alamo-girl.

com

http://www.alamo-girl.com/0151.htm

CLINTON'S ROGUES GALLERY:

DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON SECTION: NATIONAL SECURITY - GENERAL SUBSECTION: ALL Revised 1/8/01 GENERAL WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS COMMERCE DRIVEN MISCELLANEOUS AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST MISCELLANEOUS EUROPE AND NORTH/SOUTH AMERICA GENERAL Center for Security Policy 8/10/98 "History appears increasingly likely to remember the Clinton presidency as the era in which the world's only superpower lost its grip. As a result in no small measure of Mr. Clinton's fecklessness in the conduct of foreign policy and his misfeasance (if not malfeasance) in providing for the national security, the international environment of Pax Americana he inherited has given way to one that might be characterized as "Pack Up, Americans." .The more telling evidence of the free- fall that has occurred on Mr. Clinton's watch in American prestige and ability to influence -- if not actually to dictate -international events can be found in the following: Iraq.. In short, so weak has the U.S. position become, so inexorable is the pressure to terminate the Iraqi sanctions regime and, therefore, to pretend that Saddam has complied with his disarmament obligations, that it is now a matter of time, perhaps just weeks, before what is left of the international sanctions start coming undone.Kosovo .The common theme is that, here again, America's adversary is acting with impunity, confident that his friends like Primakov in the Kremlin and Chirac in the Elyse Palace will protect him from any appreciable retribution.Iran.the Clinton Administration refuses to deploy defenses to protect its people against such a threat. Just as it has chosen to ignore evidence of Iranian involvement in the penultimate terrorist attack on U.S. personnel abroad -- the murderous destruction of Saudi Arabia's Khobar Towers, Mr. Clinton prefers to rely upon Primakov's lies that Russia is not assisting Iran's missileers and futile diplomatic efforts to dissuade North Korea from doing so. Thanks to the Clinton team, the precipitous decline in America's credibility and perceived willingness to use its power effectively assures that U.S. citizens and interests around the world are going to be increasingly in peril. Washington Times 9/1/98 William Bennet, Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick ".On the final day, they were close to finalizing the historic agreement. But Mr. Gorbachev insisted that the United States immediately halt development of our ballistic missile defense system. To Mr. Reagan, who had promised the American people he would not give away America's right to defend itself, that was unacceptable. He was excoriated by his critics. But history proved him right. The Clinton administration's refusal to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system has compromised our defenses in precisely the way Mr. Reagan would not allow Mr. Gorbachev to do. Is this acceptable in an era when terrorists such as Osama bin Laden organize against our nation and our citizens? . We already know that at least 20 countries may be developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. If any one of these countries were to launch a missile on the United States today, we would be unprotected. The Rumsfeld Commission found that the threat is "broader, more mature and evolving more rapidly than had been reported in the estimates and reports by the Intelligence Community," and that the ability of the CIA to provide timely estimates of the threat "is eroding." Several countries will be capable of producing a nuclear missile within five years. A little more that a a month ago, reflecting a clear intelligence breakdown, Iran tested a missile capable of traveling 800 miles - far enough to reach Israel. And during the last two weeks, we've learned of possible nuclear weapons advances in North Korea. " Washington Post 8/20/98 Jim Hoagland "Count among Bill Clinton's victims this week his secretary of state, his national security adviser and his foreign policy at large. President Clinton has undermined his people and his policies with a recklessness and a disregard for America's standing in the world that is monumental and unpardonable.. But Clinton's tardy and grudging admission of wrongdoing in the Oval Office and of his mendacity converts weakness in foreign policy into potential disaster. Clinton has erased the large margin of error he has assigned himself in dealing with threats and challenges abroad. His plight will encourage rogue regimes in Baghdad, Belgrade, Pyongyang and elsewhere to test his attention to their depredations and his resolve in deterring or punishing those acts. It will encourage allies to resist even more strongly U.S. pressure to do things they do not see as in their interest. On the day Clinton spent four hours dueling with prosecutors over the salacious details of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, it was disclosed that the

Looney Tunes government of North Korea has been cheating on its 1994 accord with Washington to stop working on nuclear bombs. It was a telling coincidence, pointing up the misallocation of presidential and national attention and energies the Lewinsky affair has spawned. In determining their attitude toward Clinton's fate, the Republican majority in Congress must factor into their actions an increasingly uncertain international " Vanity Fair 3/99 Christopher Hitchens "....Not once but three times last year, Bill Clinton ordered the use of cruise missiles against remote and unpopular countries. On each occasion, the dispatch of the missiles coincided with bad moments in the calendar of his long and unsuccessful struggle to avoid impeachment..... Did, then, a dirtied blue dress from the Gap cause widows and orphans to set up grieving howls in the passes of Afghanistan, the outer precincts of Khartoum, and the wastes of Mesopotamia? Is there only a Hollywood link between Clinton's carnality and Clinton's carnage? Was our culture hit by weapons of mass distraction?...In the even, only one person was killed in the rocketing of Sudan. But many more have died, and will die, because an improvished country has lost its chief source of medicines and pesticides. The rout continues. In fact, it becomes a shambles. Let us suppose that everything the administration alleged about El Shifa was - instead of embarrassingly untrue - absolutely verifiable. The Sudanese regime has diplomatic relations with Washington. Why not give it a warning or notice of, say, one day to open the plant to inspection? A factory making deadly gas cannot be folded like a tent and stealthily moved away..... Mr. Bearden is one of the Central Intelligence Agency's most decorated ex-officers, having retired in 1994 without any stain from assassination plots, blackbag jobs, or the like. During his long service, he was chief of station in Sudan, where he arranged the famous airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. He also directed the C.I.A. effort in Afghanistan. (His excellent new thriller, The Black Tulip, carries a 1991 photograph of him standing at the Russian end of the Friendship Bridge, across which the Red Army had marched in defeat.) Nobody knows clandestine Sudan and clandestine Afghanistan in the way he does. We speak on background, but after some fine-tuning he agrees to be quoted in exactly these words: "Having spent 30 years in the C.I.A. being familiar soil and environmental samplings across a number of countries, I cannot imagine a single sample, collected by third-country nationals whose country has a common border, serving as a pretext for an act of war against a sovereign state with which we have both diplomatic relations and functioning back channels." ..." Los Angeles Times 2/25/99 Jim Mann "...It's high time to draw up a Devil's Dictionary of the Clinton administration's foreign policy--a compendium of the favorite buzzwords, translated into plain English. What makes the subject ripe is the mess the State Department got into over the idea of a "rogue state," a vague but catchy phrase the administration has often applied to the likes of Libya, Iraq and North Korea.... Would China, for example, fit under that umbrella? Since the administration has trouble explaining such ideas, let's try to come up with some of our own definitions: Rogue State A country that meets two conditions: It does things the Clinton administration doesn't like AND it is one that the administration doesn't want to do business with. If the country is a big commercial market or strategically important, the term might not apply, regardless of the country's behavior. Thus Libya is a rogue state, China is not, and Iran seems to be in transition. Engagement The administration's policy toward countries that do bad things and that might otherwise be declared rogue states but that the Clinton administration DOES want to do business with. Cookie Cutter Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's derogatory term for logical consistency. Albright is regularly asked why America tries to isolate Communist Cuba even as it applies its policy of engagement toward China. She has a stock, dismissive answer. "We do not have a cookie-cutter approach to policy," she says with great force, as if that explained everything. Agreed Framework A deal the Clinton administration negotiates with a rogue state and doesn't want to have to submit to Congress..." American Spectator 3/99 Benjamin J. Stein "I cannot possibly believe what is happening. Here it is, the day before the House of Representatives is to vote on the impeachment of Bill Clinton, and what is Bill Clinton doing? Suddenly, after years of near total inaction, without any particular provocation, without a United Nations command to do it at any specific time, with several big powers opposing the move, Clinton is bombing Iraq with cruise missiles and throwing thousands of tons of high explosives at various targets. The transparency of this murderous fraud would be funny if it were not for innocent people getting killed. Something Freudian is going on, as well. Clinton is symbolically murdering his critics here at home by his projected acts of killing in Iraq. I never thought I'd feel afraid of a U.S. president, but Clinton is out of control." Fox News Wire 3/28/99 Reuters "A suspected Kurdish rebel suicide bomber killed herself and injured 10 other people Saturday in a dramatic attack at the heart of Turkey's commercial capital Istanbul. Turkey has been hit by a wave of violent protests since the capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan last month. Anatolian news agency said a woman carrying hand grenades on her body and in a bag launched the attack near a riot police bus in the bustling Taksim Square, the main shopping and entertainment quarter on city's European section."

BBC NEWS 3/28/99 " Sri Lanka has the second highest number of disappeared people in the world, according to a new United Nations study. The UN study says that since 1980, 12,000 Sri Lankans have gone missing after being detained by security forces. Most of them are said to be young Tamil men accused of supporting the Tamil Tiger rebels fighting for a homeland in the north east of Sri Lanka. More than 55,000 people have been killed over the issue in the past 27 years. Only Iraq had more cases of disappearances, with 16,384 missing, according to the study by the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. ." Radio Prague -- 11/14/97 "Today's papers are rife with speculation over the latest Czech Iraq-gate scandal - whether or not the Czech armaments firm Omnipol has been having secret talks with Iraq on the sale of the Czech- made Tamara radar system. All the papers seem to have their own theory. PRAVO reckons the whole idea is so far fetched that it looks as though someone is deliberately trying to discredit the Czech Republic and the Tamara system itself - which is capable of detecting aircraft even if they have sophisticated anti-radar devices." Prague Business Journal 3/22/99 " The Tamara radar system made the Czech Republic famous because of its ability to detect stealth aircraft. Now, Czech companies are trying to make a name for themselves as specialists in detecting and preventing unauthorized cyber-attacks as well." STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update 3/28/99 "In examining the options, it seemed clear to us that two things would happen. First, the Russians would do everything to encourage the Iraqis to pin U.S. forces in Iraq. Second, the Russians would encourage Serbian intransigence over Kosovo. By covertly supplying critical military supplies and providing public political support, Russia created a space in which both the Serbs and Iraqis could resist U.S. military pressure. Ideally, from the Russian point of view, the United States would find itself in a position where, for the first time since World War II, it was conducting air campaigns simultaneously in two widely dispersed theaters. The ideal for the Russians was an ineffective, prolonged campaign in Iraq and an intensive one in Serbia. Neither can succeed, neither can end, both will together sap U.S. military strength while straining the American alliance system.This should not be thought of as some conspiracy theory. The Russians did not create the current situation. All they did was provide limited resources and encouragement to two isolated nations that the United States, of its own volition and inertia, was committed to redefining. .The Russians want to bring down the Americans several notches in order to increase their leverage. Coordinating two rogue states is a Russian specialty. They are doing it well. This puts the Russians in an excellent position. The head of the IMF is in Moscow today. A Russian delegation is in Belgrade, having first met with Richard Holbrooke, architect of the current U.S. Serbian policy. Having demonstrated their willingness to resist the United States and their ability to do so, the U.S. must either dramatically escalate the air war and introduce ground forces, or it must negotiate from a much weaker position than before.. But the big story now is Russias relationship with China. In 1972, China and America ganged up on Russia in order to stop its tremendous momentum. Today, the players shift their partners but the game remains the same. Russia and China have a joint, strategic interest in hemming in the United States. With U.S.-Russian relations in terrible shape and U.S.-Chinese relations in nearly as bad disarray, the danger to the American global position is substantial. China and the U.S. are having a summit in a few weeks. With Russia on the knifes edge of hostility or cooperation with the U.S., China is an extraordinary position to demand concessions, and failing to secure them from the U.S. to then realign itself with the Russians. These are the fundamental issues facing the U.S. The Kosovo issue is and was a side issue. The key to the lives of the Kosovars is not in Washington but in Belgrade and Moscow. Serbia wants guarantees of a unified, sovereign nation. Russia wants a sphere of influence. So does China. The real issue is does the United States know what it wants, and knowing it, is it achievable and at what cost? There are far greater stakes on the table than Kosovo. That was obvious in January and that is obvious today" Richmond Times-Dispatch 4/12/99 "...In 1992, George Bush sent U.S. troops to Somalia. Their mission? To feed a people threatened by famine. In 1993, Bill Clinton expanded Operation Restore Hope to include nation-building. The exercise ended in death and humiliation in Mogadishu. In 1994, the U.S. "invaded" Haiti to restore to power Jean-Bertrand Aristide - and to promote Haitian democracy. Although boats crowded with Haitian refugees no longer wash ashore in Florida, the democratic dream remains unrealized. The U.S. occupation accomplished next to nothing....Somalia and Haiti offered entirely different scenarios. Democracy cannot be imposed. Efforts to use the U.S. military to do just that were doomed. The Clinton approach was flawed not only in execution but in concept. ..." The Hindu 4/13/99 Sriprakash Loya "...Sir, The refugees fleeing Kosovo are being accepted by the European countries. The U.S. and Canada have also agreed to accept them. Even far-flung Australia, which traditionally has been averse to any such influx, has welcomed 4,000 refugees on its soil. All these first world countries have been magnanimous towards these refugees. But, recollect the fate of the recent refugees from Kurdistan, Afghanistan and Northern Algeria. Go back a few years and think of the boat people accepted by none. Also, everyone knows the fate of the refugees from Cambodia, Vietnam and then the ten

