Kidnapped US journalist Jill Carroll made a harrowing appeal for her release in a video from an Iraqi militant group broadcast by the Arab news channel al-Jazeera on Monday.
It was not possible to make out the exact words of Carroll, who was pictured wearing a white headscarf covering her neck and shoulders, in tears and pleading in clear emotional distress.
"The journalist called on her family, her colleagues and Americans throughout the world to ask the US military authorities and the Iraqi interior ministry to free all Iraqi prisoners, saying this could contribute to her release," al-Jazeera's presenter said.
Her appearance contrasted with a previous video released on Jan. 17, which showed a more subdued Carroll, 28, wearing a grey sweatshirt with her long brown hair loose.
The video was widely reported in the US, but television stations refused to broadcast more than a few seconds of it, calling it too disturbing.
The Christian Science Monitor, the newspaper Carroll was working for as a freelancer when she was abducted, expressed deep concern Monday over her fate.
"Anyone with a heart will feel distressed that an innocent woman like Jill Carroll would be treated in the manner shown in the latest video," said the Monitor's editor Richard Bergenheim.
grisly milepost
Meanwhile, Britain suffered its 100th fatality in Iraq yesterday when a soldier was killed in an explosion in the southern Basra province, a Ministry of Defense spokeswoman told reporters.
The soldier, whose identity has not been released, was a member of 7th Armored Brigade and died from his injuries in the blast in Um Qasr.
The fatality comes after another British soldier from the 1st Battalion The Highlanders -- also part of 7th Armored Brigade -- was killed while on patrol.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS