abcnews.go.com The Associated Press SARAVENA, Colombia Feb. 1 —

Leftist guerrillas freed an American photographer and a British reporter on Saturday after kidnapping them 11 days earlier in one of the most violent regions of Colombia.

Scott Dalton, of Conroe, Texas, and Ruth Morris, a British citizen raised in southern California, were the first foreign journalists to be kidnapped in Colombia's four-decade-long war. Both live in Bogota and had been in Arauca on assignment for the Los Angeles Times.

The National Liberation Army, known as the ELN, released the journalists to an International Red Cross delegate in eastern Colombia, not far from where they were abducted, Red Cross spokesman Carlos Rios said.

The pair were driven in a van to a shrapnel- and bullet-scarred airport in Saravena a town in Arauca state near the Venezuelan border. They smiled and waved to reporters, then boarded a Red Cross plane bound for Bogota, the capital.

Their colleagues and friends in the Colombian capital, and those who had traveled to Arauca to cover the kidnapping, were ecstatic after Morris, 35, and Dalton, 34, were freed.

"I'm looking forward to seeing them and giving them a big hug," said Dan Molinski, bureau chief in Bogota for Dow Jones NewsWires.

The two veteran journalists were stopped at an ELN roadblock south of Saravena on Jan. 21, then led away with hoods over their heads. Their taxi driver, who was released a day later, said the rebels had planned to grant the journalists an interview with a senior commander, or send them back with a communique.

But the ELN said two days later over a clandestine rebel radio station that the pair had been "detained" by the insurgents, who complained about the U.S. military presence in Arauca. They later demanded the Colombian military halt offensive operations in the state, which is twice the size of New Jersey, but then appeared to back off the demand.

The 5,000-strong ELN had said the journalists would be released to a humanitarian commission on Friday. But citing security concerns, the commission composed of Catholic church officials, the government human rights ombudsman and others canceled its mission at the last minute.

Lorenzo Karafi, the Red Cross delegate based in Arauca, had been in contact with the ELN since last week trying to facilitate the release. Late Friday, the rebels called him and said they'd free the captives the following day.

The ELN and a larger rebel group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia are fighting U.S.-backed government troops and an outlawed paramilitary group for control of oil-rich Arauca.

About 70 U.S. Army special forces troops arrived in Arauca this month to train Colombian Army soldiers in counterinsurgency tactics so they can protect a key oil pipeline that has been frequently blown up by the guerrillas.

President Alvaro Uribe took a tough line against the rebels on Friday, insisting that the hostages be freed without a spectacle. Uribe also warned that government troops would not halt operations in Arauca province in the meantime.

Uribe has vowed to regain control of Arauca as a showcase of his attempts to put this war-riven South American country in order. The state is the site of frequent kidnappings, assassinations, and car bomb explosions.

Dalton worked as a photographer for The Associated Press for about nine years in Panama, Guatemala, and Colombia. He left the AP last year to pursue video projects while freelancing for newspapers.

Morris has written for as a freelancer for The Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and other publications.

abcnews.go.com Feb. 1 — By Peg Mackey

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - OPEC power Saudi Arabia said on Saturday there was no shortage of oil in world markets and it would work to ensure the producers' group fulfills its new higher production ceiling of 24.5 million barrels per day (bpd).

"We have responded to the demands of our customers...there is no shortage of crude supply," Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, told reporters ahead of an energy and environment conference.

"I can assure we will make sure, as Saudi Arabia, that 24.5 million bpd is delivered," he said. OPEC agreed last month to raise its output ceiling by 1.5 million bpd to 24.5 million bpd in a bid to cover a supply shortfall created by strike-bound OPEC member Venezuela.

The oil minister of Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, declined to say how much oil the kingdom was pumping.

But he said Riyadh would be prepared, if needed, to make use of its still substantial spare capacity which he pegged at 2-2.5 million bpd. "Saudi Arabia has stated many, many times its responsibility to the oil market," he said. "We will supply any shortage up to our capacity whatever the cause."

The kingdom's new OPEC quota from February is set at 7.963 million bpd, but industry sources say the kingdom is expected to pump 8.5-9.0 million bpd.