million refugees on our own land in 1972 from Bangladesh. No first world country has ever discussed their fate, leave alone accept them. Should we conclude, therefore, that the colour of the refugees matters? Sriprakash Loya, Secunderabad ..." Wall Street Journal 4/9/99 Paul Gigot Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...EXCERPTS "The only good news about Kosovo is that it is reminding Americans that the presidency is about more than shorter suburban commutes. It may even cause challengers to Al Gore in 2000 to ask, Is the world safer than it was eight years ago? That question should be a staple of every presidential election. But U.S. victories over communism and in the Gulf War meant that Bill Clinton inherited a world with fewer threats to America than anytime since before World War I. ......Which means that the media and maybe the voters will listen to the argument that his presidency has been squandering the strategic depth it took decades to build. Let's scan the globe for a sixyear scorecard:.."..." Center for Security Policy's Roundtable discussion ANA Hotel DC 7/15/97 "...International instability was viewed as the most pressing reason for the maintenance of a viable nuclear deterrent force. Not only do the four other "declared" nuclear states and the "threshold" states still retain their arsenals, but there is an increasing threat that other, rogue nations will soon have nuclear capabilities with which to threaten American security. Secretary Weinberger expressed the view that as long as any nation has even one nuclear weapon, the United States will require a deterrent of its own..... The increasing threat posed by China was also the subject of discussion. The People's Republic of China already possesses 17 nucleartipped missiles capable of striking the United States. It has, moreover, embarked upon a massive nuclear, as well as conventional, forces build-up. China has two major missile programs in development with Russian, Ukrainian and/or Belarusian assistance: a ground-based, mobile ICBM, and a sea-launched ballistic missile. ...The discussion also addressed the deterrent requirements arising from the emerging threats posed by rogue states like North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya and others. All of these nations have displayed a determination to acquire weaponry of mass destruction; to varying degrees, they have specifically sought nuclear weapons capabilities. This menace is only likely to increase as the means to deliver chemical, biological and/or nuclear weapons over long distances -- via ballistic missile or cruise missile -- become available to such states as a result of technology transfers and/or indigenous developments. On this point, there appeared to be widespread agreement among the Roundtable participants that it could be a matter of only a few years before one or more of these states acquires delivery systems of sufficient range to pose a direct threat to the U.S. -- not the minimum of fifteen years projected by the Clinton Administration's 1995 National Intelligence Estimate...Most recently, President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright have virtually promised the Baltic States admission in the next round of NATO enlargement. It was noted that such a step would appear to renew a requirement for extended deterrence -- i.e., the threat of nuclear response in the event of a non-nuclear attack -- in a place where the United States and its allies would clearly not enjoy conventional superiority over potential adversaries. There is little indication that such considerations are being factored into Clinton Administration thinking concerning the extension of new security guarantees to Eastern Europe..... " WorldNetDaily 4/19/99 Rep. Richard Pombo "... But what did surprise me in my dealings with the president -beyond the tawdry details of a rootless personal life -- was his relentless effort to weaken America's fighting ability while both transferring highly classified technology to America's major military competitor and involving our country in numerous, questionable military ventures around the world. In 1992, the United States seemed invulnerable. We had, after nearly half a century in the shadow of nuclear Armageddon, backed down the Soviet Union and unleashed the forces of freedom and democracy among its former captives. We had demonstrated the technological superiority of American weaponry and sent Saddam Hussein packing back to his Baghdad bunker. When President Bush passed the torch to Mr. Clinton, he passed the Reagan/Bush legacy of a strong, respected and victorious America. In six-and-a-half short years that hardearned legacy has been squandered...." The Washington News Letter 5/3/99 Marvin Lee "...The London Sunday Times, in its May 2 edition, confirms allegations made by former Clinton employee L. D. Brown in his new book "Crossfire." The allegations, first reported in last week's Washington Weekly, reveal a covert operation to channel money to one side of the Northern Ireland conflict, the IRA. The Times spoke to a left-wing member of the British Parliament named by L. D. Brown as a consultant to the scheme. Ken Livingstone, Labour MP, "did corroborate key parts of Brown's story about the project," write Phelim AcAleer and Kevin Dowling. The Times also cites a written job offer from T. John McBrearty, who sought to involve L. D. Brown in the project and offered him $300,000 for his cooperation with the Clinton administration at a time where L. D. Brown was a witness in multiple investigations of the President. "What we are looking at here is jobs for the boys in exchange for a ceasefire, the peace process and a diplomatic triumph for the US," quotes the Times. "The Clinton White House had agreed to put up between $100m and $150m. The link with them was [Nancy] Soderberg. It was made clear there would be no problem getting money from the White House," Livingstone told the Times. Nancy Soderberg was identified to L. D. Brown as the White House contact person for the covert Northern Ireland

operation. She was at the time Deputy Staff Director at the White House National Security Council and Clinton's main advisor on Ireland...." Reuters 5/3/99 "...Sandinista party leader and former revolutionary president Daniel Ortega urged the Nicaraguan people on Saturday to overthrow the government in response to the death of two people during a transport strike. "If the people, united and mobilised, decide to remove this government I don't see that that would be a problem," Ortega said in a speech after leading 5,000 supporters in a march to commemorate International Labour Day...." The Orlando Sentinel Online 5/6/99 Charley Reese "....While the United States is committing a crime against Yugoslavia, where we have no legitimate strategic or national interests, President Clinton's Chinese friends have been busy little bees, 90 miles from our shores. Chi Haotian, minister of national defense, got together with Raul Castro, big brother Fidel's minister of defense, and decided that working together was a very good idea....You can expect to see Chinese investments in Cuba, and you will see Castro join forces with the Communist Chinese to drive Taiwanese interests and businesses out of Latin America and the Caribbean.....As they say, much is afoot to the south of us. It makes you wonder why the United States is bogging itself down in the no-win mire of the Balkans. My guess is that flawed decision can be attributed to the fact that underneath his mask of sanity, President Clinton has a screw loose. I suspect that before his term ends the cowardly Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate who chose partisanship over duty will regret they missed their opportunity to get this captain off the ship. Probably what will shock most Americans in the months ahead is the discovery that the United States has few to no friends in Latin America, and among the few, the fervor is faint to absent..... " Omaha World-Herald 5/6/99 Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...It's strange to contemplate: A president asking Congress to not give him flexibility in a crisis. Usually a president seeks the maximum maneuvering room. The resolution was not telling Clinton to invade Yugoslavia. It was simply expressing Senate support for that option. .....The fact that Clinton worked to defeat McCain's resolution confirms the opinion of the doubters. He does not want a green light on ground forces because he does not want to be responsible for deciding whether to use them. He is afraid to lead...." World Tribune 5/6/99 "...The United States and Libya are engaged in secret talks in an effort to improve relations after nearly 20 years of enmity, an Arab newspaper reported on Wednesday. The Saudi-owned ASharq al-Awsat said on Wednesday that Libyan and U.S. representatives are holding secret talks in Italy to normalize relations. They said the talks were arranged by Egypt. The effort began last month after Libya handed over two suspects in the 1989 TWA bombing for trial in the Hague. Most of the 270 passengers killed in the bombing were Americans...." The Hindu 5/7/99 UNI Freeper Jai "...Shri Lanka has complained to the United Nations about the LTTE's move to use the Electronic Mail and Internet to spread propaganda and disinformation to discredit the island nation. "Terrorist groups is general, and the LTTE in particular, continue to abuse electronic mail and global information superhighway -- the Internet -- to undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries, including Shri Lanka," Dharshana Perera, Shri Lanka's representative at the United Nations Committee on Information, said. The Shri Lankan representative singled out the LTTE as one of the biggest culprits which continue to "wage a ruthless terrorist campaign against the democratically elected Government of Shri Lanka." Blasting the LTTE for blatant abuses, he said the LTTE and its front organisations continue to disseminate false propaganda and complete distortion of facts in their effort to discredit the Shri Lankan State and mislead the international community. ..." New York Times 5/16/99 "...It is hard to imagine a more damaging American security failure than the serial hemorrhage of nuclear-weapons secrets and other military information to China over the last two decades. Each new disclosure adds to a picture of breathtaking incompetence by Federal agencies and lack of vigilance by Republican and Democratic administrations alike. The United States might as well have dumped its most sensitive defense secrets on Pennsylvania Avenue for Chinese spies to pick up. Then there is the Clinton Administration's inert response to possible Chinese campaign contributions in 1996, and the Justice Department's lack of interest in tens of millions of dollars that flowed from China into a small Los Angeles bank the same year. Little wonder both Republicans and Democrats in Congress want to know whether the Administration willfully ignored all these Chinese provocations so it could improve relations with Beijing. In recent weeks, Jeff Gerth and James Risen of The Times have described three serious security breakdowns, two at nuclear weapons laboratories and one involving work by a private defense contractor. In all cases, there seems to have been a loss of critically important information to China that could be used to modernize Beijing's small arsenal of nuclear weapons or help it develop other military technologies. In each instance, security measures were lax and Federal criminal investigations proved ineffectual..... This is no way to run a government....."

The London Telegraph 5/15/99 Ben Fenton "An American scientist convicted of spying for China worked closely with British military and visited Scotland as part of a secret team working on a method of tracking nuclear missile submarines. The information available to Peter Lee as a prominent member of the UK/US Radar Ocean Imaging Programme (ROIP) is almost certain to have compromised the security of Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent. Lee is at the centre of a spy scandal in America that has been compared to the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who provided Russia with America's nuclear secrets in the early 1950s. He and his namesake Wen Ho Lee are believed to have handed China enough information to update their relatively primitive nuclear arsenal in years rather than decades. The information obtained by The Telegraph is the first clear indication that Britain's nuclear deterrent has been put at risk. According to court documents made available to this newspaper, Peter Lee was a member of the ROIP for at least six years before the FBI discovered he was divulging details of the technology to Chinese military scientists...." New York Times 5/17/99 Mireya Navaro "....Guatemalans on Sunday appeared to have voted down constitutional changes to recognize officially for the first time the rights of the country's Mayan majority, a rejection that supporters of the measures said would set back efforts to consolidate peace after a 36-year civil war. Electoral officials said on Sunday night that turnout for the referendum was extremely poor, about 21 percent of Guatemala's 4 million registered voters, because of Guatemala's high illiteracy rate and the scarce effort to inform residents about the proposals. But preliminary results for Guatemala City, where nearly half of all eligible voters reside, indicated a vote of 77 percent to 23 percent against 50 amendments to the Guatemala constitution. In a country where the indigenous majority has faced genocide and poverty and long been excluded from power, the reforms would have declared Guatemala "multiethnic" and for the first time granted equal status to the languages, religions and customary laws of the Mayan peoples, who account for about 60 percent of the population...." Washing ton Post 5/17/99 Anthony Faiola "...Such feelings [anti-NATO/US] are common in Argentina -- and in many other parts of the world far from the conflict over Kosovo. As the air war against Yugoslavia concludes its eighth week, and blunders like the bombing that reportedly killed nearly 90 ethnic Albanians at Korisa and the strike on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade grab headlines worldwide, NATO's warplanes are inflicting collateral damage of another kind -- on the alliance's international reputation. And Uncle Sam, NATO's dominant power, is bearing the brunt of people's anger. Here in Argentina, one of Washington's closest Latin American allies, a poll last week showed that 64 percent of the public opposed the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. More respondents had a negative opinion of NATO than of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. In Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and other regions with little direct interest in the conflict, opposition is surfacing in statements by elected officials, newspaper editorials, opinion polls, public protests, Internet banter and street graffiti. Increasingly, there is little subtlety in NATObashing. "NATO is blindly bombing Yugoslavia," Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said in a fiery political speech in India last week. "There is a dance of destruction going on there. Thousands of people rendered homeless. And the United Nations is a mute witness to all this. Is NATO's work to prevent war or to fuel one?" In the view of analysts here and elsewhere, the anti-NATO backlash shows how Washington's portrayal of the conflict as a humanitarian mission is being superseded by lingering anti-Western feelings in countries with bad memories of U.S. intervention and European colonialism...." EWTN 5/19/99 Freeper marshmallow "..."We do not want the state to substitute the role of the parents," Fr. Welch added. "Mrs. William Clinton not withstanding, it dosen't take a village to raise a child, it takes a caring and responsive family to do so. Instead of state intervention, the families in Puerto Rico need state support. Any legislation affecting minor children must be based on the moral convictions of Puerto Rico - not the government, and certainly not the United Nations." ..." NewsMax 5/18/99 Linda Bowles "...Chinese ambassador Li Zhaoxing looked like a prison camp commander extracting a written confession from a prisoner as he stood over Bill Clinton in the Oval Office. His scowl was menacing as he watched the president sign a book of condolences for victims of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade..... Given China's domestic tyranny and repression of its own people, the brutalization of Tibet, the persecution of Christians, the theft of U.S. nuclear and military secrets, armed threats against Taiwan, the transfer of nuclear and missile technology to rogue nations who hate America, the trashing of the American embassy in China, the terrorization of our ambassador and his family, and the illegal funneling of millions of dollars to the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign, you have to wonder why we are not the ones demanding an apology and breaking off negotiations. By our actions, we have effectively ceded the moral high ground to one of the most tyrannical dictatorships on the planet Earth. What happened to us? How did we wind up in this weak and humiliating posture? The answer is simple. What happened to us was "collateral damage."... It is the damage done to international relationships and to the image of America as the moral leader in the post Cold-War world. On April 25, following a 50th anniversary summit, NATO issued a Washington Declaration. In effect, NATO formally announced its intention to preemptively deal with human rights violations and perceived threats beyond the borders of its member nations. Surely, it was no surprise that the non-NATO world reacted with apprehension and resentment. Why would they not? NATO had just

