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/ 6 January 2004

US to fingerprint millions of foreign visitors

The well turned out woman in trench coat and silky scarf stomped off the plane from Tokyo and headed for home in the suburbs of Virginia. ”It was too bad,” said Mrs Suzuki, the discomfort of a 12-hour flight compounded by the indignities of the new security measures on arrival. ”I felt like I was being treated like a criminal.”

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/ 6 January 2004

The UN’s man in Afghanistan

A British army officer may become the United Nations’s top administrator in Afghanistan, in a highly unusual move which reflects international concern at mounting threats to security in the war-torn country. ”I am being considered and I have been interviewed in New York,” Major General John McColl said on Monday night.

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/ 6 January 2004

Jeers, scuffles as Sharon defends settlements plan

Ariel Sharon was heckled and booed by members of his own party on Monday as he pledged to stick with his plan for a partial withdrawal from the occupied territories and the dismantling of some Jewish settlements. The Israeli prime minister’s speech was interrupted as scuffling broke out in the Tel Aviv hall where thousands of Likud members were gathered.

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/ 6 January 2004

Iran considers moving capital from quake zone

Startled by the obliteration of its eastern city of Bam by an earthquake, Iran is considering moving its capital from seismically active Tehran to a safer part of the country. Iranian scientists warned that a powerful earthquake under the teeming city of 12-million people could claim 720 000 lives and paralyse the state.