Naimi has made clear that Riyadh is capable if necessary of ramping up flows to 10 million bpd within weeks.

He said OPEC stood ready to make up for any supply shortages without the release of world's emergency reserves.

"There is confidence in the producing countries to make up any shortfall without having to draw on strategic reserves," Naimi said.

The Saudi oil minister said global stockpiles are now running on the low side, particularly in the United States, due to the two-month strike in Venezuela. But he said inventories would start to fill up soon.

"With Venezuela returning and supplies steaming to the U.S., we will see a gradual build in inventory," Naimi said.

The state of global inventories will dominate discussions at the cartel's March 11 meeting, he said.

Naimi estimated there would be a demand decline in the second quarter of the year of about 2.5 million bpd.

www.sun-sentinel.com By STEPHEN IXER Associated Press Posted February 1 2003, 2:28 PM EST

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Opponents of President Hugo Chavez began focusing on a petition driver to cut his term in power Saturday, after agreeing to ease a two-month strike that has crippled Venezuela's economy.

Opposition leaders plan to hold what they call the ``Great Sign-up'' on Sunday, inviting citizens to sign various initiatives rejecting Chavez's government and seeking his ouster.

The opposition hopes one petition in particular _ a constitutional amendment to reduce Chavez's term from six to four years _ will succeed, paving the way for general elections later this year.

Under the constitution, organizers need signatures from 15 percent, or about 1.8 million, of the country's 12 million registered voters _ a number they expect to easily surpass.

``Our idea is to get 5 million signatures,'' Carlos Ocariz, a member of the opposition party Justice First, said Saturday on Globovision television.

The amendment was one of two proposals made by Nobel Peace Prize winner and former President Jimmy Carter. The other is to hold a recall referendum on Chavez's rule halfway through his six-year term, in August. The opposition will also collect signatures for this initiative Sunday.

Representatives from the United States, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal and Spain said met in Caracas on Friday to urge both sides to accept one of Carter's proposals and bring Venezuela's prolonged crisis to a swift end.

The six-nation ``Group of Friends'' said both the government and opposition must make concessions during negotiations mediated by Cesar Gaviria, the secretary-general of the Organization of American States.

Strike organizers, who began the protest Dec. 2 to pressure Chavez into accepting a referendum on his rule, said they would ease the work stoppage next week to protect businesses against bankruptcy.

The strike has cost at least $4 billion in lost oil revenues alone, the government estimates. And the Santander Central Hispano investment bank has warned that the economy could shrink by as much as 40 percent in the first quarter of 2003.

Most small businesses never joined the strike, and many more companies have opened their doors in recent days.

Factories, schools, malls and franchise restaurants would be urged to open next week, strike leaders said Friday.

Effects of the strike remain greatest in the vital oil industry, which makes up a third of the economy and provides half of government income. Despite government efforts to restart the industry, production remains just over 1 million barrels a day, or about a third of pre-strike levels.

www.forbes.com Reuters, 02.01.03, 2:17 PM ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The space shuttle Columbia broke up in the skies over Texas with seven astronauts aboard after it lost contact with NASA minutes before its scheduled landing. NASA warned local residents not to approach debris raining down on the Dallas-Fort Worth area because of the shuttle's poisonous propellant. All the astronauts were killed, NASA said.

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials said there was no immediate sign that terrorism was involved in the shuttle loss.

JERUSALEM - A rare symbol of hope for Israel vanished in three trails of smoke when the first Israeli astronaut was lost in the explosion.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix would travel to Iraq on February 8, but would not meet President Saddam Hussein.

LONDON/BAGHDAD - British Prime Minister Tony Blair flew home from a council of war with George W. Bush and forecast that divided world opinion would rally behind a new U.N. resolution that might authorise an attack on Iraq.

WASHINGTON/SEOUL - U.S. spy satellites show North Korea could be moving toward making nuclear warheads, U.S. officials said, as a top military commander called for more troops, bombers and ships to bolster ally South Korea.

ABIDJAN - Hundreds of thousands of protesters flooded Abidjan to denounce a French-brokered peace deal for Ivory Coast, as West African leaders made a last bid to save the tottering accord.

