20 Jan 2005

Kidnapping of Chinese in Iraq
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, India
Supplied note: "The latest paper of the Institute For Topical Studies, A-2/3, Bharathi Dasan Colony, K.K.Nagar, Chennai---600078, India, on the above subject is now available at the web site of the South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG), New Delhi, at [the URL below] - br."
[Extract: "Eight Chinese workers from Fujian, who were travelling to Jordan from Najaf in Iraq by a car after having worked in a Chinese-aided power project there for catching a flight to China, were detained by an Iraqi resistance group on January 18, 2005, to protest against the Chinese involvement in the project. [...] 5.While a Chinese Government spokesman claimed that the men had gone to Iraq individually in search of work and, having failed, were travelling by car to Jordan in order to return home, the official Xinhua news agency quoted sources as saying that the men had been working in a Chinese project to rebuild a factory in Najaf - a project which Xinhua said had nothing to do with the US-led multinational forces. [...] 8.China had pledged US$25 million of humanitarian assistance to Iraq in October, 2003, in addition to reportedly promising that the Chinese enterprises would play an active role in the reconstruction of Iraq." - b.raman]
[The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter - ed.]
URL http://www.saag.org/papers13/paper1225.html
Internet Archive (www.archive.org) [the paper was not archived at the time of this abstract. However, in a few weeks time it will be available at web.archive.org/web/*/www.saag.org]
Link reported by: B. Raman (corde--at--vsnl.com)
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