UR TV CAST

A huge rebuilding programme is called for but the necessity of demolishing all but 5.5 sq km of the 62 sq km within the old city walls is questionable – and so is the ruthless way it is being carried out. The price tag for the new Beijing is said to run to well over $100bn (£64bn), making it the largest such infrastructure project in the world. “Who has in his life had such a chance to plan a city that is 3,000 years old?” says Mr Speer.No one could dispute that China needs to make up for the neglect of its cities in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet China’s paramount leader Jiang Zemin, who likes to be praised as China’s supreme architect, is transforming Beijing with a series of mega-projects whose giganticism equals if not exceeds what Hitler was prepared to do for old messy Berlin. The 68-year-old Speer, who runs one of Germany’s most eminent architect firms, has put in the most favoured design for a central axis through Beijing, which recalls the 30-mile long Great Axis Avenue his father proposed to Hitler for his new capital, Germania.
“The comparisons with my father are unfortunate but cannot be avoided,” Mr Speer says, but argues that “Berlin in the 1930s, that was just megalomania”. As the world’s top architectural firms compete to flatter China’s Communist Party’s leaders for the chance to realise their most daring designs in Beijing, there is something undeniably symbolic about the son of Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer, being so well received here. He mentioned several units and commanders, saluting them “for their heroic feats in the battlefield.” He told the people of Iraq’s second largest city Basra, which has been isolated but not occupied by allied forces, to be patient because “victory is imminent.” Saddam said the allies were “trying to avoid engaging our forces” a clear reference of the US strategy of avoiding entering provincial cities adding that “in most cases they are using their warplanes to attack our troops without engaging them in fighting.” “Whenever they penetrated our territory, they were faced with fierce resistance from Iraqi people, tribes, party members, Saddam’s Fedayeen and security forces,” he said..

“We will make it as painful as we can.” Referring to US and British troops, Saddam said: “These forces entered our lands and where they penetrated they became entangled, desert behind them.” These troops were surrounded by Iraqi residents and “aiming their fire at them,” he said. “These decisive days, oh you Iraqis are in line with what God has ordered you to do, to cut their throats,” he said “Those who are believers will be victorious. In these decisive days, the enemy tried not using missiles and fighter jets as they did before This time they sent their infantry troops. This time they have come to invade and occupy your land.” In words aimed at inspiring his troops, Saddam said Iraqi fighters were “causing the enemy to suffer and to lose every day.” “As time goes by, they will lose more and they will not be able to escape lightly from their predicament,” he said. Strike them, and strike evil so that evil will be defeated,” he said.

In the UK, the Defence Scretary Geoff Hoon said the film was not live, adding: ” We have to do a little more analysis of what was said to see whether or not that was Saddam Hussein.”Saddam appeared in full military uniform and seemed calmer than during his last national address on Thursday, which followed the first round of cruise missile attacks on his capital. President Saddam Hussein addressed the Iraqi people on television today, vowing that “victory will be ours soon.”

President Saddam Hussein addressed the Iraqi people on television today, vowing that “victory will be ours soon.”
“Victory will be ours soon,” he said “Iraqis will strike the necks as God has commanded you. Mr Lloyd’s body had been identified in a morgue in Basra, ITN said. The fate of his Belgian cameraman and Lebanese translator was still unknown.The British and US governments both continued to claim that the Iraqi leadership was crumbling last night but they also tacitly conceded that Saddam Hussein had almost certainly survived the initial cruise missile attack on a Baghdad villa that started the war in the early hours of Thursday ­ despite rumours the Iraqi leader may have been killed or mortally wounded.Intelligence reports suggested President Saddam left the area in an ambulance, the Foreign Office minister Mike O’Brien told BBC radio yesterday..