The first request is possible. The one weapon mod that was unapproved did it (sorry, the reason it was unapproved was no source code, so we can't tell you how they managed it)
for the status icons on the left side of the screen:
Code:
message_begin(MSG_ONE, get_user_msgid("StatusIcon"), _, id)
write_byte(status) //status
write_string("rescue") //sprite name
write_byte(0) //red
write_byte(160) //green
write_byte(0) //blue
message_end()