thrown down the gauntlet.....Throughout the non-NATO world, America is increasingly seen as an aggressor nation, the new "Evil Empire," demonstrably unfit to preach to other nations about human rights and democratic freedoms. The perception grows that America has fallen from grace and lost its image as the light and hope of the world. The view is taking hold that the American people have scrapped their Constitution, abandoned their founding principles, and put themselves in the heavy hands of an elite band of liberal globalists....." WORLD Magazine 5/14/99 Mindy Belz "...Even before the war in Kosovo soured U.S. relations with Beijing, war-game strategists were planning for an eventual confrontation with China. While the Clinton administration worries over copyright infringements and smoothing China's way into the World Trade Organization, military analysts see armed conflict with China as the second most likely threat facing the United States (confrontation on the Korean Peninsula being the first)....The January report also predicted, "Russia will begin the process of recreating the old Soviet empire in 1999 ... the Westernizers who dominated Russia for the past decade are being replaced by Slavophiles, who will seek to root out Western influence while they liquidate the Westernizers." Proof of those predictions lies in Russia's opposition to recent NATO campaigns. Yet Washington continues to court Russian officials who call NATO forces "aggressor states" and orate about hands "stained with the blood of bombs," in the words of defense minister Valentin Sergeyev.... North Korea looks desperate under its third year of famine and a crumbling economy. It could be poised to lash out at its prospering southern nemesis. A surprise attack of missiles and artillery from the north could quickly devastate Seoul and its 11 million inhabitants, who live just 35 miles south of the border. In a ground assault, the 36,000 U.S. troops stationed at the border to supplement the South Korean army would be met by 1.2 million soldiers from North Korea quicker than even Bill Clinton can say, "Call up the reserves." ....Little needs to be said about Iraq, given its high-profile conflicts with the United States and UN weapons inspectors in just the last year. Iraq stands fourth-behind Russia, China, and North Korea-in overall military capabilities, according to Defense Department statistics. But it ranks first in demonstrated willingness to use what it has.....In times past, two events currently underway would have been seen as sure firestarters: a Palestinian declaration of statehood and Washington support for it. So far, trends in both directions have caused no flames, as tensions have been on hold leading up to national elections in Israel this month....For 15 years, Sudan has fought a civil war between the Muslim-dominated north and the Christian- and animist-controlled south. ...Second, the United States inserted itself into this flashpoint when it bombed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan following last year's attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa. Evidence linking the factory to Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, believed to be the mastermind behind the embassy attacks, proved much less than conclusive. ....The tte--tte with Iran's Islamic fundamentalist regime may have softened from 20 years ago, but the United States faces essentially the same threat in Tehran's rooted opposition to all things American.....Policy analysts say the conflict in Congo is the most serious threat to peace in Africa since the end of the Cold War, perhaps since the end of the slave trade..... U.S. foes like Libyan dictator Muamar Ghadhafi have stepped into the fray to broker a peace agreement and, if they see a toehold, threaten more U.S. interests in Africa than just safari and game preserves...... The fall of the Soviet Union prompted oil scouts to dream of a rise in production from largely untapped petroleum reserves beneath the Caspian Sea. Geologists say the Caspian basin could yet possess 200 billion barrels, nearly equal to the combined proven reserves of Iran and Iraq..... The littoral nations cannot agree on who owns what portions of the sea...... Of 273 terrorist attacks worldwide last year, 77 were bombings of multinational oil pipelines in Colombia. In those attacks, 71 people, including 28 children, were killed, according to the U.S. State Department. ...." The Daily Republican Newspaper 5/20/99 Tony Artero "...Illegal Chinese aliens are invading Guam. But, the Clinton administration is according these aliens greater economic opportunity than Americans on Guam who have fought in wars defending America's interest. .....The slogan that "Guam is where America's day begins" has been turned on its head by the spectacle created by the White House and Congress by the subtle recognition of a new idiom, "Guam, the back doormat to the United States." The practice of according illegal imigrants swarming the beaches on Guam with diplomatic status is as appalling as any miscarriage of justice in American History. The political mythology that Guam is obligated to render political asylum to Communist Chinese smugglers and spies simply because they are on American soil is an affrontory to Guams heroic contributions to the American victroy at sea in World War II. The Clinton administration has reduced Guam to "doormat status" and must take ultimate responsibility for the human disaster overwhelming Guam's civilian capacity to maintain civil order and protect U.S. citizens from risks to health and safety. Every day more of these Chinese derelicts arrive vessels founder on our reefs or run aground in our harbors...." 5/25/99 AP Freeper Thanatos "...President Hugo Chavez said Monday that he will deny a request by the United States to use Venezuela's airspace for anti-narcotics flights in the region. The United States wants to use Venezuela's airspace for flights from three new staging centers being set up in Ecuador and the islands of Curacao and Aruba, which are located off Venezuela's western coast...." AP 5/24/99 Manila "...About 200 protesters scuffled with riot police outside the U.S. Embassy i n Manilla

today, demonstrating against a pact that would allow large-scale U.S. military exercises in the country. The activists, belonging to the National Democratic Movement, ran past riot police and destroyed a plastic cover protecting th e U.S. government seal at the embassy's entrance. Police pushed them back with shields and truncheons, injuring at least one protester....." Washington Times 5/25/99 Jennifer Bauduy "...The preoccupation with American forces' safety that is shadowing debate about a ground war in Kosovo has meant a life behind barbed wire and sandbag walls for hundreds of U.S. troops in Haiti. There are about 500 U.S. soldiers remaining in Haiti, the impoverished Caribbean nation that the United States occupied in 1994 in one of the last major deployments of U.S. forces before NATO attacks on Yugoslavia began two months ago...." 5/27/99 BBC News Freeper Thanatos "...Senators in the Philippines are to vote on whether to accept a controversial agreement reviving military ties with the US. Supporters of the agreement say it will help the Philippines in its armed confrontation with China; opponents say the agreement will restore a quasi-colonial relationship between the United States and the Philippines. What the Senate is voting on is deceptively mundane: a Visiting Forces Agreement, or VFA, setting out the conditions under which United States forces can come to the Philippines to conduct military exercises...." San Diego Union-Tribune 5/26/99 Marjorie Cohn Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...NATO tells us the bombs fall to stop reprehensible ethnic cleansing. If that is true, why does NATO's leader, the United States, support a government in Colombia whose "cleansing" policies rival those of Slobodan Milosevic's regime in Kosovo? During the past decade, Colombian military and paramilitary violence has killed tens of thousands of civilians. It created nearly as many refugees as the bombing of Kosovo and resulted in the worst humanrights abuses of the early 1990s, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. NATO is exercising military power in Kosovo, not to stop human-rights atrocities, but to establish control of an area that will be important to the economic growth of Western nations in coming decades...." Scmp.com 5/29/99 RAISSA ROBLES "...The Supreme Court was asked yesterday to stop a military exercises accord with the US approved by the Senate on Thursday. The move came as Washington debated a resolution that could send swift military aid to the Philippines..... Congressman Dana Rohrabacher told Philippine congressman Roilo Golez yesterday that he had managed to insert an amendment favourable to Manila in a resolution being deliberated by the US House of Representatives. An amendment to House Resolution 1908 would allow UH-1 helicopters to be donated to the Philippines, along with A-4 aircraft and the Coast Guard cutter Point Evans, said Mr Rohrabacher, who had accompanied Mr Golez on an aerial tour of the Spratlys in December....In urging the amendment, Congressman Rohrabacher said: "The ongoing Chinese construction of naval bases in the Spratlys and repeated incursions of warships and fishing fleets into Philippine territorial waters, have increased the urgency of our long-time ally's need to modernise its naval and air patrol capabilities." Mr Rohrabacher called the Philippines a "frontline nation against the growing designs of China to militarily control the Pacific in the 21st century"...." Fox News 6/8/99 "...A U.S. proposal to defend democracy throughout the Western Hemisphere was shelved Tuesday after Mexico and other nations in the Organization of American States (OAS) said it smacked of interventionism. The measure, which had been set to be adopted at the OAS's annual general assembly meeting in Guatemala, would have allowed OAS members to turn to a "Group of Friends'' to help prevent political crises such as a coup..... "Every action by the OAS has to be based on the principle that each country needs to find its own solution for its problems,'' Peru's Foreign Minister Fernando de Trazegnies told delegates Tuesday. "When somebody suddenly storms my house and comes in, I don't consider him a friend,'' de Trazegnies said...." newsmax.com 6/9/99 Carl Limbacher and Caron Grich "...The Clinton administration has also offered the promise of greater U.S. defense cooperation with Azerbaijan. For example, NATO, through its Partnership for Peace program, has established the Central Asian Peacekeeping Battalion, or CENBAT," reports Jofi Joseph in a January 1999 case study on "Pipeline Politics" for Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. "As part of one of the first joint exercises involving American soldiers and the CENBAT force, 500 members of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division parachuted into Kazakhstan (Azerbaijan's oil rich neighbor across the Caspian Sea) after a 23- hour flight from Ft. Bragg. The impressive display powerfully represented the strategic reach of the U.S.; the Kazakhstan deputy foreign minister stated, 'Five years ago, no one here could even dream of such things as American soldiers dropping out of the sky into a remote area of Kazakhstan.' " Prof. Joseph adds, "Evolving closer defense ties with Azerbaijan's neighbors sends a clear signal that the U.S. and NATO are interested in the security of the region, of which Azerbaijan is one of the most valuable pieces." ...." Stratfor.com 6/10/99 Global Intelligence Update "...During a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) the U.S. proposed the creation of a multinational force to guarantee the security of the Western

Hemisphere. At the same time, the U.S. is reportedly pushing a plan to support Colombia's neighbors with aircraft and intelligence in their efforts to contain Colombian guerrillas. With its OAS proposal in the long term and its Colombia plan in the short term, the U.S. appears eager to become more actively involved in resolving Latin America's long running conflicts. This promises at best a mixed blessing for U.S. businesses currently operating in Colombia and throughout the region, as greater U.S. involvement will draw greater reaction from the region's rebels...." 6/12/99 AP Freeper Thanatos Angola "...With UNITA guerrillas in control of most of this vast country in southwest Africa, army officials are planning a new offensive on the rebels' command center in hopes of bringing the two-decade civil war to a close. The assault -- perhaps as soon as this month -- will be aimed at crushing the rebels' strongholds and choking off the diamond revenues that keep them fighting. A 1994 peace accord unraveled in December, when lingering hostility and mistrust between the two sides erupted into renewed fighting. Since then, UNITA -- a Portuguese acronym for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola -- has taken control of 80 percent of Angola...." Reuters 6/12/99 "....Heavy fighting raged on the western end of Eritrea's border with Ethiopia Saturday after Eritrea said 2,400 Ethiopian soldiers had been killed in two days of clashes. Ethiopia branded the casualty report a fabrication. Eritrean television and radio said late Friday that 2,400 Ethiopian troops were killed and 4,000 were wounded, while Eritrea had taken 80 prisoners, shot down one Ethiopian MI 35 helicopter gunship and destroyed three tanks. "The fighting is continuing,'' Eritrean presidential spokesman Yermane Gebremeskel told Reuters Saturday. "The casualty toll was high because the Ethiopians concentrated their attack - they used two divisions in the attack which is about 20,000 soldiers,'' he said.... "This is the usual Eritrean fabrication aimed at getting media attention,'' government spokeswoman Selome Taddesse told Reuters...." Mercury News 6/4/99 AP "...Anti-nuclear activists said Friday that corruption was behind personnel changes on a panel overseeing safety at a planned nuclear research reactor in Thailand. The Bangkok Post reported on Friday that Darakant Mongkolphantha, a nuclear safety expert who was in charge of the panel, had been replaced with a non-nuclear engineer by Thailand's Office for Atomic Energy for Peace, a government agency...... The paper said three other safety experts on the panel had also been replaced with engineers.....According to her group, General Atomics recently asked the OAEP to change its contract to allow it buy uranium from Russia instead of the United States. ``If the OAEP buys fuel from the U.S., we have an agreement that allows us to send nuclear waste back to the U.S. for disposal. But we have no deal with Russia,'' she said....." Hong Kong Standard 6/1/99 Cary Huang "...THE Nato strikes against Yugoslavia, and the resulting tension with Russia and China, have dramatically changed the prospects for global politics in the post-Cold War era. The development would prompt, at its worst, the birth of a new military bloc aimed at keeping US-led Western supremacy in check, and would be a major setback for arms controls and disarmament....Russia and China begin from the standpoint that bilateral military unions operating in the Asian-Pacific region should have strictly defensive objectives. They must not target third countries or upset the regional balance of power. They have to adapt themselves to multilateral efforts aimed at ensuring security. Beijing and Moscow reject the inclusion of any of their territory in the projected arc of US-Japanese operations. Beijing, Moscow and New Delhi believe that upgraded US-Japan military ties are widening the American presence here and significantly increasing Japan's military might. And the recently escalating tension between the world's developing giants and the West reinforces the belief among the trio that the US is forging ahead with a global military alliance to encircle and contain the world's non-Western powers in next millennium....." Reuters [OL] 6/2/99 Freeper Mark Egan "...The recent Asian financial crisis plunged millions into poverty and could derail long-held goals of poverty reduction and social improvements in the world's poorest countries, the World Bank said Wednesday. The Bank said the Asian crisis, which began in 1997 in Thailand and spread through the region and beyond, showed that economic reforms can increase inequalities if they fail to include a social safety net for the poorest...." Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau 6/5/99 Joyce M. Davis "...``When this ends, it's the end of NATO in its current form,'' said Stephen Fischer-Galati, a University of Colorado history professor and an expert on Eastern Europe. ``I am quite convinced that the Europeans are going to establish their own security organization, keeping the United States at a safe distance.'' .....William Stuebner, a specialist in international law at the congressionally funded United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., says the bombing is bound to have an effect on conflicts around the globe and on U.S. relations with other countries. ``We can spin this all we want and say that we've won, but there will be serious repercussions from NATO's actions in Yugoslavia,'' he said. U.S. ties to China and Russia became strained, as both countries opposed the bombing, and China even suffered casualties when its embassy in Belgrade was bombed. Both Chinese and Russian officials fear that NATO has become so bold that it could decide to interfere in their internal affairs,

Stuebner and other analysts say Early on, the NATO offensive stirred China's worst fears about U.S. willingness to use military power to get its way. Beijing argued that NATO was a pawn of the United States and that the Kosovo crisis was an internal matter for Yugoslavia to resolve. What really bothered Beijing, China specialists say, was the precedent set by NATO's action..... Many in Russia believe they face a more immediate threat, with NATO already at their borders....``The most important result (of the Kosovo crisis), which was foreseeable from the first day of the conflict, was that many countries who don't have nuclear weapons will take a new look at this option,'' said Martin van Creveld, professor of military history and strategy at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ``They will say to themselves, `We want to make certain that nothing like this ever happens to us.' Suppose I were an Indonesian, Algerian or Nigerian: All these countries have severe ethnic problems.'' ..." EWTN.COM 6/12/99 "...In spite of the aggressive posture of its promoters, a play was forced to cancel its public appearances in the Mexican city of Queretaro after pressure exercised by the citizens, who disapproved the hostile posture toward the Church and the shameless moral relativism proposed by the play. The play "For women only" was initially presented to a public of 5000 people. From that moment the Church, in the voice of the bishop and of diverse committed laymen, denounced the play and organized a gathering of signatures that was supported by more than 50 thousand Queretans opposed to a second presentation. Approximately twenty social and religious organizations prepared a document where they requested the respective authorities the immediate cancellation of the play. It was not necessary to wait for a formal prohibition from authorities, since the Municipal Committee of the Party of the Democratic Revolution organizer of the play-, in view of the obvious rejection of the population, announced presentations would be cancelled...." Associated Press Tom Raum 6/15/99 "...Imagine Russian soldiers in a military standoff with NATO troops on a European airfield. Consider the United States hitting a Chinese diplomatic mission with a missile. Add in the naval gunfire between North and South Korea, and sometimes it's hard to remember the Cold War is over. U.S. policy-makers are suddenly confronted with far larger security issues than those initially at stake in Kosovo.....While NATO's air campaign achieved the stated goal of forcing a Serb withdrawal from Kosovo, it also rekindled Cold War tensions......Cordesman sees a fundamental difference between today and the years of nuclear confrontation between a massive Soviet military and the West. Still, he said, it's ``very dangerous for Americans to believe the diplomatic rhetoric'' that minimizes present dangers.....U.S. officials reiterated on today that they expected the stalemate with Russia to be eased. Moscow has given ``assurances at a variety of levels'' that it won't add to the 200 soldiers at the airport in Pristina, said State Department spokesman James Rubin. As he spoke, an 11-vehicle Russian convoy rolled through Kosovo on its way to Pristina to resupply the Russian troops. And concerns were raised that Russia might try to send in reinforcements by air......``I'm not sure Yeltsin is in total control of the military,'' said Rep. Curt Weldon, RPa., chairman of a congressional group that meets with members of the Russian Duma.....``This is extremely serious. All it takes is for one Russian or one American to misfire,'' Weldon said.... At the same time, the United States dispatched additional aircraft to patrol the area, and there was talk of sending additional U.S. ships or other resources...." The Associated Press 7/17/99 Dan Perry "...In an explosion of fury on the Fourth of July, thousands of Puerto Ricans converged on a U.S. Navy base, waving a U.S. flag with skulls for stars and condemning the ``Evil Empire.'' Two days later, Gov. Pedro Rossello, who may well be the most pro-American leader Puerto Rico ever had, asked the United Nations to declare the island a colony whose status must be resolved next year. This is not how it was meant to be a year ago, when Rossello stood near the beach where U.S. troops invaded in July 1898, exuberantly waved a 51-star flag and promised the island taken from Spain would soon be a U.S. state...." Detriot News 7/16/99 Chris Stewart and David Forsmark ".The Clinton Doctrine, in essence, states that, in an effort to stop racial or ethnic slaughter within another nation's borders, the United States and NATO should be willing to engage in something called "humanitarian warfare" - a chillingly Orwellian phrase, even by this administration's standards of torturing language. It is based on the purported success of the United States in the Kosovo war. The premise of this policy is extremely dangerous to the future of our military preparedness because it is based on political spin, not competent analysisIf this doctrine is accepted as our national policy, plan on U.S. troops being stationed in Bosnia and Kosovo for generations to come. And you can add Turkey, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, the Sudan, Russia and China to the list of potential future bombing targets." EWTN 7/19/99 "The Catholic bishop of El Obeid in Sudan, writing for the US newspaper The Boston Globe, chided Western nations for ignoring ethnic cleansing in Sudan even as they intervened in Kosovo. Bishop Macram Max Gassis said the militant Islamic government of Sudan has waged a decade-long campaign of ethnic cleansing in southern Sudan that has left nearly 2 million people dead -- more than the entire population of Kosovo -- and has left more than 4 million displaced, the largest refugee population in

the world.The bishop also asked the reason for being ignored. "I pray that the reason for the indifference ... is not that we are black while the Kosovars are white, not that we are Africans rather than Europeans," he said." Itar-Tass 7/19/99 "Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze eyes a Kosovo scenario for separatist Abkhazia and does not rule out a NATO presence in the region where calm is currently maintained by Russian peacekeepers. However, the president said a UN Security Council decision will be necessary for that." Chicago Tribune 7/29/99 Eric Reeves "...The ongoing catastrophe in Sudan stands as the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today... A carefully assembled set of data for the U.S. Committee for Refugees makes evident that almost 2 million people have perished in the most recent phase of Sudan's ongoing civil war. As many as 5 million refugees have been created, making the refugee problem the greatest of its kind in the world. And at the height of last summer's famine, more than 2 million more people, mainly children, were at risk of starvation. And the catastrophe continues: famine, epidemic disease, human enslavement and scorched earth warfare remain defining features of the landscape in the south, where the civil war has been so devastatingly concentrated And yet Americans remain painfully unaware of the catastrophe. How can this be?.... it bears the curse of being in Africa, where any policy success is almost surely destined to be overshadowed by Clinton's abysmal moral failure in the Rwandan genocide. Africa can contribute nothing to the "Clinton legacy" that is being cobbled together, and so--despite its vast geographic, political and cultural variability--a continent has been relegated to the extreme periphery of White House attention....And the news media--television most egregiously, but newspapers as well--have made the marginalizing of Sudan almost effortless. Not one major American newspaper, for example, reported on a resolution passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on June 15 declaring the Khartoum regime's conduct of civil war in the south of Sudan to be "genocidal." Could this have been declared at any time during the past 50 years of any European or Western government without explosive news coverage? Why is Sudan's death struggle so entirely unworthy of national attention? ..." Long Island Newsday 7/29/99 Mark Simon "...MORALITY? As I have read over the last few weeks of NATO's "moral victory" over Serbian dictator, Slobodan Milosevic, I've reflected on the almost simultaneous, allegedly CIA-aided capture, subsequent conviction and death sentence in Turkey of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan and the moral imperative in U.S. foreign policy. The United States and NATO took nine long years to confront Milosevic over Kosovo, nine years in which the Kosovo Albanians mounted a truly remarkable, nonviolent campaign against Serbian apartheid, aggression and the beginnings of ethnic cleansing-that is, routine harassment, beatings, torture and murder. The Kurds in Turkey, by contrast, don't even have the dubious benefit of a NATO military intervention. Striving for a measure of autonomy, they are up against the Turkish military, with the second largest army in NATO-and the worst human rights record. Why does the West turn a proverbial blind eye? The answer has little to do with morality..... " Associated Press 7/29/99 "...The U.S. Navy owes the Puerto Rican government $8.8 million for water it has been drawing from a river since 1985 without a permit, the island's Department of Natural and Environmental Resources says. Department secretary Daniel Pagan said the Navy failed to present a permit to draw water from the Rio Blanco in the eastern town of Naguabo, near Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in Ceiba, The San Juan Star newspaper reported Thursday...." Reuters 7/31/99 "...The Roman Catholic archbishop of Cali, Colombia's second largest city, on Saturday excommunicated the members of a Marxist guerrilla group responsible for the abduction of 143 of his churchgoers. The Cuban-inspired National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia's second largest guerrilla group, ignored a June 30 deadline set by the church to free the remaining 36 hostages seized at gunpoint while attending mass on May 30 in an affluent Cali suburb..." Baltimore Sun 7/30/99 Lawrence Pezzullo Nancy Jackson "...REMEMBER Haiti? That's the Caribbean islandnation where the United States intervened militarily five years ago with 20,000 troops to restore democracy and billions of dollars in assistance. Currently, it is being threatened by the very leaders who were the beneficiaries of our military intervention and financial largess. If left unchecked, Haiti's trouble could boil over and hurt Vice President Al Gore's presidential campaign. Of course, there have been some improvements. Haiti now has an elected government, though, in January, President Rene Preval closed down the parliament that had the temerity to question the executive branch. Haiti's corrupt and oppressive military has been eliminated, but violence continues. The latest example was the summary execution by Haitian police of 11 handcuffed youths in broad daylight. ..." LISBON, Portugal (AP) 8/3/99 "...Eyewitnesses said Angola's UNITA rebels drove 50 villagers from their homes in a northern town, fatally shot them and dumped their bodies in a nearby river, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reported Tuesday. The massacre is alleged to have taken place early Sunday in Quipacassa,

Lusa said. ..." Xinhua via NewsEdge Corporation 8/5/99 "...Devil worship is widespread in Kenya with rituals of human sacrifice and nudity in prayers, the Daily Nation newspaper Wednesday quoted a report of survey as saying. The report titled the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Cult of Devil Worship in Kenya was recently released to religious organizations but never made public, the paper said. The report, compiled by prominent religious leaders and presented to President Daniel arap Moi in 1995, claims that the tentacles of evil sects reached into schools, churches and even government offices ..." AP George Gedda 8/16/99 "The Senate's Democratic leader and a fellow farm-state senator spoke strongly for lifting an embargo on food and drug sales to Cuba after returning Monday from a visit that included a seven-hour meeting with Fidel Castro. They said they told the Cuban president, however, that no further easing of the decades-long sanctions can be considered until Cuba improves its human rights record...." XINHUA 8/17/99 " Ebrahim Samba, regional director for Africa of the World Health Organization (WHO), Sunday told the daily Herald that the Center For Disease Control in Atlanta, the United States, had proof that the first patient died between 1961 and 1962 of a "rare disease". "All the bad things are said to emerge from Africa, while all the good come from the West. The West should, therefore, send a letter of apology to Africa for being wrongfully blamed," said Samba" Reuters 8/17/99 "The governor of a Venezuelan state said Monday he had instructed his police force not to step in to save criminals from being killed by angry local communities. ``The police will not intervene to protect any crook, rapist, assailant or murderer,'' said Lara state governor Orlando Fernandez. ``I have to look after honest and decent people,'' he told the local Union Radio station. Fernandez's decision came amid growing concern in the South American country of 23 million people over a sudden rise in crime..``I have to set priorities. ... I'm too busy to be protecting criminals,'' said Fernandez, whose small, mostly agricultural state is located in central Venezuela." San Francisco Chronicle 8/19/99 Winifred Tate "THE LONG-NEGLECTED conflict in Colombia is emerging as Latin America's major crisis and pulling the United States ever more deeply into an unwinnable war. Escalating political violence, an entrenched insurgency, increasing illicit drug production and growing concern from Colombia's neighbors about the conflict spilling over have policymakers in Washington searching for a solution to the problems besetting Colombia.. Though the Colombian army has declared itself ``reformed,'' the nation's military is far from a new institution. Military collusion with paramilitary activity on a local and regional level continues, and paramilitary violence has escalated in the past six months. These groups target alleged guerrilla sympathizers, but their net of terror has been cast wide over a growing number of Colombian peace leaders and members of civil society. More than 400 people have been killed or ``disappeared'' in the first three months of this year alone, and tens of thousands more have been forced to flee their homes." AP 8/20/99 George Gedda "Less than three months after President Kennedy's death, Cuban leader Fidel Castro told President Lyndon Johnson he was eager for Johnson to prevail in the 1964 election - and even invited him to take ``hostile action'' against Cuba if it would be to his political benefit, newly published documents show. Castro also invited Johnson to continue a U.S.-Cuban dialogue that Kennedy had initiated in the months before his assassination. Castro's comments are contained in a series of once-secret 1960s documents on U.S.-Cuban relations that were obtained by Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive, a research group at George Washington University.. It was a time when the conservative wing of the party was poised to seize power after long years of dominance by moderates. That summer, the GOP nominated one of those conservative rebels, Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, to run against Johnson in the 1964 presidential election. " BBC 8/20/99 "The African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission, meeting in Accra for its first international conference, also called for all international debt owed by Africa to be "unconditionally cancelled''. The Accra Declaration issued at the conference says that money will be demanded from ''all those nations of Western Europe and the Americas and institutions, who participated and benefited from the slave trade and colonialism''. Mrs Kofie told the BBC the reparation figure was based on the number of human lives lost to Africa during the slave-trade, as well as an assessment of the worth of the gold, diamonds and other minerals taken from the continent during colonial rule. She says Africa's turn has come. "We are the only group that have not received reparations. The Jewish people have received reparations. The native Americans have received reparations. The Korean comfort women and so-on and so forth," she said." AFP 8/24/99 "Kosovar refugees received 21 times as much humanitarian aid from the international community than those in Africa, the European Union's top aid official, Alberto Navarro, said here Tuesday.

community than those in Africa, the European Union's top aid official, Alberto Navarro, said here Tuesday. During the Kosovo crisis, roughly 800,000 Kosovar refugees were given an average of 13 dollars a day each in food and medical aid, while African refugees received 0.6 dollars a day, Navarro told a press conference. " MSNBC 8/23/99 Tammy Kupperman "FOR SOME YEARS now, the U.S. military has rotated Army and Marine forces through Port-Au-Prince as part of a military presence that also includes medical personnel and engineers. The last deployment of these troops is scheduled to end in December. Instead of a constant U.S. military presence in Haiti, the United States will periodically send troops to outlying areas in Haiti to provide medical, engineering and humanitarian assistance as part of a series of reserve and National Guard exercises that take place throughout Central America and the Caribbean. Active-duty forces may also occasionally deploy to Haiti under this new regime. The move comes amid Pentagon efforts to scale back American military commitments around the world. In addition to Haiti, military officials are also trying to reduce U.S. troop presence in the Sinai Peninsula, where it is part of the multinational force of observers.." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et? ac=000164087602832&rtmo=0XKRX0bq&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/99/8/22/wtan22.h 8/22/99 Paul Harris " LYNCH mobs have killed hundreds of Tanzanians whom they accuse of witchcraft as black magic hysteria sweeps East Africa. Most of the usually elderly victims have been beaten or burnt to death by gangs of youths. Some old women have been singled out simply because they have red eyes - regarded as a sign of sorcery by their assailants. The condition is actually caused by years of toiling in smoky kitchens cooking family meals. Tanzanian police have linked some of the recent killings, especially in the southern region around Mbeya, to a bloody trade in human skin and organs." Houston Chronicle John Otis 8/27/99 "Street fighting broke out in front of this nation's Capitol building Friday as opposition demonstrators clashed with supporters of President Hugo Chavez, who has vowed to carry out a "peaceful revolution" of social reforms. Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to break up the crowds of people, some of whom tried to prevent opposition lawmakers from entering the building, in the first political protest since Chavez took office on Feb. 2. At one point, several lawmakers climbed over the spiked metal fence surrounding the Capitol in defiance of a constitutional assembly decree that stripped Congress of most of its functions and barred lawmakers from holding sessions. "We are exercising our constitutional rights," screamed Julio Castillo, vice president of the Congress, as police prevented him from entering the Capitol grounds. " Houston Chronicle 8/27/99 " Chavez replacing democracy with authoritarian rule Democracy is on the ropes in oil-rich Venezuela, a country long considered one of Latin America's more stable democracies and this nation's second largest supplier of foreign oil. President Hugo Chavez, a former paratrooper who failed to take over the government in a 1992 coup, has now won office by way of the ballot box. " NewsMax 9/8/99 Chris Ruddy "...A Castro-style takeover is taking place right in America's backyard, but practically no one is paying attention. It wouldn't be quite accurate to say that the leftist take-over of Venezuela by former Lt. Col. Hugo Chavez has been totally ignored by the major media. Here and there we do find isolated reports that speak of events in Venezuela after the election to the presidency last July of the 45-year-old Marxist. But most of these reports have a clear slant in accepting Pres. Chavez, who has proclaimed that his power-grab, his "peaceful revolution," is intended to bring true democracy to Venezuela. The Chavez coverage here in the U.S. bears an eerie resemblance to the positive press treatment afforded a young Fidel Castro who promised democracy for the Cuban people. Chavez demonstrated his "democratic" intentions in the past two months by disbanding of the Venezuelan congress and supreme court and vesting authority in a "Constitutional Assembly" he controls. On a clear path to dictatorship, Chaivez's Constitutional Assembly has summarily eliminated the democratic separation of powers in Venezuela and declared itself the nation's "supreme body." It has even amassed the power to remove as it sees fit duly elected judges, mayors and governors outside the federal government...." Associated Press 9/7/99 Laura Wides ".America gave Bill Clinton grief for trying marijuana. That was nothing. A leading presidential candidate in Guatemala shocked the country this week by admitting he killed two men in Mexico, then fled to avoid trial. Alfonso Portillo, the candidate for the right-wing Guatemalan Republican Front, said he had acted in self-defense in 1982 when he shot and killed two men and wounded another in a fight in the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo. ``I'm ready to have my life investigated and I have nothing to hide,'' Portillo said at a news conference Monday. ." Associated Press 9/6/99 " A gunman opened fire on a Haitian political party leader in what the politician said Monday was an attempt to assassinate him. Sauveur Pierre Etienne, secretary of the Struggling People's Organization, said a man stepped onto the road as Etienne was driving away from the Port-auPrince airport with his family Sunday afternoon. The gunman aimed a pistol at Etienne from about 12 feet and fired, hitting the hood of the car, Etienne said. Etienne was armed and fired back, wounding the man ``in

the lower part of his body,'' he said. The gunman then fled with another man who was standing by the side of the road. ``This is the last in a long series of attempts to intimidate our party,'' Etienne said, calling the gunman ``a professional hitman.''" AP 9/7/99 "- They put smiles on the faces of the desperate and hopeless. They built toilets and showers for orphans used to squatting outside and bathing in drains. They helped farmers get produce to market. Now American troops are packing up to leave Haiti after a humanitarian mission that probably saved hundreds of lives and made those of countless others more livable. .. After receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S., it remains gripped by the political power struggles that have helped keep it one of the most impoverished nations on Earth for the nearly 200 years since it became the world's first black republic." New York Times 8/30/99 Bob Shacochis " In 1995, I spoke with a Haitian-American woman in Miami who had recently enjoyed a lucrative tenure as translator for the American high command in Port-au-Prince during the early months of its military intervention, which had restored Haiti's first democratically elected President to the national palace. "What will happen when the American troops finally go home?" I wondered out loud to the well-educated linguist, the daughter of one of Haiti's elite families. Her horrific vision of the future, which she seemed to energetically embrace, shocked me. "Everything will be fire, ashes and blood," she said, because the Haitian people would at long last be free to unleash the revolution that she believed the Americans had denied them throughout the 20th century.." AFP 8/29/99 ".US anti-drug czar Barry McCaffrey has informally urged Latin leaders to organize a military intervention force to pacify Colombia, a Peruvian TV newscast reported Sunday. McCaffrey reportedly made the statements in off-the-record personal talks with the presidents of Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina, according to Frecuencia Latina - Channel 2. Frecuencia Latina -- a station that has close ties with the Peruvian military intelligence service, SIN -- reports that the multinational force would intervene in early 2000 acting on a request by Colombian President Andres Pastrana. ..." International Herald Tribune 8/31/99 "In 1994, 20,000 American troops landed on this dirt-poor patch of the Caribbean [Haiti], promising to restore democracy. During the ensuing five years, troops remained there at an annual cost of $20 million to American taxpayers, and Haiti became the top Latin American recipient of U.S. development aid. Yet it now seems that the world's only superpower has had remarkably little impact on this micropower of 7 million people. With an air of resignation, the U.S. administration recently let it be known that the American garrison in Haiti would be closed by the end of the year. There is no easy explanation for this debacle.. Some will argue that America should give up on pro-democracy intervention. The Pentagon and its congressional sympathizers declare that the military should not be called upon to do what they regard as ''social work,'' which saps preparedness for proper wars. Given the scant returns on the investment in Haiti, this view cannot be dismissed. And yet America should not turn its back on this and other trouble spots" AFP 9/6/99 Fritz Kuhn "Colombia's left-wing rebels have upped the stakes in their 35-year-old war against the government, buying Russian-made SAM missiles capable of knocking helicopters out of the air, according to a media report. Quoting the national leader of former guerrilla fighters in El Salvador, the respected Semana weekly said Sunday the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels had bought 16 surface-to-air missiles. "(Our members) have firsthand information of the acquisition of 16 surface to air missiles, used to knock down fighter planes and helicopters," Raul Elias Monge was quoted as saying.." AFP 9/14/99 "....- Rebels from the Marxist FARC group were the likely culprits in a mass kidnapping last weekend of 13 foreigners, Colombia's military leader said Tuesday. "Everything points to ... this group," General Fernando Tapias told reporters. Rebels from the FARC -- the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia -- typically "engage in kidnappings and terrorist activities at the border," Tapias said, although at present officials have no concrete proof that FARC is responsible for the abductions of the foreigners..." The Associated Press, via News Plus 9/14/99 Nicole Winfield "....The United Nations opened its 1999-2000 session Tuesday by admitting three new members: the South Pacific island nations of Nauru, Kiribati and the Kingdom of Tonga. The General Assembly also inaugurated its new president, Namibian Foreign Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab, who used his first speech to highlight the colonial struggle of Africa and call for an apology from its ``invaders and slave-traders.'' ``The horrors of slavery and destruction wrought upon Africa and its people cannot be forgotten,'' Gurirab told the assembly, which now comprises 188 members. ``Now is the time for reconciliation and healing.'' ..." AP 9/9/99 "....Cuban President Fidel Castro said the United States would fail if it tried to intervene in Colombia's guerrilla war and predicted capitalism's collapse in remarks at a youth conference that lasted more than four hours. Those who advocate U.S. intervention ``have no idea of what a war is or what an

more than four hours. Those who advocate U.S. intervention ``have no idea of what a war is or what an intervention of that type would signify when all patriotism and national spirit is aroused,'' he said Wednesday, responding to a question from a Colombian student. Some analysts in the United States have speculated that growing guerrilla activity in Colombia could eventually draw a U.S. intervention, but American policymakers have strongly denied such intentions. ``It is asking to put the United States into a very big conflict and a very great risk,'' Castro said....." The Toronto Star 9/9/99 Reuters "...A leading Rwandan journalist working for a state-owned weekly newspaper has been arrested on charges of genocide for her alleged role in the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 people in 1994. A member of Rwanda's ethnic Hutu majority, Nyirabikali has worked for Rwanda's state-owned weekly newspaper Imvaho (Truth) for 15 years. Last year, she won an award for her reporting on reconciliation following the genocide, in which Hutu extremists attempted to eradicate Rwanda's minority Tutsis. But she is now accused of drumming up anti-Tutsi sentiment. "Nyirabikali is charged with inciting ethnic hatred using the government paper before and during the genocide,"Kigali's deputy prosecutor, Edouard Kayihura, told Reuters. "She characterized herself by inflammatory articles calling the population to stand up, fight, and kill the then Tutsi rebels and their accomplices inside the country," he said. ...." The Associated Press, via News Plus 9/10/99 Angus Shaw "....Three American missionaries were found guilty today of possessing weapons of war and trying to smuggle guns on board a civilian airliner. Judge Ismael Adam of the Harare High Court said the men violated Zimbabwe security laws that forbid unlicensed offensive weapons and tried to transport guns in their baggage on a Zurich-bound Swissair flight from Harare on March 7. Gary Blanchard, 36, John Lamonte Dixon, 36, and Joseph Wendell Pettijohn, 35, self-described missionaries from the Indiana-based Harvestfield Ministries Pentecostal church, bowed their heads as Adam read the verdict, but otherwise showed little emotion. The three refused to respond to reporters' questions as they were led from the courthouse under armed escort. The Americans face up to life imprisonment for possessing war weapons and up to seven years for breaching international aviation rules that ban the transportation of ``dangerous goods'' by air. Adam said he will sentence them on Monday. Defense attorney Chris Andersen urged Adam to be lenient, saying the men had served seven months in harsh prison conditions since their arrest. He said Zimbabwe law allowed jail terms to be suspended if weapons were not intended for offensive use. ...." Reuters; FOX 9/10/99 "....An ebola-like virus festering in a Congolese gold mine has killed 73 people, health officials said Friday. "There are dead rats, bats and even human bodies decomposing in these mines,'' Floribond Tshoko, an epidemiologist of the World Health Organization (WHO), told Reuters. The 73 have died from hemorrhagic fever - which causes massive internal bleeding - believed to have been caused by the Marburg Virus. Marburg is one of four virulent viruses that cause hemorrhagic fever. Ebola, another of the four, is highly infectious and causes bleeding through the mouth and skin. The fever has killed 73 of 88 people affected in Durba in the northwestern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Officials said it was probably caused by conditions in the mine. ...." http://www.afrikan.net/NALF/jerich~1.html 9/10/99 ".... In October of 1996, the Provisional GovernmentRepublic of New Afrika and the New Afrikan Liberation Front, at the request of political prisoner Jalil Muntaquim, embarked on an 18 month project that culminated with the March on the White House on March 27, 1998. The Jericho '98 Organizing Committee, made up of over 50 organizations, defense committees and groups, and Jericho Organizing committees from 68 different cities around the country, with a large portion of the work being done by Students for Jericho, succeeded in making the issue of Recognition and Amnesty for PP/POW'S a national one with its successful demonstration and rally at the White House. Approximately 8,000 people descended on the city of Washington, D.C. to challenge the hypocrisy of the u.s.a. in proclaiming there are no political prisoners in this country. The March 27th demonstration was just the beginning of a whole new commitment to supporting these political prisoners and demanding recognition and amnesty fir them. There are hundreds of people who went to prison or into exile as a result of their work on the streets against oppressive conditions like indecent housing, inadequate and lack of medical care, lack of quality education, drugs, police brutality and for independence and liberation. These people belonged to organizations like the RNA, the Black Panther Party, La Raza Unida, FALN, Los Macheteros, North American Anti-Imperialist Movement, May 19th, AIM, etc, and were incarcerated because of their political beliefs and acts in support of and/or in defense of freedom...." Universal Press Syndicate 7/13/99 Joseph Sobran ".... The African country of Mauritania has a problem: slavery. This is compounded by a second problem: Most Mauritanians don't think of slavery as a problem. Boubacar Ould Messaoud, a Mauritanian abolitionist and former slave, held a press conference in Washington the other day to inform the West about the question. As quoted by Laura Vanderkam of The Washington Times, Mr. Messaoud said: "Today in Mauritania they've arrived at the 'perfect slave,' one who's completely assimilated to the master's family. They don't need physical chains because people are mentally enslaved. Slavery is so embedded, people don't know anything else. ... "Mauritania is not like the Sudan, where slaves are captured and sold. Slavery in Mauritania has existed since long before American slavery. It

can't just be abolished overnight. The social climate has to change so we no longer have the mentality of slavery." Slavery was officially abolished in Mauritania by the French colonial government in 1905. That didn't work, because, in Miss Vanderkam's words, slavery in Mauritania enjoyed "widespread cultural acceptance, causing many slaves to see it as a normal part of life." Our image of the slave has been formed by movies like "Spartacus" and "Roots," in which slaves are always shown as constantly suffering, while chafing for freedom. And certainly slaves have been subject to inhuman treatment. In Africa they have been used for human sacrifice, or, as the British observer G.T. Basden put it, "to furnish a supply of meat." They might be branded, mutilated, crippled, castrated or blinded to make them manageable and to prevent escape.....Born in slavery himself, Mr. Messaoud wisely acknowledges "the mentality of slavery" as the real obstacle to abolition. As long as there are people of servile temperament, there will probably be slavery in one form or another -- sometimes in the guise of freedom and equality....." Associated Press 9/17/99 Michael Norton "....Five years ago, President Clinton sent 20,000 troops to Haiti, hoping to end its long, bloody nightmare. The intervention cost $1.5 billion, and the United States has since poured another half-billion dollars into the economy. To what avail? No longer do thousands of Haitian boat people wash up on U.S. shores; Haiti's brutal military regime is history; dead bodies no longer turn up on Port-au-Prince's streets each dawn. But the negatives are daunting. Crushing poverty still makes Haiti the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere; 80 percent of Haitians are jobless or underemployed; and across the board, with amazing speed, people have lost faith in democracy as a cure. U.S. Ambassador Timothy Carney summed up the situation with bleak frankness. "We've gotten only modest results for all that money and effort,'' he said in an interview....." AFP 9/17/99 "....Suspected Tamil Tiger guerrillas massacred at least 47 Sinhalese villagers in eastern Sri Lanka Saturday, police said. The victims included seven children and 17 women...." AFP 9/19/99Amal Jayasinghe "....Sri Lanka's ethnic bloodshed has worsened with the slaughter of 76 civilians in attacks amid mounting international concern for the innocents caught between government troops and Tamil Tigers. Women fighters of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) movement butchered 54 ethnic-Sinhalese villagers Saturday in one of the bloodiest massacres in the embattled country in more than four years. The slaughter was seen by many here as a tit-for-tat revenge attack by the LTTE to avenge the deaths of 22 minority Tamil civilians killed in an airforce bombing raid three days earlier. ...." The Village Voice 9/22/99 James Ridgeway "....Beneath the struggles that define today's global hot spots lies the age old struggle for riches. In Russia as well as in East Timor, that means oil. In poverty-ridden Kosovo, the Serbs have attempted to maintain control of metal mining. In most cases, the ruling forces are not nationalists or ethnic factions but robber barons, themselves often surrogates for U.S. interests. In East Timor, scenes of fighting and burning buildings gave way on Monday to images of smiling Indonesian officers greeting grinning Australian commanders in Dili after the first UN "peacekeepers" landed. Here, the family of former Indonesian president Suharto, whose U.S.-trained and -armed elite forces wreaked havoc among the population, have long-term interests in oil. The Suhartos also control timber, sugar cane, marble deposits, and coffee, as well as oil tankers. Indonesian generals beholden to the Suharto family run companies that export sandalwood and oil. The governor of East Timor, who also is tightly tied to the Suhartos, controls alchohol, textiles, and even drinking water. General Wiranto, the military leader, has a hand in telecommunications and timber through philanthropic organizations that own stock, along with the Suhartos, in both industries. Of course, the major players are the U.S.-domiciled oil giants Chevron and Mobil and Dutch-based Shell. Energy-starved Australia is anxious to jump into the fray......" Wall Street Journal 9/21/99 Alam Kuperman "...Australian peacekeeping troops are already on the ground in East Timor but the debate over responsibility for the recent atrocities there continues to simmer. Humanrights groups blame 25 years of Western coddling of Indonesia. If only the U.S. had applied more pressure on Jakarta, they say, the violence could have been avoided. The reality, however, is almost exactly the opposite. Today's suffering in East Timor is a direct result of too much Western human-rights pressure without any precautions against the tragic, and predictable, backlash. This lesson should have been learned in Rwanda. In the early 1990s, the international community applied intense diplomatic pressure on Rwanda's Hutu government to share power with Tutsi rebels. Threatening to cut off aid, the West compelled the Hutu president to sign an agreement to hand over power. But the West could not compel the Rwandan president and his cronies to honor the pact, which would have cost them the benefits of rule and left them vulnerable to retribution from new leaders. Instead, Hutu extremists decided to retain power by killing the opposition and its civilian supporters. In three months, at least a half-million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed--more than 100 times the number of civilian victims in the two decades prior to Western meddling. Militias and extremist soldiers led the killing. Many in the Hutu army initially stayed neutral, but as fighting continued they too inevitably sided against the Tutsis. The United Nations withdrew its peacekeepers and returned only after the killing was over. The parallels in East Timor are chilling....... After the Cold War, however, the U.S. began applying human-rights conditionality over East Timor, including suspending military cooperation with Jakarta.

