U.S. citizen kidnapped in Iraq, State Department says
By wire services
Published March 31, 2005
BAGHDAD - Al-Jazeera satellite channel aired a tape Wednesday that purported to show three Romanian journalists kidnapped in Iraq and a fourth person, apparently an American.
The station said the four were held by an unnamed militant group and no demands were made.
The U.S. State Department said Wednesday that a U.S. citizen was taken hostage with the three Romanians.
Private Romanian television station Realitatea TV reported that an Iraqi-American who worked as the journalists' translator was the fourth person kidnapped.
On Tuesday, the Romanian government reported that three journalists were abducted a day earlier near their Baghdad hotel after interviewing Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. One victim used a cell phone to report the kidnapping.
Gunmen attack Shiite pilgrims, killing one
BAGHDAD - Gunmen opened fire on more Shiite Muslim pilgrims making their way Wednesday to a major religious festival in southern Iraq, killing one person and fueling fears that insurgents may target the gathering that draws hundreds of thousands of people every year.
The latest ambush, near Mahaweel, about 35 miles south of Baghdad, also wounded two pilgrims, police Capt. Muthana al-Furati said.
Roads across Iraq were crowded with Shiites heading to Karbala to celebrate the al-Arbaeen festival Thursday.
War exacerbated kids' malnutrition, expert says
GENEVA - Malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis has almost doubled since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, a hunger specialist told the U.N. human rights body Wednesday in a summary of previously reported studies on health in Iraq.
By last fall, 7.7 percent of Iraqi children under 5 suffered acute malnutrition, compared to 4 percent after Hussein's ouster in April 2003, said Jean Ziegler, the U.N. Human Rights Commission's special expert on the right to food.
Ziegler did not mention the role of Iraq's insurgency in the nutrition problem, something often cited by aid groups.
Also, the authors of the report in the British medical journal the Lancet - researchers from Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad - conceded data were of "limited precision."
Also ...
Lawmakers are scheduled to meet Sunday to try again to choose a Parliament speaker.
A U.S. Marine en route to Qaim died when his vehicle hit a land mine, the U.S. military said.