HARARE - At least 40 people were killed and 60 injured when a passenger train collided with a goods train, derailed and caught fire in Zimbabwe.

GAZA - Israeli troops shot dead an armed Palestinian in a Gaza Strip border zone and imposed a curfew on the West Bank city of Hebron in a renewed military crackdown following Israeli national elections.

SRINAGAR, India - Indian security forces shot dead 13 Muslim rebels in gunbattles in India's part of Kashmir, police said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Eight suspects have been arrested after an explosion near the southern city of Kandahar that killed up to nine people in a minibus, officials said.

ZAGREB - Doctors appointed by the Hague war crimes tribunal have determined that indicted Croat General Janko Bobetko is medically unfit to stand trial, the Croatian daily newspaper Vjesnik reported.

NAPLES, Italy - Italian police found a photograph of Britain's most senior military man, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, in an apartment where they arrested 28 Pakistanis in a big anti-terror raid, judicial and police sources said.

BERLIN - Iraq will launch thousands of suicide attackers against U.S. troops if the United States invades, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told the German magazine Der Spiegel.

BUDAPEST - The U.S. military began training Iraqi volunteers at a Hungarian air base to be guides and support for international troops in the event of any war against Iraq.

ISTANBUL - Turkey's influential military appeared on to have given the reluctant government a firm push towards actively supporting the United States in any war on Iraq.

BANGKOK/PHNOM PENH - Thailand accused Cambodian politicians of starting anti-Thai riots in Phnom Penh as authorities there charged 43 people, including a newspaper editor, over the violence.

CARACAS, Venezuela - A six-nation "group of friends" appealed to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his foes to settle their conflict through elections after hundreds of thousands of opposition protesters clamored in Caracas for an early election.

abcnews.go.com Feb. 1 — By Jose Miguel Gomez

ARAUCA, Colombia (Reuters) - Marxist rebels freed a British reporter and U.S. photographer on Saturday after holding them hostage for nearly two weeks in a violent stretch of eastern Colombia, ending the kidnapping saga with a rural handoff to the Red Cross.

British reporter Ruth Morris and U.S. photographer Scott Dalton appeared to be in good health and spirits as they arrived in a Red Cross van at a small airport in battle-scared Arauca province.

They chatted with Red Cross officials but made no public comments, and were expected to soon board a Red Cross plane for the nation's capital, about 280 miles away.

Morris and Dalton were abducted on Jan. 21 while traveling on freelance assignment for The Los Angeles Times along a rural road in war-torn Arauca province, where U.S. special forces have begun training local troops in counterinsurgency techniques.

Forces with the Cuban-inspired National Liberation Army, or ELN, stopped the two at a road block, hooded them and took them to a secret guerrilla camp, according to their driver, who was later released. The United States brands the ELN a "terrorist" organization.

Until the kidnapping of Morris and Dalton, foreign journalists had covered Colombia's raging guerrilla war with a certain "diplomatic immunity." Leftist rebels and right paramilitary gunmen often give interviews to foreign press.

Attacks against local journalists, however, are frequent and have made Colombia one of the most dangerous places in the world for reporters. Eight Colombian journalists were killed last year alone.

The ELN denied the two reporters were ever kidnapped, insisting they were "detained" due to security procedures. Their release followed a decision from senior rebel commanders, made public on Jan 28.

Arauca, an oil-rich region of savannas and swamps bordering Venezuela, is one of focal points in Colombia's four-decade war. The conflict is partly funded by the world's largest cocaine industry, along with kidnapping for ransom.

Suspected rebels last week killed six soldiers after detonating the fourth car bomb in a month in a fresh challenge to hard-line President Alvaro Uribe. Uribe has declared areas in Arauca as "special war zones."

A group of 70 U.S. Special Forces personnel are there to train local troops to protect a key oil pipeline, serving an oil field operated by U.S. oil firm Occidental Petroleum (), from rebel attack.

Arrival of the Special Forces marked a new level of U.S. involvement in Colombia's conflict, although Washington has provided about $2 billion in mainly military aid aimed against the country's huge cocaine industry.