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Canada views Iraq hostage video as 'positive sign':Posted By: Tom Braswell OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said he was encouraged by a new video showing three westerners kidnapped in Iraq, including two Canadians, still alive."We've seen the video and I think this is a positive sign," he told reporters outside the House of Commons. The video, broadcast on Al-Jazeera television Tuesday, was the first news of Canadians Harmeet Sooden, 32, and James Loney, 41, and Briton Norman Kember, 74, since late January. The men were working for a Christian peace group in Iraq when they were kidnapped three months ago. Conspicuously, it did not feature American fellow peace activist Tom Fox, 54, who was kidnapped with them. In the short video clip, the hostages appear disheveled and seated on the floor, taking turns speaking in the recording digitally stamped February 28, 2006. The sound on the video was not audible. Kember appeared tired, the bespectacled Sooden looked frail and drawn out, and Loney was sporting a beard and lowered his head occasionally as he spoke. "We are going to do everything humanly possible to protect and hopefully see those hostages returned safely," MacKay said, refusing to speculate about the absence of the American in the footage. "I don't want to read into it or speculate on what that means. All I can is out of respect for the families, out of respect to the very, very sensitive nature of any hostage-taking, the least public discourse, the better," he said. The men were part of a delegation for Christian Peacemaker Teams, a group that dispatches volunteers to crisis areas in a bid to reduce armed conflict. A group calling itself the Brigades of the Swords of Righteousness threatened to kill them unless all Iraqi prisoners were released, according to a video message broadcast on Al-Jazeera in early December. Courtesy Of: Yahoo! News The information reported above is property of Yahoo! inc. and reprinted or modified with legitimate permission. We thank Yahoo! inc. for the kind cooperation with us and other shareholders. |
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