World News Summary Today
US DefenseSec. Donald Rumsfeld
RAMALLAH,West Bank: As Israel tried to play down the US-led squeeze tolift its siege of Yasser Arafat's Ramallah headquarters, the Palestinianleader's own Fatah party insisted he forge ahead with much-neededpolitical reforms.
OUTSIDE BOUAKE, Ivory Coast: Children trapped by fighting betweensoldiers and mutineers in the central Ivory Coast city of Bouakedrove out of the city waving US flags after being freed by Frenchtroops, AFP witnessed.
WARSAW:US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he had received unsolicitedsupport from some NATO allies for Washington's hardline stanceon Iraq but refused to say where the support had come from.
KARACHI:Pakistan's Christian community announced a three-day closure oftheir institutions to mourn the killings of seven community membersas hundreds staged a rally to condemn an attack on a Christiancharity organisation here.
GENEVA:The International Committee of the Red Cross issued a solemn appealfor the reinforcement of a global ban on biological weapons, warningthat the world was on the threshold of an era in which germs wouldreplace guns as favoured weapons of war.