The list of foreign hostages held in Iraq has lengthened with the abduction of seven Chinese, even as nine other foreigners, including a Briton, were released by their captors.
The Chinese government confirmed yesterday that seven of its nationals became the latest foreigners to be kidnapped in Iraq, where deadly violence has surged in the past week to a level unprecedented since the US-led war last year.
A political advisor at the Chinese embassy in Jordan, said the seven men were civilians.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The seven -- Xue Yougui, Lin Jinping, Li Guiwu, Li Guiping, Wei Weilong, Chen Xiaojin and Lin Kongming -- had left Jordan on Saturday, entering Iraq the next day via the Amman-Baghdad route, which passes through the flashpoint town of Fallujah.
It did not identify them further or say what they were doing in Iraq.
China's leaders said they were "very concerned" about the kidnappings and China's foreign ministry said it had called on Iraq's new interior minister to identify the kidnappers, locate the hostages and rescue them safely.
Hope has been drawn from the release Sunday of a Briton, civilian contractor Gary Teeley, and a group of eight Asian drivers said to be working for the US-led coalition forces.
Teeley was snatched in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah almost a week earlier by the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, Italian forces in the city said Sunday.
But three Japanese and an American remain in peril.
An Iraqi group holding the US national has demanded the US lift its siege of Fallujah but has agreed not not kill him, self-described Iraqi mediator Mezher Dulaimi said yesterday.
Dulaimi, who heads an Iraqi human rights group, said the affair of the missing American had been settled, and he was in good health.
But there was no word on when he would be released.
But confusion reigned as to the fate of the three Japanese -- two humanitarian volunteers and a photojournalist, with a Japanese diplomat saying yesterday in Amman that "no progress at all" had been made toward securing their release.
The group holding the three, which calls itself the "Mujahedeen Brigades," initially declared a three-day ultimatum before carrying out their threat to burn the three alive. That deadline has now apparently been extended.
The abduction has sent shockwaves throughout Japan, whose government declared it would not be driven out of Iraq, where it maintains 550 troops on a humanitarian mission in the south.
US Vice President Dick Cheney told Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday that he was doing the right thing by resisting mounting political pressure and keeping troops in Iraq despite shock over the trio's kidnapping.
Cheney said Washington would do all it could to secure the release of the three.
However, a senior administration official warned that giving in to their demands for withdrawing troops would only encourage more hostage-taking.
"We wholeheartedly support the position the prime minister has taken with respect to the question of Japanese hostages," Cheney told reporters after meeting Koizumi in Tokyo.
"We have consulted closely with the prime minister and his government to make certain we do everything we can to be of assistance," Cheney said.
Meanwhile, negotiations were still ongoing to free a Canadian aid worker.
Fadi Ihsan Fadel, 33, of Syrian origin, was seized around midnight Thursday by members of a local militia in Kufah, according to the US-based International Rescue Committee.
Dan McTeague, parliamentary secretary for Canadians abroad, told television station CTV that the talks with Fadel's captors were at an "extremely delicate stage."
Canadian Foreign Ministry spokesman Sameer Ahmed said Saturday that Fadel was in good health and had been given food and water.
Sadr supporters denied on Sunday that they were holding Fadel.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
RSS