■ Iraq
Baath commander held
Allied forces are holding a leading Baath Party and militia commander for central Iraq, the US Central Command (Centcom) said yesterday as the hunt for the most wanted Iraqis steps up. Ghazi Hammud al-Ubaydi was Baath Party Regional Command chairman and Baath militia leader for Wasit governorate, centered on the city of Al-Kut, about 150km south of Baghdad, a statement said. Ubaydi, "now in custody," according to Centcom, was number 32 on the US list of 55 most wanted Iraqis and the two of hearts in the pack of cards issued to assist US troops.
■ Cuba
Dissidents held in solitary
Cuba has placed in solitary confinement most of the 75 people imprisoned in a recent crackdown on dissent that drew international condemnation, a human rights organization said on Tuesday. "The immense majority, 60 in all, are in solitary confinement in the punishment wards of the country's maximum security prisons," said Elizardo Sanchez, president of the illegal, but tolerated, Cuban Human Rights Commission. The dissidents were rounded up in late March, charged with working with the US to overthrow the communist government and sentenced to an average of 19 years in prison after one-day trials closed to foreign diplomats and journalists.
■ Israel
Explosion kills fugutive
A senior Hamas fugitive was killed in a mysterious explosion in the West Bank yesterday, and the Islamic militant group accused Israeli troops of setting off the blast. The Israeli military had no immediate comment. The blast went off at about 8:30am in an apartment in the village of Zawata near the Palestinian city of Nablus. The fugitive, Amin Fadel, 28, was killed. Fadel had rented the apartment four days earlier. He had been wanted by Israel for two years on suspicion of involvement in attacks on Israelis.
■ United Kingdom
MP in limbo over Iraq ties
The British Labour Party suspended controversial anti-war member of parliament George Galloway on Tuesday, a move that may bar him in the autumn from winning the Labour nomination for its safest parliamentary seat in Glasgow. The party's general secretary, David Triesman, suspended an outraged Galloway pending an internal party investigation into whether he has brought the party into disrepute by urging British troops not to fight in an illegal war against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Galloway is facing separate inquiries into his pro-Iraq fund, the Mariam Appeal, by the charity commission and by the parliamentary commissioner for standards.
Agencies
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