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2 Senators Say State Department Could Have Prevented 9-11 Attacks WASHINGTON -- The State Department's failure to follow its own rules for issuing visas allowed the Sept. 11 attacks to happen, two top Republicans senators said Wednesday. Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona and Pat Roberts of Kansas said in a report that "the answer to the question -- could 9-11 have been prevented -- is yes, if State Department personnel had merely followed the law and not granted non-immigrant visas to 15 of the 19 hijackers in Saudi Arabia." There was no comment from the State Department. In the past,...

NATO, Russia agree on peacekeeping Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov (center) confers with his counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld (left), and NATO Secretary-General George Robertson to formally open the new NATO-Russia Council. (AP) BRUSSELS - The NATO allies agreed with Russia Friday on basic rules for future joint peacekeeping operations, hailing the deal as another milestone in cooperation between former Cold War foes. The agreement came through the NATO-Russia Council - a four-month old partnership in which Russia and the western allies consult on counterterrorism, arms proliferation, tactical missile defense, peacekeeping, civil defense and other issues. At a meeting of ambassadors, the two...

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said the U.N. General Assembly should be discussing recent terrorist attacks in Israel rather than engaging in rhetoric that "widens the gap" between Palestinians and Israelis. John Negroponte told a special session of the General Assembly that the Middle East debate is "out of step with the reality of events on the ground." "For too long, the U.N. General Assembly and the U.N. Security Council have been silent when Israelis are victims of terrorism," the ambassador said. He said the General Assembly session should be "explicitly condemning the terrorist organizations, like Hamas, that...

The United Nations released its long-awaited report on Israel's military action in Jenin yesterday, confirming our description of the episode as a "phantom massacre." The allegation that hundreds of innocent civilians had been murdered by the Israelis, cited breathlessly by so many news sources three months ago, has, in the report's overly circumspect words, "not been substantiated in the light of evidence that has emerged." NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International put their anti-Israel prejudices on display in the wake of the Jenin incident -- lending their status to inflated Palestinian claims. "There are large numbers of...

The United Nations Security Council has recommended Switzerland's admission as the 190th member of the United Nations. Wednesday’s decision paves the way for the General Assembly to complete the process and vote on the issue on September 10. Switzerland formally applied for membership last week following a nationwide vote in March in favour of joining the world body. “I wish to extend my congratulations to the Swiss Confederation on this historic occasion,” said the British Ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, this month's council president. “The council notes with great satisfaction the Swiss Confederation's solemn commitment to uphold the purposes and principles...

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- United Nations police in Kosovo on Saturday arrested eight ethnic Albanian men accused of murdering an ethnic Albanian family they suspected of collaborating with Serbian authorities. A UN mission statement said the suspects included three members of the Kosovo protection corps, the civilian force created with international blessing from disbanded units of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). They and five others are suspected of murdering the Hoxha family -- father, wife and son -- and two others in what the statement described as a brutal attack in the central town of Glogovac 11 months ago,...

Iraq and the U.N have signed on the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) extension for another six months. The agreement was signed by Iraq's permanent representative to the U.N Mohammed al-Douri and Mr. Hans Korel Assistant Secretary General of legal affairs. In reply to INA correspondent question on the MOU, Mr. al-Douri made it clear that the Memorandum of Understanding failed in meeting Iraqis' needs and it could never be an alternative for the lifting of embargo. Mr. al-Douri urged the Arab and friendly states to make use of article 50 of UN Charter to help lift the embargo.

Amid signs of hunger and malnutrition in the West Bank and Gaza, the UN World Food Programme launched an emergency operation yesterday to help feed half a million of the most needy Palestinians. Growing numbers of families in the Israeli-occupied territories are being forced to skip meals or reduce their food intake, the WFP's regional director, Khaled Adly, warned. For the rest of this year, the WFP aims to provide 750 lorryloads of food every month to meet basic nutritional needs. It will be the largest emergency operation undertaken in the Palestinian territories. A recent World Bank study found that...

JERUSALEM | The United Nations commission formed to investigate the nonexistent Israeli "massacre" in the West Bank town of Jenin could have been a means for some desperately needed truth-telling about the Middle East conflict. Instead, given its mandate to focus on Israel's self-defense rather than on the Palestinian terrorism that provoked it, the commission will only confirm that there is no justice to be had in the U.N. for the Jewish state. The commission won't be investigating how the Palestinian Authority, established and lavishly funded by the international community, abused its sponsors' trust by turning Jenin and other West...

Iraq said that the U.S and British warplanes committed between 2 March-5April 2002, 181 violations of Iraq's international borders. The warplanes came from bases in Kuwait via the demilitarized zone under the mandate of the United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission (UNIKOM). The warplanes flew over areas in the provinces of Thiqar, Muthana, Basra, Meisan and Qadissiya. In a letter to the U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said that AWACS planes coming from Saudi Airspace and A-2C planes coming from Kuwaiti airspace have backed all U.S and British warplanes which have been violating Iraqi airspace via the...