<a href=www.nzherald.co.nz>nzherald.co.nz-Reuters 04.05.2003 11.45am - By DANIEL BALINT-KURTI

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria - The first batch of freed foreign hostages, seized by striking Nigerian oil workers on offshore rigs more than two weeks ago, docked safely at a mainland port today, witnesses said.

"It was a little difficult but it worked itself out," said a British man in his 30s as he stepped ashore. He declined to give his name as did his colleagues.

The dishevelled looking former captives walked briskly and crowded into two waiting vehicles which sped off into town. Plans for their onward journey were not clear.

The nearly 100 foreign workers, held captive on four oil rigs since April 16, included 35 Britons and 17 Americans.

Louis Perada, a hostage from Venezuela who was ferried to safety by helicopter earlier, said: "At the beginning it was a little bit apprehensive. But it became normal. You don't expect people who have been living with you for two years to harm you."

At the start of the drama, some hostages wrote in e-mails to their spouses of threats by the strikers to blow up the rigs.

Like the others, Perada was taken to the port city of Port Harcourt. It was unclear which rig he had been on.

Most hostages were ferried to safety on the Susan McCall and the Adams Surveyor. Both boats arrived from the M.G. Hulme, one of four rigs operated by Houston-based Transocean Inc. Some 400 people were working on the rigs when they were seized.

About a dozen paramilitary policemen with semi-automatic weapons and horsewhips kept a small crowd of onlookers at bay.

One of the few Nigerians who travelled with the foreigners denied that the expatriates had been hostages.

"They were not hostages," snapped John Bojor.

The strikers agreed on Friday to free their captives after talks convened by the umbrella Nigeria Labour Congress at the request of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The junior workers, who blocked rig helipads with cranes and drums to cut access by air, had demanded reinstatement for five sacked union officials by Transocean.

Most local rig workers are members of the NUPENG oil union, which helped negotiate the release of the hostages.

Mystery surrounded the situation on the other rigs, with one port official saying phone calls to the platforms were not being answered. He said he was not sure the strike had been completely called off on all platforms.

The agreement called for the evacuation of all the Nigerian rig workers as well, a large-scale operation requiring the use of boats and helicopters.

A port official said he expected a total of about 65 people, mostly foreigners, to arrive from the Hulme on Saturday.

The Hulme is on contract to TotalFinaElf and the other three are drilling for Royal Dutch/Shell. All are in southern Nigeria's Gulf of Guinea.

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor Sunday May 4, 2003 guardian.co.uk-The Observer

Irish police can now pinpoint most of the IRA arms dumps in the Republic, The Observer can reveal.

The sites of 75 per cent of the secret hides containing tonnes of guns and explosives are known to the Garda Siochana. But a senior officer told The Observer this weekend that political considerations prevent the force from digging for the arsenals.

The hidden arms, which include surface-to-air missiles and tonnes of Semtex explosive, has become one of the main obstacles in the Irish peace process, with unionists demanding that the IRA decommission its arsenal.

The revelation that the security forces in the Republic know the whereabouts of the 'super dumps' comes after the Ulster Defence Association handed over a number of bombs to police in north Belfast yesterday. Eight pipe bombs were left for the police to collect in the loyalist Tigers Bay around midday.

The homemade bombs belonged to the UDA's so-called North Belfast Brigade. Made from industrial piping, packed with nails, ball bearings and iron filings and set off with a lit fuse, similar bombs have been used in sectarian rioting and the intimidation of Catholics in the area over the last five years.

The UDA leadership said it had handed over the pipe bombs to lower communal tensions in the run-up to Ulster's marching season. It also said the move was to assure the public of its commitment to the John Gregg initiative, 'which promises to work for better conditions for loyalists, especially those living in interface areas'. The initiative is named after the UDA terrorist killed by allies of Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair in a loyalist feud this year.

But the UDA ruled out any more acts of decommissioning as a means of exerting pressure on the IRA to follow suit. 'We would emphasise that this action is not construed as an act of decommissioning. The UDA assures the loyalist people of north Belfast that we will remain their last line of defence.'

A spokesman for the UDA's political wing, the Ulster Political Research Group, welcomed the move.

