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AUSTRALIAN soldiers drew arms to protect themselves from Jordanian peacekeepers after a Digger blew the whistle on other Jordanian soldiers' sexual abuse of East Timorese boys. Corporal Andrew Wratten had to be evacuated and Australian commandos sent to protect Diggers in Oecussi, an East Timorese province in Indonesian West Timor, after he told the UN of the pedophilia that occurred in May 2001. The Australians drew their Steyr assault rifles after being confronted by Jordanians armed with M-16s, in an escalation of verbal threats triggered by the betrayal of Corporal Wratten by a Jordanian officer in the Dili headquarters of...

The murder of Sergio Vieira de Mello and his many United Nations colleagues on August 19 is a catastrophe. It is the international version of September 11, and it makes it infinitely harder for the UN to help in the reconstruction of an independent Iraq. Which is just what the murderers intended. The numbers of dead bear no comparison. But the evil men who carried out this attack murdered more UN officials than in any other assault upon the organisation since it was created after the Second World War. Just as September 11 was an attack upon America, August 19...

'I Should Always Believe Journalists,' He Said, Adding: 'Please Pray for Me.' By STEVEN ERLANGER One, a Brazilian, looked like Hollywood's notion of a diplomat — slender, graying, elegant, with a touch of an accent in the many languages he spoke. One, an Egyptian, was a hard-living, hard-drinking, hard-smoking, hard-thinking specialist in managing chaos. Both died on Tuesday in Baghdad, crushed under the rubble of the Canal Hotel, the makeshift headquarters of the United Nations in Iraq. Over the years, both had been transformed, in that strange and careful dance of journalists and sources, into cherished friends of mine. The...

<p>BAGHDAD, Aug. 22 -- As soon as he could pick himself up off the floor of his room and remove the shard of glass embedded in his right leg, Army 1st Sgt. William von Zehle rushed toward the sound of the explosion.</p> <p>The 52-year-old retired fire chief from Wilton, Conn., surveyed the rubble and carnage. As he pondered what to do, a man in a blue U.N. baseball cap approached. "We have two people trapped! Sergio and Gil are trapped!" the man said.</p> <p>The names meant nothing to von Zehle, he recalled today. But he went to look.</p>

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BAGHDAD, Iraq The US administrator for Iraq wept at a farewell ceremony for Sergio Vieira de Mello Friday as the body of the United Nations' top diplomat to Iraq was loaded onto a Brazilian air force jet bound for Geneva, en route to Brazil. Vieira de Mello was killed in a suicide truck bombing attack on UN headquarters Tuesday that killed at least 22 other people and left more than 100 injured. His coffin, draped in a UN flag, was loaded onto the back of the jet by six pallbearers, including his bodyguards, accompanied by two...

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - The body of the U.N. special envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad, will be brought back to his native Brazil for a wake before burial in France, Brazil's Foreign Ministry said. A Brazilian Air Force plane was flying to Geneva, Switzerland, to pick up Vieira de Mello's widow, Annie, and two sons and then on to Baghdad to collect his body, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said late Wednesday. The plane was to bring the body to Rio de Janeiro, where the slain envoy grew up and...

Iraq: the agony goes on UN chief among 20 dead as bombers wreck headquarters Jamie Wilson, Baghdad and Julian Borger, Washington Wednesday August 20, 2003 The Guardian A huge truck bomb struck at the heart of the international humanitarian effort in Iraq yesterday, destroying part of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad and killing at least 20 people including the head of the UN mission. Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN special representative, a respected Brazilian diplomat and the embodiment of the international community's post-war role, survived for at least three hours trapped under the rubble, but died of his...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A cement truck packed with explosives detonated outside the offices of the top U.N. envoy in Iraq, killing him and 19 other people and devastating the U.N. headquarters here in an unprecedented suicide attack against the world body. At least 100 people were wounded. The bombing blasted a six-foot-deep crater in the ground, shredded the facade of the Canal Hotel housing U.N. offices and stunned an organization that had been welcomed by many Iraqis in contrast to the U.S.-led occupation forces. Except for a new concrete wall that was built, U.N. officials at the headquarters refused the...

Brazil decrees three days of mourning for UN envoy Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has decreed three days of official mourning for Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations' envoy who was killed in a suicide bombing in Baghdad. The president called Mr Vieira de Mello a "victim of the insanity of terrorism". Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian and the country's most prominent international diplomat, was killed when a truck filled with explosives blew up outside the hotel where the United Nations has its Baghdad offices. President da Silva was told of Mr Vieira de Mello's death during...

WLS-AM & ABC News, just A LARGE explosion just reported at the UN Building in Baghdad...perhaps 500lb bomb or more..

On his arrival as the UN's special representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello declared that "Freedom, dignity and security must, from now on, be taken for granted by all Iraqis". Today, less than three months later, he became the latest victim of rising tide of violence in Iraq, killed when an explosion tore apart his headquarters in central Baghdad. One of the UN's most highly regarded diplomats, Mr De Mello's career with the organisation went back 33 years. As well has holding his position in Iraq, a temporary four month secondment that began in May, he also held the...

<p>UNITED NATIONS -- U.N. envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, said protecting the Iraqi people was his main priority when he took the job.</p> <p>Vieira de Mello, 55, died when a truck drove into the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad laden with explosives. Although he managed to make a phone call from the ruins of the building, he later died.</p>

Reuters: Vieria De Bello Has Died Looking for wirecopy.

Security situation disturbing, fallen regime responsible - De Mello KUN0018 4 GEN 0294 KUWAIT /KUNA-GFL9 POL-EGYPT-IRAQ-DE MELLO CAIRO, Aug 11 (KUNA) -- The security situation in Iraq is disturbing and the fallen regime is to blame, UN Special Representative for Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello stressed Monday. In an interview with "Al-Ahram" daily published today, De Mello said the Governing Council in Iraq is doing a very good job and had proved it is above the criticism and doubt some Arabs showed. He added the council is carrying out its duties, taking decisions and proving itself capable of giving Iraqis...