Challenging UN sanctions, Iraq yesterday announced the reopening of the refurbished Saddam International Airport (Roula Khalaf, Financial Times, 18 Aug).
     Humanitarian flights are exempt from a UN ban on air traffic to Iraq, but they must be approved by the world body (BBC Online, 17 Aug).

UN Asks Iraq To Cooperate Over Missing Kuwaitis
     Security Council members called on Baghdad yesterday to cooperate with a UN official who has been working to trace more than 600 Kuwaitis and others missing since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
     The council released a statement after a closed-door briefing with former Russian UN ambassador Yuli Vorontsov, who was appointed earlier this year to coordinate efforts to locate the missing persons and Kuwaiti property seized by Iraq.
     Council President Hasmy Agam of Malaysia said members expressed support for Vorontsov's efforts and "deep concern at the plight of the missing Kuwaiti and third country nationals and their families."
     The statement added that the council hoped the issue would be dealt with as a strictly humanitarian one by all sides concerned, stressing that importance of dialogue among all parties, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
     Vorontsov has been unable to open a dialogue with Iraqi authorities about the missing persons and Iraq denies holding any of them. Despite Vorontsov's recent report that Iraq had returned a substantial amount of property over the last nine years, many items remain in Iraqi possession, ranging from extensive Kuwaiti state archives and museum pieces to eight Mirage fighter planes and a large quantity of weapons and other military equipment (Reuters/MSNBC.com, 17 Aug).
     Iraq has withdrawn from the international committee looking into missing persons, claiming it has not applied enough pressure on Kuwait to disclose information about missing Iraqis (Associated Press/ABCNews.com, 18 Aug).

US Lashes Out Against UN-Commissioned Report On Iraq
     The United States yesterday lashed out at a UN-commissioned report by a Belgian international law professor that says UN trade sanctions against Iraq are "unequivocally illegal."
     In a report to the UN Human Rights Subcommission in Geneva, Marc Bossuyt said the sanctions were to blame for a humanitarian disaster in Iraq "comparable to the worst catastrophes of the past decades."
     However, US Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva George Moose told the UN forum that Bossuyt's claim was "incorrect, biased and inflammatory. The United States has worked hard to ensure that the welfare of the Iraqi people is protected, in stark contrast to the appalling behavior of an Iraqi regime which has shown itself to be completely insensitive to the suffering of its own people," he said.
     Iraqi officials say the UN oil-for-food program has done little to alleviate the people's suffering. Iraq rejected a UN resolution which would have eased the sanctions if Baghdad allowed the return of international arms inspectors into the country (Reuters/MSNBC.com, 17 Aug).

US Group To Rebuild Water Purification Plant
     The US-based Veterans for Peace is spending nearly $10,000 to rebuild a water purification plant in a town in southern Iraq.
     Iraqi officials say the original plant was destroyed during the 1991 Gulf War and was never rebuilt because of a lack of parts. Iraq blames the sanctions for preventing it from acquiring spare parts from abroad (Waiel Faleh, Associated Press, 18 Aug).