21.   The radio announcement, read by Lt. Col. Karefa Kargbo, said Strasser had been given safe passage out of the country.

22.   The upper house of parliament, or Bundesrat, gave final passage to a compromise version of the law agreed to in joint committee last week.

23.   They said that the Turkish government asked Kurdish rebels to give safe passage to Rashid and his delegation.

24.   Basayev and his guerrillas will be given safe passage back to Chechnya under the agreement, Interfax said.

25.   But it later dropped the idea because Pakistan refused to give passage.

26.   Religious leaders had earlier mooted a plan under which the Palestinians would be given safe passage, with international protection, to the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip.

27.   She added that requests to give passage on Sunday to three other convoys of petrol and diesel had all been refused.

28.   The announcement of the ICAO probe came as the US Congress gave final passage Wednesday to a bill tightening the US economic embargo against Cuba.