Free Republic

The nonprofit's activities are being well-received by the people in an area south of most of the violence 11/23/03 JEFFREY KOSSEFF Mercy Corps aid workers in Iraq have survived explosions near their homes and gunshot warnings as they drove between cities. They know the nation contains Iraqi insurgents eager to stop reconstruction and return control to the Baathists. They see other nonprofit humanitarian groups pulling out quickly as bombings and violence continue throughout the nation. But Portland-based Mercy Corps is staying put in southern Iraq, helping communities rebuild their schools, sewage systems and hospitals. The 25 workers, from the United...

A SEBEGALESE Muslim cleric deported from Italy as a danger to state security was quoted today as telling a pan-Arab newspaper that he had met three times with Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network. The cleric, Abdel Qadir Mamour, told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat in an interview by telephone from Dakar, Senegal, that he had the meetings with bin Laden in Sudan from 1993 to 1996. Mamour said bin Laden had provided money to finance his trading in diamonds between Africa and Belgium, but did not say how much money was involved or if bin Laden was...