Speaking in Tigers Bay, Sammy Duddy, the UPRG spokesman, said: 'We think it's a very positive move. People on interface areas have suffered enough. If the nationalists would only take a similar line, there would be no interface violence.'

The rift between Sinn Fein and the Irish government widened yesterday after a Dublin Cabinet Minister called on the IRA to be clearer about ending their 'war'.

Speaking in Armagh City after a meeting with local SDLP activists, Irish Minister Dermot Ahern said: 'Tony Blair shared the Irish government's view that the IRA were only a whisker away. We now need to look at where we are and move forward by pressing for clarification on the final point. If the original IRA statement had_ clearly stated an end to paramilitary activity, there would have obviously been no need for clarification.'

Following the decision to postpone this month's Assembly elections, Gerry Adams launched an attack on Irish Justice Minister Michael McDowell. The Sinn Fein president said he had no confidence in McDowell's ability to negotiate with the British Government. 'I wouldn't send him out for a bottle of milk,' Adams jibed as relations between republicans and the Irish government soured at the end of last week.

Despite the row there is no prospect that the Irish government will sanction moves to raid the IRA arms dumps, which are stretched across the Republic from Co Kerry in the south to Meath and Louth. Bertie Ahern's government prefers to persuade the republicans that their weapons have become a dead weight around Sinn Fein's political ambitions.

A senior Garda officer told The Observer last week that a recent intelligence breakthrough had helped the force locate up to 75 per cent of the IRA's arms hides. 'Moving on those is a political matter and the politics at the moment means there will be no drive against them. The only way I could see them being raided is if there was a return to violence by the Provos, which is now extremely unlikely.'

The officer declined to go into detail about the latest intelligence boost, but it is understood that it came from informants seeking a deal with the Irish government.

He said there was additional intelligence that the IRA was planning to dispose of its Semtex in a deal with narco-terrorists in Colombia. The Irish police have established that the IRA explored the possibility of shipping out Semtex to the left-wing Farc guerrillas via Venezuela in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Three IRA suspects are accused in Bogotá of training Farc to build homemade weaponry, including mortar bombs and rockets. The trial of the trio, who include the IRA's head of engineering Jim Monaghan, will reopen in June.

Tony Blair will face angry protests when he arrives in Dublin for a summit with Bertie Ahern to discuss the political deadlock in the North. Sinn Fein is organising a demonstration in the capital against Britain's decision to shelve elections until the autumn.

news.com.au From a correspondent in Port Harcourt, Nigeria May 4, 2003

HUNDREDS of hostages have left the offshore oil rigs where striking Nigerian oil workers held them captive for weeks - signalling a peaceful end to the standoff. Some essential staff would remain behind on the four oil-drilling platforms, but "everyone else, they are departing in phases over (today) and the weekend," said Guy Cantwell, spokesman for rig owners Transocean Inc, based in Houston.

The evacuation "is continuing and we are going to do it as quickly as we can", he said.

Many of the 170 Nigerian and 97 expatriate hostages - which included 35 Britons, 17 Americans and two Canadians - travelled together with their 100 captors on boats and helicopters to port cities around Nigeria's oil-rich southern coast today.

Cantwell said all the expatriate workers had already left the installations, 40km off Nigeria's southern coast.

The Nigerian oil workers held their captives since launching a wildcat strike on April 19 over grievances with Transocean's management.

Company officials and the striking workers' representatives negotiated the release yesterday, after which the first captive was soon freed.

The strikers have demanded the reinstatement of fired workers and that they be transported to the rigs by helicopters, not boats.

Their principal concerns will be addressed at a later date, according to a communique issued after yesterday's talks.

Sweaty and bedraggled, the released hostages told of threats, tedium and discomfort, but no one was immediately known to have been injured by their Nigerian captors.

"It was tense at the start, but the last few days weren't bad," said Mark Richards, from Portsmouth in the United Kingdom, who arrived at this southern port city in one of at least two ferryboats, each carrying about 20 people. "There was some intimidation," said Richards.

"This was not that bad," said Luis Peraza, from Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, after hopping from a helicopter at Port Harcourt's airport.

