoslav Foreign Trade Minister Borislav Vukovic as saying during a meeting with President Saddam Hussein. Baghdad has rolled out the red carpet for Vukovic and Yugoslav deputy prime minister Maja Gojkovic. They are visiting the Arab state to strike trade contracts under Baghdad's oil-for-food deal with the United Nations. Vukovic was the only official received by President Saddam Hussein among several visitors from other countries attending the current international Baghdad trade fair. The Iraqi News Agency INA quoting Vukovic as telling Saddam during the meeting on Sunday that Iraq and Yugoslavia should work together in order to end international sanctions on their respective countries. Both Iraq and Yugoslavia suffer sanctions, Baghdad because of the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and Belgrade over its role in a series of Balkan wars over the past decade. INA said Vukovic delivered to Saddam a message from Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic ``on bilateral relations and means to develop them.'' ``We are with you... and both Baghdad and Belgrade are fighting imperialism,'' Saddam said in a clear reference to the United States and its Western allies. Parallels were drawn between the Yugoslav crisis and Iraq's own confrontations with the United States. ``In their aggression against Iraq and Yugoslavia, the aggressors have used the same tactics,'' Saddam told the Yugoslav visitor. U.S.-led multinational forces drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in 1991. In December last year the United States and Britain unleashed a four-day-long air campaign against Iraq over weapons inspections, similar to NATO bombings of Yugoslavia. Baghdad newspapers quoted Iraq's Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan as saying the bombing of Iraq and air strikes against Yugoslavia were intended to impose control of the two countries. The papers said Ramadan made the remark while receiving Gojkovic. On Sunday, INA said Iraq and Yugoslavia started trade talks to cement economic cooperation. Many Yugoslav firms were involved in industrial and construction projects in Iraq before its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Earlier this year the Belgrade press said Yugoslavia had signed contracts with Iraq worth $18 million to supply food in exchange for oil. ``The Iraqi market is open wide for Yugoslav companies to resume business in Iraq,'' the Iraqi press quoted Saleh as saying. ++++++++++ British MP attacks UN bids to ease Iraq sanctions Reuters - Nov 08, 1999 01:34 p.m Eastern BAGHDAD, Nov 8 (Reuters) - A British member of parliament on Monday dismissed efforts at the U.N. Security Council to ease the embargo on Iraq as a cover-up for what he called the ``crime'' of sanctions. Efforts to ease the sanctions were intended to conceal their continuing impact on Iraq, George Galloway of Britain's ruling Labour Party, said. ``This is why they are engaged in this grisly dance in the Security Council in New York to try to repackage this crime in a way which the world will find more attractive,'' Galloway said. The U.N. ambassadors of the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- the five permanent members of the Security Council -- met in New York on Friday to discuss a potential resolution. Galloway arrived in Baghdad on Saturday at the head of a convoy of supporters after a two-month journey across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East on a double-decker London bus to drum up support for the lifting of the U.N. embargo. The stringent economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Galloway spoke to reporters after briefing the Iraqi parliament on his trip. The convoy, which left London in early September, is dubbed the ``Mariam Convoy'' after Mariam Hamza, a six-year-old Iraqi girl whom Galloway arranged to be taken to Scotland in 1997 for leukaemia treatment. She returned home last year after recovering but suffered a relapse in August. Blinded and apparently suffering brain damage, she was sent to Amman for treatment last month. ``One of the purposes to bring Mariam Hamza to Britain was to show the British people that Iraqis are people just like us and their children are like ours,'' Galloway said. Iraq says the U.N. sanctions have caused well over one million deaths. It says it has complied fully with resolutions related to the ceasefire that ended the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait and that the sanctions should be scrapped entirely. Galloway visited a Baghdad hospital on Sunday and was told that the U.N. embargo killed three children every day. He also visited the Amiriya Shelter in Baghdad where hundreds of people were killed when U.S. forces bombed it during the Gulf war. ++++++++++ -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To be removed/added, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk, NOT the whole list. 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