Americans, Briton Reportedly Taken Hostage in Iraq

A senior Iraqi official says two Americans and one British contractor were seized from their central Baghdad home and taken hostage.
Officials say the two Americans and one Briton lived in a house in Baghdad's wealthy Mansur neighborhood. Neighbors say a group of about 10 gunmen entered the house at dawn, taking the three foreigners. One neighbor said the house was poorly guarded.

Neither U.S nor British diplomats have confirmed the abduction. Officials from both embassies say they are investigating. The three men reportedly work for Gulf Services Company, a Middle East-based construction firm.

The incident is similar to the abduction of two Italian aid workers from their central Baghdad office 10-days ago. Witnesses say gunmen entered the office of their non-governmental organization, A Bridge to Baghdad, and took Simona Pari and Simona Torretta hostage, along with two Iraqi colleagues.

Rights workers, members of Iraq's aid community, and Islamic groups have condemned the abduction of the two women as unIslamic.

"We want to tell the kidnappers, the Italians are kind, and they came to help Iraqi people," said Abdul Salam Akubaisi, with the Muslim Clerics' Association. "They have no relation to the occupiers, and they are similar to the French, who were against the war."

Mr. Akubaisi added that the women were interested in Islam, and that the Prophet Mohammed calls for women to be honored, not humiliated.

There has been no word on the women's fate.

More than 100 foreigners are believed to have been abducted in Iraq since April. Often, militant groups have tried to use the hostages to force foreign governments to withdraw their forces from the U.S.-led coalition. Roughly two dozen hostages have been killed, some of them beheaded, and videos of those executions have then been posted on militant Web sites.

Two French journalists also remain missing. Georges Brunot and Christian Chesnot were seized by militants on August 20, outside the city of Najaf. Hopes had been raised about a possible release earlier this month, following an intense round of negotiations by the French government.

Earlier this week, two Australians and two Asians were reported abducted on the highway between the cities of Samarra and Mosul.

Australian officials have been unable to confirm their identity, raising suspicions that the report is a hoax.




N. Korea Rejects More Nuclear Talks Until South's Program is Probed

North Korea has again indicated that it does not plan to participate in talks about its nuclear weapons development until there is a full explanation about South Korea's recently disclosed atomic experiments.

The Korean Central News Agency reported that the refusal to participate had been relayed to British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell, who visited Pyongyang earlier this week. South Korea recently admitted that it had conducted plutonium-based and uranium enrichment experiments, although it says they were not for weapons research. Just hours before the North Korean report, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi told reporters the other five nations in the talks - China, South Korea, the United States, Japan and Russia - are attempting to get North Korea back to the negotiating table within the next few weeks.

"We all are making efforts so that we will be able to have six-party talks within this month," she said. "And I admit there are speculations that it is getting more and more difficult as days go on."

North Korea also denied suggestions that it is waiting to see who wins the U.S. presidential election in November before returning to the talks. The North's news agency said Pyongyang "does not care" whether President Bush is re-elected, or defeated by Democratic challenger John Kerry.

North Korea withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2002 and has admitted restarting a plutonium-based weapons program. U.S. officials say Pyongyang also admitted privately two years ago that it had a separate uranium-enrichment program, but the North denies this.

Meanwhile, foreign diplomats from eight countries have traveled to a remote part of North Korea where a mysterious nighttime explosion occurred last week.

South Korean media initially reported a mushroom cloud over the blast site, leading to fears that North Korea might have conducted a nuclear test. But no radiation was detected, and Pyongyang later said the explosion was part of a construction project for a hydroelectric dam.

Japan's NHK network reported that the diplomats had reached the blast site after several hours of air and overland travel.