2 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, November 9, 2004 NATION/WORLD Palestinian officials call off Paris trip JERUSALEM (AP) - Top Palestin- ian officials abruptly canceled a trip to Paris yesterday to check on ailing leader Yasser Arafat after critical comments by Arafat's wife, a spokesman said. Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a senior Arafat aide, said the critical comments by Suha "You have Arafat "don't repre- sent our people." the size of Rahim spoke after Mrs. Arafat lashed conspirac out at Arafat's lieu- - tenants in a telephone yOu they call to the pan-Arab ry y Al-Jazeera television tobu station, accusing the Arafat) ali Palestinian leadership of traveling to Paris with plans to bury her husband "alive." Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath had announced Sunday that they would travel to Paris to consult with Arafat's doctors. Qureia and Abbas - Arafat's deputy in the Palestine Liberation Organization -have been working together to run Pal- estinian affairs in Arafat's absence and to prevent chaos and violence if the Palestin- ian leader dies. Qureia has taken on some of Arafat's executive and security powers, while Abbas has been chairing meetings of the PLO's executive body. Suha Arafat insisted her husband is "all right" and accused the Palestinian f a Y 1 officials of conspiring to usurp the 75- year-old leader's power. Screaming in the phone call to Al- Jazeera, she said, "a bunch of those who want to inherit are coming to Paris tomorrow. ... You have to realize the size of the con- to realize spiracy. I tell you they are trying to f the bury Abu Ammar alive," she said, y. I tell using the name by which Arafat is are going widely known. "He is all right and he is going lve "home. God is ye. great," she added. - Suha Arafat, Suha Arafat, Arafat's wife who lives in Paris and hadsnot seen her husband for more than three years, has controlled the flow of information over his illness and has kept all but a handful of Pales- tinians away from his bedside - arous- ing resentment back home. She also is widely believed to have control of vast amounts of PLO money. "She is not part of the Palestinian leadership," Arafat security adviser Jibril Rajoub told Israel's Channel Two TV on Sunday. Arafat's illness remained a mystery Sunday, his fifth day in intensive care at a French military hospital amid contradictory reports on whether he is in a coma. NEWS IN BRIEF r BsIE Jy: Ivory CoaBt Military leaders seek end to protests Thousands of government loyalists massed outside the home of Ivory Coast's president yesterday, facing off against French armored vehicles in response to urgent appeals for a "human shield" around the hard-line leader, amid fears of an overthrow. French and Ivory Coast military leaders, appearing together on state televi- sion, appealed for calm following three days of violent protests the Red Cross said had wounded more than 500 people. Two hospitals reported five dead and 250 wounded in yesterday's clashes alone. The U.N. Security Council met to consider sanctions and the African Union came out in support of French and U.N. intervention, isolating President Laurent Gbagbo. Chaos erupted Saturday when his air force killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker in an airstrike on Ivory Coast's rebel-held north. The government later called the bombing a mistake, which France rejected. Yesterday, French armored vehicles moved in around Gbagbo's home in Ivory Coast's commercial capital, Abidjan. "Their presence here is scaring people. They're crying and they think that Pres- ident Gbagbo is going to be overthrown," presidential spokesman Desire Tagro told the Associated Press by telephone. 0 WASHINGTON White House vet retained as chief of staff AP PHOTO A child stands next to the makeshift shrine for ailing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in front of the Percy Teaching Hospital in Clamart outside Paris yesterday. Iranian hardliners criticize nuclear deal TEHRAN, Iran - Iran said Mon- day a preliminary agreement reached between Iran and the European Union's three big powers may be finalized soon, but hard-liners criticized the deal and called on the government to ignore calls to keep suspending nuclear activities. The head of the U.N. nuclear watch- dog praised the deal as "a step in the right direction" and said he hoped it would be finalized in "the next few days." Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, also said he hopes the agreement will "lead to the desired out- come" - a suspension of Iran's nuclear enrichment activities and "open the way for normalization of Iran's relations with the international community." The preliminary agreement worked out Sunday in Paris with Britain, France and Germany needs to be approved by all four countries involved. If approved, the deal would be a major breakthrough after months of threats The hard-line daily Jomhuri-e-Esl- and negotiations andc from being taken before the U.N. Security Council, where the United States has warned it would seek econom- ic sanctions unless Tehran gives up all uranium enrichment activities, a technol- ogy that can pro- duce nuclear fuel or atomic weapons. "The trend of negotiations was a positive trend," Ira- nian Foreign Min- ister Kamal Kharraz could spare Iran ami denounced the If approved, the ' deal would be a major breakthrough after months of threats and negotiations and ' could spare Iran from being taken before the U.N. accord on its front page and urged the government to ignore European demands. "Despite the fact that the Europeans can- not be trusted has been proven to all, unfor- tunately these people (Iranian negotiators) have again reached agreement with these three traitor European coun- i told state-run television Monday. "We hope the deal between Iran and Europeans can be finalized and create the necessary con- fidence." tries," the daily said. Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hosse- in Mousavian, said Sunday the agree- ment included the basic viewpoints of both Iran and the Europeans but didn't provide details. Kharrazi suggested it included a short-term Iranian suspension of nuclear activities. "Today, the talk is about continu- ing the suspension for a short period to build confidence," the minister said. In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Europeans have not yet provided the Bush administration with a full readout of the talks in Tehran. He said the Euro- peans agree with the United States that Iran has to suspend fully and immedi- ately all nuclear weapons activities. The United States believes that if Iran does not comply, it should be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. German Foreign Ministry spokes- woman Antje Leendertse said in Berlin that the "talks were difficult but useful, and over the coming days all the partici- pants will analyze the results." Trial of driver for bin Laden halted GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - A U.S. federal court halted proceedings ahead of the military trial of Osama bin Laden's driver yesterday, saying his status as an enemy combatant had to be determined by a competent tribunal. It was the first time a federal court has halted proceedings ahead of trials before U.S. military commissions, which had been resurrected from World War II, at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. A U.S. District Court judge in Wash- ington halted the trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, 34, of Yemen, in a lawsuit filed by his lawyers. "Unless and until a competent tri- bunal determines that petitioner is not entitled to protections afforded prison- ers of war under Article 4 of the Geneva Convention ... of Aug. 12, 1949, he may not be tried by military commission for the offenses with which he is charged," U.S. District Judge James Robertson said in his ruling. The court also ruled that unless the military commission guidelines are changed to conform to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Hamdan can- not be tried by the commissions and must be moved from the pre-commis- sion wing at the Camp Delta prison camp to the general population. Four terror suspects set to go before the commissions were moved out of sol- itary cells recently to a pre-commission wing of Delta. Hamdan's military-appointed defense lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Swift, also asked the commission yesterday to rein- state two members and an alternate who were dismissed after challenges to their impartiality. Beginning to put his team in place for his second term, President Bush decided to keep Andy Card as White House chief of staff, retaining an unflappable veteran of the Reagan and first Bush presidencies. Card's first assignment: help the president reshape the administration for the term that begins in January, sorting through possible personnel changes. Bush and Card moved deliberately and privately yesterday, both staying out of public view after a weekend of brainstorming at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the subject of his future did not come up in several meetings with Bush since the election. "Needless to say, either one of us would discuss it with the other before discuss- ing it with you," Rumsfeld told a roomful of reporters. Rumsfeld aides have said they expect him to remain in the job for the start of Bush's new term, although whether he aims to stay the full four years is unclear. A Treasury Department official in charge of keeping tabs on the nation's financial markets, including Wall Street, announced that he intends to leave his post at the end of December. New pill reduces heart failure deaths in blacks A two-drug combination pill dramatically reduced deaths among blacks with heart failure, a landmark finding that is expected to lead to government approval of the first medication marketed for a specific race. Black cardiologists hailed this form of racial profiling after years in which minori- ties got short shrift in medical studies. Others complained that the drug also might helr whites and should have been tested in them, but wasn't for business reasons. "At times you can't win," said Augustus Grant, past president of the Associatior of Black Cardiologists, which supported the study. "Here we have a wonderful trial that shows a clear result and the issue is raised, 'Why was this trial only done ir African Americans?' " MIN NEA POLIS Survey: Minn. healthiest state, La. in last place Minnesota is the nation's healthiest state, while Louisiana is the least healthy, a ranking it has held for 14 of the last 15 years of a national survey, officials said. The annual report sponsored by the United Health Foundation weighs such fac- tors as health insurance coverage, heart disease rates, total and infant mortality rates, the rate of motor vehicle deaths, high school graduation rates, childhood poverty, and public health spending. "To rank well, you have to demonstrate suc- cess across the board," said Reed Tuckson, an official with the St. Paul-based United Health Foundation. Since the rankings began in 1990, Minnesota has finished first nine out of 15 times, and never sunk lower than No. 2. Last year, it tied for first with New Hampshire. - Compiled from Daily wire reports E5 6 I MARKET UPDATE MON. CLOSE J DCOW JON s 1O,391.31 - FLANGE +2.77 - 1.28 . 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