Pressure grew in 1996, after Timorese independence leaders won the Nobel Peace Prize and became media darlings. In 1997 the Asian financial crisis increased Indonesia's need for aid and thereby boosted Western leverage. Finally, this year, Indonesian President B.J. Habibie relented, agreeing to hold a referendum in East Timor and to accept last month's vote for independence. As in Rwanda, however, the ruling elite in East Timor (transplanted Indonesians and their local allies) had much to lose and much to fear if they handed over power, so they chose to resist with deadly force. Militias spearheaded the violence, and the army predictably sided with its long-time allies. The U.N. withdrew, and peacekeepers are being sent only now that the blitzkrieg of killing, ethnic cleansing and looting is mostly complete. As in most recent cases--including Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Rwanda--the bulk of the latest violence in East Timor was perpetrated in a matter of days, long before an adequate force of peacekeepers could arrive. ...." Charleston (SC) Post & Courier 9/20/99 "....Five years ago, on Sept. 19, 1994, President Clinton dispatched 20,000 American troops and hundreds of millions of dollars to Haiti to remove a noxious military dictator, and to restore an equally noxious but elected President Aristide to power. An unintended (but quite predictable, given even rudimentary knowledge of Haitian history) consequence of this latest U.S. intervention, once significant American forces and money began to be withdrawn, was even greater political and economic chaos than had existed before. Recently Washington announced that its "permanent" military presence in Haiti, a presence now numbering in the hundreds rather than the thousands, will be replaced by "temporary" missions. Most servicemen, we wager, will view such assignment as punitive rather than career enhancing. Haiti, once trumpeted as a Clinton administration foreign policy success, is seldom referred to in that light today. Floridians and the Coast Guard would be well advised to brace for a renewed wave of starving boat people trying desperately to escape their island hell once the current hurricane season ends. ...." AFP 9/13/99 "....Hundreds of people were killed in clashes between rival tribes last week in a remote part of northeastern Uganda, aid agencies working in the region confirmed on Monday. An aid agency official, who asked not to be named, confirmed earlier reports that elements of the Bokora tribe attacked a village of the Matheniko ethnic group in northeast Moroto District in fighting which began Wednesday and lasted several days. The official said that at least two hundred men, women and children were killed in the raid in the Karamoja region...." Strait Times (Singapore) 10/5/99 "....The Sri Lankan authorities are investigating the possibility of Tamil Tiger guerillas having acquired guided missiles to attack government forces in the island's north. Fragments of an exploded device, believed to be an anti-tank guided surface-to-surface missile, had been sent to experts in Europe to determine the weapon type, officials said yesterday. The suspected missile had destroyed an army track armoured personnel carrier in the northern town of Paranthan 10 days ago, they said. Navy patrols have been stepped up in the north-eastern waters amid reports that the guerillas might have arranged for new supplies of weapons and ammunition. ...." AFP 10/5/99 "...The strong showing by Austria's right-wing Freedom Party in last weekend's polls is "unfortunate" and puts the country "out of step" with its European neighbors, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Tuesday. In the most critical comments yet made from the United States on the second-place finish by Joerg Haider's anti-immigration group, Albright told AFP the party's message was inconsistent with the ideals of a multi-ethnic democracy. "I think its unfortunate when a party that is basically delivering the kind of message that that party is delivering has gotten that much support," Albright said in an interview on her arrival here. "The kind of stridency that comes with the Freedom Party puts Austria out of step with the language that comes out of other Western European countries," she said. ...." Wall Street Journal 10/5/99 Hugh Pope "....The Turkish armed forces are marching on with an ambitious modernization program to bulk up their military machine, and U.S. and European companies are flocking to profit as once-hidebound Turkey turns itself into an assertive military power to be reckoned with in the Balkans and Middle East. Western observers of Turkey's secretive military establishment, noting its increasingly confident use of threats and armed action in regional disputes, predict that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally will buy at least half of the equipment ...." Associated Press 10/11/99 "....Puerto Rico's delegate to Congress has warned Attorney General Janet Reno that any effort to forcibly remove protesters from a military training ground in the U.S. territory would be a ``dangerous'' mistake that could lead to violence. Delegate Carlos Romero Barcelo made the statement in a letter made public Sunday. The letter was sent to Reno last week. ``You must be aware that the situation would rapidly become very confrontational and dangerous if such attempts were to be made,'' Romero Barcelo said in the letter...." Long Island Newsday 10/10/99 Tina Susman Geoffrey Mahan ".....Soldiers who were themselves children drove fourth-grader Abu Jusu to go to war. Hunched in the bushes, he watched as rebels dragged his mother and father from their home and forced them to lie on their backs in the dirt road, their eyes staring up

into the starry night. As other villagers were ordered to crowd around like spectators at a cock fight, the rebels hoisted axes high and slammed them down onto the necks of the chosen couple, sending their heads tumbling toward the terrified onlookers. ....." The Virginian-Pilot 10/19/99 Dale Eisman "....The Pentagon offered Monday to negotiate an orderly surrender to Puerto Rico of the Navy's training grounds on Vieques Island, suggesting it would provide new economic aid in exchange for an agreement to permit the service to continue using the island's bombing range for up to five more years. But First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, bidding for the support of New York's sizable bloc of Latino voters in her budding quest for the U.S. Senate, urged ``an immediate and permanent end to the bombing.''....." Christian Science Monitor 10/22/99 Steven Dudley ".... In Washington, debate over the narco-guerrilla menace in Colombia and the threat to its neighbors is swirling through Congress. In its $1.3 billion three-year proposed aid package for this Andean nation unveiled on Wednesday, the Republicans called the countries bordering Colombia "front-line states." "Rebels have infiltrated South American border countries and even southern Panama - a mere 250 miles from the United States border," said Sen. Mike DeWine (R) of Ohio....." The Cato Institute 10/21/99 Doug Bandow ".... On the day that President Bill Clinton vetoed the $12.6 billion foreign aid bill for being too stingy, the body of former Tanzanian dictator Julius Nyerere was returned to his nation's capital of Dar es Salaam for burial. Nyerere's death should signal the death of foreign assistance as well. Nyerere was representative of the "big men" who emerged in Africa through decolonization.. ......Along the way, the West showered billions of dollars on Tanzania $6.4 billion through 1985 alone. The United States alone contributed $352.5 million through 1985. The World Bank, demonstrating that it lacked both a conscience and common sense, directly underwrote his brutal ujamaa scheme. The result of such hubris that a powerful elite should forcibly organize the lives of millions of people was, not surprisingly, a disaster..... By the mid-1990s, the World Bank ranked Tanzania as the third poorest country on the globe. Between 1980 and 1992, its economy grew not at all. It will be years before Tanzania's people recover from his mistakes and from the Western "aid" that allowed Nyerere to turn his philosophical fantasies into Tanzania's economic practices. Alas, Tanzania is not alone. As of 1996, 70 poor countries were worse off than in 1980; 43 were poorer than they had been in 1970. All had received generous doses of so-called assistance. The pervasive corruption now evident in Russia and Bosnia is problem enough. Much aid simply disappears, as has much of the $5.1 billion so far given to Bosnia, and more than $20 billion provided by the International Monetary Fund to Russia. In fact, the flood of Western cash has actually stoked the fires of corruption......" The Heritage Foundation: Exceutive Memorandum 10/22/99 Brett Schaefer Denise Froning ".....During a meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in late September, President Bill Clinton announced that he would ask Congress to pass legislation forgiving the debt that 36 extremely poor countries owe to the United States. This $5.7 billion debt is primarily the product of decades of failed foreign assistance. The Administration also requested $1 billion in fiscal year 2000 to fund his proposal........Unfortunately, although the President's proposal represents a positive step in addressing a serious problem, it will not solve poor countries' debt problems for three reasons: First, the IMF and the World Bank refuse to forgive debt. Instead, they have offered to restructure the debt that the poor countries owe them, which at nearly 30 percent of the total debt owed in 1995, is substantial........Second, nothing in the G-7, HIPC, or the President's initiatives will prevent the recurrence of unsustainable poor country debt.......Third, Clinton's notion of fostering poor country development by conditioning debt forgiveness on increased social spending is flawed. Proponents argue that, in exchange for forgiveness, poor countries must spend the funds they would otherwise use for repaying their debt on such programs as education, health, and other social initiatives. This requirement stems from the premise that government programs, if sufficiently funded, foster development. This notion is false. Many studies, including The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, show that the single greatest determinant of future economic growth is a freer market--not the amount that governments spend on programs. Developing countries must adopt free-market reforms in order to grow....." Reuters,via News Plus 10/24/99 David Storey ".....A series of foreign policy failures for President Bill Clinton have crystallised concern around the world about America's credibility and authority in the waning days of the 20th century. The perception of a superpower in confusion has been enhanced by an acrimonious debate on America's role, with Clinton branding conservative Republicans who control Congress as ``isolationists'' and Senators accusing him of pursuing ``failed policies.'' ...... Analysts in Washington lay much of the blame on Clinton, a consummate politician who signalled his top priority when he campaigned for his 1992 election under the informal slogan: ``It's the economy, stupid.'' ...... He has presided over an economic boom, but has been widely criticised by analysts and diplomats for showing only a sporadic, crisisdriven attention to foreign affairs at a time when a more conceptual, consistent approach was badly needed...."

Associated Press 10/30/99 ".Puerto Rican pop star Ricky Martin has a message for President Clinton: stop bombing runs on the territory's island of Vieques. "Puerto Rico is united in this cause and I'm part of it," Martin said in Friday's El Mundo newspaper. The Livin' La Vida Loca singer has a tentative meeting scheduled next week with Clinton when he is in Washington for a benefit concert.." AP 10/28/99 ".Over 100,000 Muslims in Nigeria's northern Zamfara state attended a mass celebration marking the state's historic adoption of Islamic law. The outdoor ceremony, held Wednesday in the state capital of Gusau, ushers in sharia - fundamentalist Islamic law - for the first time in a Nigerian state. The new measures, put in place by Zamfara's Governor Ahmed Sani, included segregating men and women on public transport throughout the state...." Village Voice 11/3-9/99 Mark Schoofs "As the death toll from AIDS recedes in America, Africa is reeling from an epidemic of Biblical proportions. South of the Sahara, AIDS is worse than anywhere else in the world, and this catastrophe is transforming the continent foreverIn this pandemic, no nation is an island. AIDS has already fueled a global resurgence of tuberculosis, and by weakening the body's ability to fend off pathogens, HIV gives new and emerging microbes a golden opportunity to adapt to the human species. AIDS has not yet run its course. ." AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE 11/4/99 ".The rights group Amnesty International said Thursday that Colombian right-wing paramilitary groups responsible for massacres of civilians have acted with the complicity of certain sectors of the military. Amnesty's regional director for Latin America, Javier Zuniga, told a press conference that in certain regions of Colombia there is so little attempt to hide the complicity that football matches have reportedly been organised between paramilitaries and the military. An Amnesty researcher for Colombia, Susan Lee, told AFP that the paramilitary groups are "without doubt responsible for the worst human rights violations in Colombia." Paramilitary groups were responsible for around 70 percent of massacres reported this year in Colombia, which total 290 separate incidents, she said.." BBC 11/7/99 "..Sri Lankan army changes top brass Morale is flagging among the Sri Lankan troops By Susannah Price in Colombo Major changes have been made in the highest levels of the Sri Lankan military following a series of demoralising defeats by Tamil Tiger separatists in the north-east. Among those being replaced are the commander of the Vanni area, where fighting is continuing, and his colleague in the northern Jaffna peninsula.. ..." Rueters via FoxNews.com ".....The United States has told Greece that planned demonstrations outside the U.S. embassy during a two-day visit by President Clinton at the weekend could damage bilateral ties, the Greek government said on Tuesday. "(U.S. ambassador in Athens Nicholas) Burns is voicing his concern that the protests may cast a cloud over the visit or even damage U.S.-Greek relations,'' government spokesman Dimitris Reppas told reporters. The Greek Communist Party and various leftist unions and organizations have called for daily mass protests against Clinton's visit and the government has snubbed U.S. requests to stop the protesters from reaching the U.S. embassy building......" World Tribune 11/9/99 ".....Egypt's government-owned press has now raised the possibility that EgyptAir Flight 990 was downed in an attack meant to stop the training of Egyptian airmen in the United States. The government Al Akhbar daily said the presence of 33 Egyptian officers on board the doomed flight on Oct. 31 has raised suspicion of foul play. "Sabotage is thus highly possible," the newspaper said on Sunday. Egyptian military sources said the officers were training to fly the Apache AH-64D helicopter. The officers in the crash included a brigadier general....." BBC Front Page (Online) 11/7/99 ".. Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has accused the British government of setting "gay gangsters" on him over his controversial land reforms. In an interview with Zimbabwe's official newspaper, the Sunday Mail, Mr Mugabe said the Labour government was behind gay activists who ambushed his car outside a London hotel on 30 October. The incident took place just outside the UK's intelligence headquarters and was witnessed by television crews. 'Gangster tactics' The 75-year-old leader said Prime Minister Tony Blair's administration was using "gangster tactics", saying each time he passed through London there were people trailing him...." BBC 11/8/99 ". Two American targets have been attacked in Athens in the run-up to a visit to Greece by US President Bill Clinton. A bomb exploded outside the office of the American jeans company, Levi Strauss, in the northern Halandri area of the capital. The time bomb blew out windows and damaged cars parked near the building, but caused no injuries. Reports said a group calling itself Anti-Capitalist Action issued a deliberately misleading warning message just moment before the blast...." The Washington Post 11/6/99 Colum Lynch "..-When the United States intervened in Haiti in September 1994, ending a military dictatorship, American GIs seized 60,000 documents from the headquarters of the Haitian army and the regime's notorious paramilitary organization, FRAPH. Five years later, most of those

