Britain to decide on new UN resolution on Iraq
after Blix's report
British
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Friday
that his country would decide whether to
request the United Nations to pass a second
resolution sanctioning force against Iraq
after taking full account of a new inspection
report presented to the Security Council on
Friday.
"What we
have agreed, and it would be quite wrong if we
had done anything else, is to wait and see
what the inspectors say, to reflect and digest
what they say, and then come to decisions on a
second resolution," Straw told the BBC
radio.
"The
crucial issue here is not the issue of more
time, it's of more cooperation," Straw
said. "What Iraq has got to show, and it
is getting very late in the day, is that they
are now actively and substantively cooperating
in the way demanded of them by (Security
Council Resolution) 1441."
"Words
have to have meaning, and the meaning of those
words was that if there is not the most full
and active substantive cooperation by Iraq,
then force would have to follow," Straw
said, emphasizing that he was confident that
the UN would back a new resolution on Iraq.
Straw was
expected to fly to New York on Friday to hear
the latest inspection report from chief UN
weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed
ElBaradei, the chief of the International
Atomic Energy Agency.
Earlier reports
quoted British diplomats at the United Nations
as saying that the United States and Britain
could propose by Saturday a draft resolution
on Iraq to gain UN support for military
action.
British Prime
Minister Tony Blair, the staunchest US ally on
disarming Iraq, said Thursday that Iraq would
be "in breach" of a UN Security
Council resolution if the report of an
extended-range missiles in Iraq was confirmed.
It was reported
on Wednesday that international missile
experts told chief UN weapons inspector Hans
Blix that the range of Iraq's Al Samoud
missile exceeds the limit of 150 km set by UN
security council.
London Heathrow airport terminal reopens after
brief shutdown
Terminal
Two at London Heathrow international airport
reopened on Friday morning after a
one-and-a-half-hour shutdown following the
discovery of what police described as a
"suspect package."
The British
Airport Authority (BAA), which operates
Heathrow airport, said the terminal evacuation
would cause delays to flights serving some
European destinations. British police said
they arrested four more people during a major
anti-terror security operation around Heathrow
airport and part of one of the terminals was
also evacuated -- and later reopened.
The four were
arrested in West London directly under the
Heathrow flight path and were being held under
the country's draconian anti-terrorism
legislation. Security has remained high at
airports across Britain amid increased fears
of a terrorist attack.
Heathrow,
Britain's busiest airport, has been ringed by
police and troops for the past four days amid
intelligence-led fears thatal-Qaeda terrorists
might target the capital. Areas under the
flight path have been combed in case of a
repeat of last November's rocket attack on an
Israeli airliner taking off from Mombasa
airport in Kenya.
Seven people
have been arrested at British airports since
the security crackdown began, but police said
only one arrest, of a Venezuelan detained
after a hand grenade was found in his luggage
at Gatwick airport, was potentially
significant.
Venezuela
not likely to resume full-scale oil production
soon
Venezuela's
oil production is not expected to return to
its prestrike levels in a short time, the Wall
Street Journal reported Friday.
Venezuela's oil
industry is expected to remain hobbled
indefinitely even after the current strike is
settled, the Journal said. The report quoted
experts as saying that Venezuela has
permanently lost as much as 400,000 barrels of
oil a day, or more than 10 percent of its
total output.
The report also
said the oil scenario in Venezuela, in which
large-scale strike has been damaging the
industry of the country, could leave global
petroleum markets vulnerable in the event of
war with Iraq and increase the prospect of
further gasoline-price increases.
The
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
has sought to offset the Venezuelan losses,
but US oil inventories have plummeted to 269.8
million barrels, their lowest level since
1975,the report quoted the US Energy
Information Agency as saying.
Low stocks in
addition to war fears have helped send the
price of petroleum soaring, with the US
benchmark surging to 36.36 US dollars a barrel
Thursday, up 59 cents, in trading on the New
York Mercantile Exchange, said the report.
US president
announces details of new counter-terrorism
center
US
President George W. Bush on Friday announced
details of a new Terrorist Threat Integration
Center, saying that counter-terrorism analysts
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
and the Central Intelligence Agency will work
under a single roof to detect and prevent
terrorist attacks.
"The goal
is to develop a comprehensive picture of
terrorist activity," Bush said in a
speech at the FBI headquarters. "We're
collecting a lot of information and we're
going to share it in a way that enables us to
do our jobs as you expect us to do."
The new US
counter-terrorism center, which was announced
by President Bush last month in the State of
the Union address, will begin working on May 1
at the headquarters of the Central
Intelligence Agency in northern Virginia. The
center is responsible for analyzing foreign
and domestic intelligence collected throughout
the country to prevent future terrorist
attacks, according to the White House. The
center "will have unfettered access to
all terrorist threat intelligence information,
from raw reports to finished analytic
assessments, available to the US
government," the White House said Friday.
The center will
be moved to a yet-to-be chosen facility and
its staff will increase from 60 to 300,
according to a fact sheet of the White House.
The center will report directly to CIA
Director George Tenet, but the FBI employees
working there will remain under the authority
of FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Bush said the
FBI and the CIA are cooperating as never
before and that the FBI understands that its
first responsibility is "to prevent the
enemy from hitting us and hurting us."
"We're
trying to protect you. We're doing everything
in our power to make sure the homeland is
secure," he said in the speech.
"Across the world, we are tracking and
confronting and defeating international
terror. Within our own country, we're taking
unprecedented measures to protect the American
people."
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