UN slams Israel

THE UNITED Nations said on Monday that restrictions on the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) during the closure of the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army violated international law.

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said UNRWA had protested that the army's actions "had crippled its operations" in Gaza, where the agency cares for one million refugees, one quarter of the total registered with the agency.

Eckhard quoted UNRWA's Deputy Commissioner-General Karen Koning Abu Zayd as saying, "I find it incomprehensible that all my staff are locked in or locked out of the Gaza Strip."

She called on the Israeli authorities to end this closure "to allow us to carry out our humanitarian mandate", and noted the measures violated the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN.

The closure followed two weeks of delays, obstruction and interrogations of UN staff at the Erez crossing point into and out of Gaza, UNRWA said in a statement.

Staff had been held for up to seven hours by border security checks, and some had been forced to submit to interviews by Israeli intelligence services while intrusive search procedures had been increased, it said. The agency noted that none of its 7,800 Palestinian staff in the Gaza Strip had been able to enter Israel on duty for the agency since October 2000.

"UNRWA said its protests to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defence had so far had no effect," Eckhard said.

Health chief quits

IRAQ'S US-appointed interim health chief, Ali Shnan Al-Janabi, has resigned amid heavy criticism over his career as a senior Ba'ath Party official, a top US general said on Monday.

Major-General Glenn Webster, deputy commander of US ground forces in the country, told Agence France Presse (AFP) that Al-Janabi had quit on Sunday after refusing to unequivocally renounce Saddam Hussein's former ruling party, which he served as number three in the Health Ministry.

Following a meeting on Iraq's battered health sector on Saturday, Al-Janabi wavered when asked to confirm a pledge he had signed renouncing the party.

"I'm not an active member of the Ba'ath Party anymore," Al-Janabi said, after the meeting at his ministry attended by retired US General Jay Garner, the top US civil administrator in Iraq.

"But if you ask someone to change their personal ideology, that is something different," he said.

His resignation will likely embarrass the United States and cause further delays in efforts to revive the health system. Aid agencies say hospitals are in a critical state and the system has become a focus of criticism of US reconstruction efforts.

Release petition

TEN KEY players on the Algerian political scene called for Abassi Madani and Ali Belhadj -- two leaders of the banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) Party -- to be released from prison to promote national reconciliation after more than a decade of civil war.

The 12-year prison sentences handed down on Madani and Belhadj in July 1992, mainly for undermining state security, are due to expire at the end of June. In a statement published in the press on Monday, 10 prominent political players called on the Algerian authorities "to apply the law that stipulates that the two leaders be liberated" once they have completed their prison terms.

Setting free the two men would ease tensions and "renew hopes of moving forward with national reconciliation, which is the wish of all Algerians", the statement said.

Among the signatories to the statement were former President Ahmed Ben Bella, former Prime Minister Ahmed Taleb-Ibrahimi, Islamic Party chiefs Abdallah Djaballah of the National Reform Movement (MRN) and Mahfoud Nahnah of the Movement for a Society of Peace (MSP), and the head of the Algerian Human Rights Defense League (LADDH), lawyer Abdennour Ali-Yahia.

Many of those who signed the statement have expressed fears that the detention of Madani and Belhadj will continue even after their prison terms have expired.

Jordan reward

THE UNITED States on Tuesday gave Jordan $700 million, its biggest cash injection from a Western donor in recent years, in compensation for the economic hardship caused by the war in neighbouring Iraq.

"This underscores the strength and breadth of relationship between our two countries," Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters in Amman.

He had just signed a document transferring the funds to Bassem Awadallah, the Jordanian minister in charge of foreign aid. The funds will ease Jordan's budget deficit worsened by a revenue drop from tourism and the damage to business confidence from the US-led war against Iraq.

"It's a testament to Jordan's real achievements and economic reforms and to the confidence we have in Jordan's future," Powell added.

Jordan discreetly helped to facilitate the US-led campaign to overthrow former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. King Abdullah distanced himself publicly from the war under strong domestic pressure while allowing US special forces access to western Iraq from Jordanian soil.

With US lobbying, Jordan has secured three months of free oil from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to make up for lost Iraqi supplies. Powell also sealed a bilateral investment treaty held up since 1997 which gives US firms operating in Jordan better protection and encourages investment in industrial parks that export duty free to the US market.

Rapprochement rejected

IRAN'S Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has flatly rejected restoring relations with arch-enemy the United States arguing it would be tantamount to "surrender".

The comments by Khamenei, who has the last word on all matters of state in the Islamic Republic, should throttle an upsurge in debate in Iran over a possible easing in Tehran-Washington ties, frozen for over two decades. The debate was fuelled by news that Iranian and US officials have held talks recently in Geneva to discuss issues related to Iran's neighbours, Afghanistan and Iraq. "Some prescribe the surrender of the Iranian nation to America in the face of the enemy's adventurism. But succumbing to the enemy is by no means effective," Khamenei said in a speech to students in Tehran on Monday.

US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told Reuters on Monday that the recent Geneva talks were on practical issues and did not presage a reopening of diplomatic ties.