"Sometimes it's worse," said Peraza, who has been onboard two other rigs during strikes by Nigerians.

Two other helicopters said to be carrying hostages were seen in Warri, another port town.

A Nigerian labour official who helped negotiate the hostages' freedom said he believed all captives were expected to leave the rigs today.

The rigs are drilling wells on behalf of multinationals Shell and TotalFinaElf.

Sabotage and hostage-takings by community activists, labor groups and thugs demanding compensation for land use and alleged environmental damage are common in the southern Niger Delta, where nearly all of Nigeria's oil is drilled. Hostages rarely are harmed.

Despite the region's vast petroleum stores, most of its residents remain desperately poor. Nigeria is one of the world's largest oil exporters and the fifth-largest producer of US oil imports. The Associated Press

Sat May 3, 2003 02:34 PM ET By Daniel Balint-Kurti

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (<a href=reuters.com>Reuters) - The first batch of freed foreign hostages, seized by striking Nigerian oil workers on offshore rigs more than two weeks ago, docked safely at a mainland port on Saturday, witnesses said.

"It was a little difficult but it worked itself out," said a British man in his 30s as he stepped ashore. He declined to give his name as did his colleagues.

The disheveled and grumpy looking former captives walked briskly and crowded into two waiting vehicles which sped off into town. Plans for their onward journey were not clear.

The nearly 100 foreign workers, held captive on four oil rigs since April 16, included 35 Britons and 17 Americans.

Louis Perada, a hostage from Venezuela who was ferried to safety by helicopter earlier, said: "At the beginning it was a little bit apprehensive. But it became normal. You don't expect people who have been living with you for two years to harm you."

At the start of the drama, some hostages wrote in e-mails to their spouses of threats by the strikers to blow up the rigs.

Like the others, Perada was taken to the port city of Port Harcourt. It was unclear which rig he had been on.

Most hostages were ferried to safety on the Susan McCall and the Adams Surveyor. Both boats arrived from the M.G. Hulme, one of four rigs operated by Houston-based Transocean Inc . Some 400 people were working on the rigs when they were seized.

About a dozen paramilitary policemen with semi-automatic weapons and horsewhips kept a small crowd of onlookers at bay.

HOSTAGES, WHAT HOSTAGES?

One of the few Nigerians who traveled with the foreigners denied that the expatriates had been hostages.

"They were not hostages," snapped John Bojor.

The strikers agreed on Friday to free their captives after talks convened by the umbrella Nigeria Labour Congress at the request of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The junior workers, who blocked rig helipads with cranes and drums to cut access by air, had demanded reinstatement for five sacked union officials by Transocean.

Most local rig workers are members of the NUPENG oil union, which helped negotiate the release of the hostages.

Mystery surrounded the situation on the other rigs, with one port official saying phone calls to the platforms were not being answered. He said he was not sure the strike had been completely called off on all platforms.

The agreement called for the evacuation of all the Nigerian rig workers as well, a large-scale operation requiring the use of boats and helicopters.

A port official said he expected a total of about 65 people, mostly foreigners, to arrive from the Hulme on Saturday.

The Hulme is on contract to TotalFinaElf and the other three are drilling for Royal Dutch/Shell . All are in southern Nigeria's Gulf of Guinea.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Thursday, May 01, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

A US State Department report on Global Terrorism Patterns in 2002 has criticized Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias for sending out mixed signals on the issue, singling out his now famous reaction to the US invasion of Afghanistan as a prime example.

Critics say the USA itself has been sending out mixed signals, praising the Venezuelan government's efforts to stem terrorism one minute and hitting out at the President for alleged links with terrorists groups the next.

The State Department report says Venezuela is signatory to 4 of 12 international conventions and protocols on terrorism and its laws do not back a thorough and efficient investigation into terrorist financial organs or activities. 

Last year the USA assisted Venezuela in assessing its vulnerabilities in the field and proposed appropriate political remedies but the plan was put on a backburner because of political and economic unrest towards the end of the year.  

Highlighting the "persistence of unconfirmed rumors," the USA suggests that the Venezuela government "apparently"  is passing arms and other backup material to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which the USA now considers a terrorist group.