papers remain warehoused in the basement of the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, prompting charges from human rights activists and U.N. officials that Washington is delaying justice for former Haitian leaders...." AP 11/14/99 ".A U.S. team is probing health records of the pilot and co-pilot of crashed EgyptAir Flight 990, despite the airline's assertion that both men were in good physical and mental condition, officials said Sunday. The probe came amid angry remarks from EgyptAir officials that U.S. investigators should concentrate on the possibility that the plane might have been downed by something other than pilot error. ``They were among our best pilots,'' said Hassan Misharfa, EgyptAir head of operations. ``They had long experience and, in addition to that, they had passed all professional, safety and psychological tests successfully.'' EgyptAir officials said the U.S. team, which includes security experts and investigators from Boeing and the National Transportation Safety Board, is checking the health and flying records of pilot Ahmed el-Habashy and co-pilot Adel Anwar as well as their backgrounds.." THE WASHINGTON TIMES 12/2/99 Tom Carter ".Growing pressure for an indictment seeking the arrest of Fidel Castro when he next sets foot on U.S. soil helped persuade the Cuban president not to attend this week's World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. The State Department pointed out the risk last week to a senior Cuban diplomat, Mr. Castro said in a letter Monday explaining his reasons for not attending the trade summit. .." Fox News 11/19/99 AP ".The Greek capital erupted in violence on Friday after police fired dozens of rounds of tear gas to break up a mass protest against the arrival of President Clinton. Banks and shops throughout the main commercial area were smashed and fires set across central Athens as Air Force One touched down, bringing the president, his wife and daughter for a stopover of under 24 hours. Clinton, who scrapped plans for a more elaborate visit last weekend in the face of protests, said he had come to Greece as a friend. .." AP 11/20/99 ".President Clinton said today the United States was wrong to back the military junta which took control in Greece in 1967 - an action at the core of festering anti-U.S. sentiments that erupted anew in violent protests during his visit. In an address to business leaders here, Clinton said it is time for the United States to admit it erred 30 years ago by allowing Cold War strategy to outweigh concern for Greece's democratic government...." AP Breaking News 11/28/99 ".Two journalists covering a local election in a war-torn northeastern region of Colombia were shot in the head and killed Sunday a police spokesman said. The bodies of cameraman Luis Alberto Rincon and reporter Alberto Sanchez, were left lying in a road near the town of El Playon, 200 miles northeast of Bogota. The two journalists, who worked for local television stations, were covering elections to replace the mayor of El Playon, who was killed by gunmen in September along with his secretary and a bodyguard. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but police say that various leftist rebel factions and right-wing paramilitary militias operate in the region" AP 11/23/99 ".The United Nations is preparing to shut down its civilian police mission in Haiti and replace it with a broader new program to help the country rebuild its fragile democracy and encourage longer-term international support. The transition comes at a delicate time for Haiti, which has scheduled legislative elections for March that many hope will end more than two years of political crisis. It also comes as the United States is preparing to withdraw its own 450 full-time troops in Haiti..." Strafor 12/6/99 "..A couple of weeks ago, Stratfor forecast that Philippine President Joseph Estrada might not finish out his term. This week, the forecast was reported in the Philippines and stirred a huge controversy: Estrada accused Stratfor of being allied with his enemies, the Filipino stock market dipped and politicians debated whether or not Estrada should go. Ultimately, our analysis was quite correct and we stand by it. But the Filipino debate gives us cause to examine our role in disseminating intelligence on the Internet. Normally, Stratfor doesn't talk about Stratfor; this week, we will.." National Post (Canada) 12/6/99 Steven Edwards "..Madeleine Albright, the U.S. secretary of state, has refused to appear before a United Nations-mandated independent inquiry probing why the world body failed to prevent the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the National Post has learned. Ms. Albright was the U.S. ambassador to the UN at the time of the genocide and can provide key information about high-level decisions that led the U.S. to call on the UN Security Council to dramatically reduce the number of UN peacekeepers in Rwanda shortly after the killing began in earnest in April. .. However, she and members of her senior staff, including Susan Rice, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa both at the time of the genocide and now, have declined invitations from Ingvar Carlsson, a former Swedish prime minister who is chairing the inquiry, to meet with him and his two fellow panelists when they visit Washington this week.." The Wall Street Journal 12/13/99 Review & Outlook ". Look who's discovered family values. Ever since sixyear-old Elian Gonzalez washed up on the Florida coast on Thanksgiving Day, Fidel Castro has been

leading mass demonstrations in Havana thumping for the boy's return on the grounds that a child should be with his father. Of course, Fidel knows firsthand the pain of family separation. His own daughter, Alina Fernandez, escaped from Cuba in 1983 and has been a thorn in her father's revolution ever since..But effective. When little Elian was first fished out of the waters off Fort Lauderdale clinging to a rubber tube he'd held onto even after watching his mother and stepfather drown, the Immigration and Naturalization Service released him to uncles of his father in Miami. The family and their lawyer say the INS told them Elian would be paroled, which under U.S. law would make him eligible for permanent U.S. residence in a year. And an INS press release earlier this month agreed the case would be decided by a family court in Florida. But on Thursday, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder held a press conference saying that the INS had made a "mistake." The Justice Department would decide Elian's fate. In our book these days, that's automatically a red flag. The boy's lawyers have responded by filing for political asylum. .." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 12/9/99 Rebecca Carr ".. Peacekeepers fled, some families say, and Rep. Cynthia McKinney wants to know why and what can be done to avert future genocide. On the morning of April 7, 1994, Hutu soldiers burst into the home of Rwanda's minister of labor and killed him. They herded his wife and children onto his bed and shot them, too. The killings of Landoald Ndasingwa and his family happened while they were under the protection of U.N. peacekeeping guards, and Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) believes they could have been prevented had the United Nations heeded warnings of the impending assassination. .." Washington Post 12/10/99 Al Kamen "..The details are a bit sketchy. None of the principals want to talk about it. But feathers were ruffled at the White House last week over U.N. Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke's 12-day swing through Africa. No one thinks the Nov. 30 trip--to decidedly unhappy, impoverished, war-torn or AIDS-ridden places such as Mali, Uganda, Rwanda and Angola--was a junket. Far from it. What miffed senior White House types was that Holbrooke announced the trip on Nov. 23 and then, since his U.N. budget isn't adequate, wanted someone to pick up the tab for an Air Force plane. White House folks say Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright wouldn't cough up the authorization. But if the White House were to pay, the trip would have to be declared an official presidential mission. National security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger had just approved Holbrooke's trip to East Timor. With Holbrooke's prior public announcement, Berger was left with no option but to approve this one.." The Union-Leader 12/14/99 Robert Novak ". BILL CLINTON, NEARING THE END of a press conference, was not feeling the pain of Elian Gonzalez when asked about the fate of the 6-year-old Cuban. The normally voluble President was brusque and cryptic in saying, "there is a legal process for determining . . . what would be best for the child." But what legal process? The answer came coldly at Deputy Atty. Gen. Eric Holder's press conference. He made clear the case would go neither to federal court nor Florida State court. "I would expect that the final decision will be made within the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service)." The translation: Elian, say goodbye to the freedom of Florida and hello to the oppression of Cuba. .Government lawyers claimed to have found a legal technicality to keep the Cuban boy's fate away from unpredictable judges. Because Elian, in dire physical condition, was taken straight to a hospital when he arrived in Miami, he was not formally paroled. That consigns him to the INS, which asks but two questions. Is Juan Miguel Gonzalez in Cuba really his father? Does he have a good relationship with Elian? The answer, of course, will be yes, and the boy is gone, lacking effective legal intervention..Holder was fulfilling the President's wishes. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida, the leading Cuban-American Republican politician, interpreted it this way: "Clinton has agreed to (Cuban President Fidel) Castro's demands that Janet Reno (in other words, Clinton himself in appeasement of Castro) make this decision."" New York Times 1/6/00 Neil Lewis ".The Clinton administration, hoping to end a deeply emotional diplomatic and political battle over the fate of Elin Gonzlez, ruled today that the 6-year-old boy should be sent back to Cuba to live with his father. "This little boy, who has been through so much, belongs with his father," said Doris Meissner, the commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. But officials said the decision was made with full awareness that a ruling that would keep the boy in the United States could worsen Washington's relations with Havana at a time when the administration is attempting to increase contacts with Cuba.." arabicnews.com 1/4/00 ".Egyptian Minister of Oil and Mineral Resources Sameh Fahmi on Monday announced an unprecedented oil discovery in the Mediterranean that will help raise Egypt's oil reserves from 3.7 to 8.2 billion barrels. The Egyptian minister added that the three international oil companies in the Mediterranean also discovered at the same site fields natural gas. The natural gas reserves also rose to 120 trillion cubic feet from 36.5 trillion cubic feet. These reserves will guarantee Egypt's reserves to 100 years from natural gas, and 25 years from crude oil, an official statement said...." South African Daily Mail & Guardian 1/4/00 ".AN ESTIMATED 128 000, or 20% of some 640 000 teenagers in Kenya's secondary schools, are infected with the HIV virus, Education Minister Kalonzo Musyoka said on

Thursday. Most secondary school pupils in Kenya are aged between 14 and 17. President Daniel arap Moi last November declared Aids, which kills an estimated 500 Kenyans every day, a national disaster, but declined to advocate condom use to fight the epidemic. Between 13 and 14 percent of all adults in Kenya, about 1,9-million people, are infected with HIV, according the health ministry." Reuters 12/28/99 "..Cuba, the target of U.S.-funded radio and TV programs hostile to its one-party political system, is retransmitting Chinese radio programs to the American continent, Communications Minister Silvano Colas said Tuesday. Colas told Cuban journalists that two transmitters on the island nation were broadcasting eight hours of Radio China International programming each day. The programs -- in Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese and English -- are captured by satellite and rebroadcast via short wave, the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina quoted Colas as saying. Colas said no other communication facility on the island was linked to Chinese government interests.." South African Daily Mail & Guardian 1/9/00 "..LISTENERS of the pan-African radio station Africa No 1 have voted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi the most notable African of 1999, the station announced on Saturday. He beat out former South African president Nelson Mandela. The station said 35 million listeners voted for either Gaddafi or Mandela, but did not specify how big the gap was between the two." Washington Post 1/8/00 Yemane Asmerom ".It is time for the international community, and especially the United States, to compel Ethiopia to accept the only rational and humane option on the table: the peaceful resolution of the problem through international law. Up to this point Ethiopia has acted with impunity, for example, in deporting more than 60,000 people of Eritrean origin and confiscating their properties and refusing pleas for peace from the international community." V Shumet Sisagne "But in 1991, Eritrean insurgents were allowed to secede from Ethiopia through a deal brokered by the United States. The two communities that were tied together by so many threads were made to separate in order to punish Ethiopia for flirting with the Soviet Union in the post-Haile Selassie period. The separation of Eritrea made Ethiopia landlocked, consigning it to poverty and dependence. U.S. interests cannot be served by undermining Ethiopia's viability and alienating 60 million Ethiopians." New York Times 12/28/99 Barbara Crossette ".In the waning days of this fall's General Assembly session, a majority of nations, united by concerns about terrorism, voted to establish an international agreement to stop the flow of money to terrorist organizations. The agreement, the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, is intended to encourage nations to monitor closely the collection or deposit of funds in banks by foreign organizations that may be using the money to buy arms or to support in other ways terrorists in another country While many nations, large and small, welcomed the growing international determination to cut off sources of income for terrorist groups, the convention may be of most immediate help to Sri Lanka, where a violent Tamil separatist movement against an ethnic Sinhalese government has been sustained almost entirely by money raised in ethnic Tamil communities in Canada, the United States, India and Southeast Asia, diplomats and Sri Lankan officials say Associated Press 1/8/00 "..Components of Scud missiles capable of carrying chemical or biological warheads were illegally smuggled into Britain and seized before their shipment to Libya, a British customs official said Saturday. A Customs and Excise official said crates carrying the missile components were found at Gatwick Airport, south of London, and were bound for Tripoli.. According to The Sunday Times newspaper, 32 crates of missile parts were discovered Nov. 24 in an airport transit shed during a joint investigation by customs and intelligence officers. The parts included components of the jet propulsion system for Scuds with a range of up to 600 miles, the report said. Paperwork seized along with the crates indicated the shipment originated in Taiwan and that other crates had already reached Libya, the newspaper said. .." The Sunday Times (UK) 1/9/00 Nicholas Rufford "..Thirty-two crates of missile parts, disguised as automotive spares, were discovered when they arrived on a British Airways flight at Gatwick bound for Tripoli via Malta. Paperwork seized with the equipment indicated other consignments had already reached Libya through Britain.. Cook endorsed the lifting of trade sanctions and the renewal of commercial flights after assurances from Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, that he had renounced terrorism and military aggression. He also handed over two Libyans suspected of bombing Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland. A bigger punch: the missile parts smuggled through Britain give Gadaffi's existing Scuds a greater tactical reach It was sent to Britain from Taiwan in the name of a knitwear company called Hontex. When The Sunday Times telephoned the offices of Hontex in Yung Kang City, Taiwan, a recorded message in Mandarin said its number was no longer in service. A senior Whitehall official said the shipment was part of Libya's programme to develop a long-range Scud called "Al-Fatah", meaning "victory by holy war". "Gadaffi is trying to substantially increase his firepower," he said. " New York Times 12/17/99 Barbara Crossette ".A strongly worded report issued today by an international

panel of experts holds both the United Nations and leading member countries, primarily the United States, responsible for failing to prevent or end the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, which cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The report, commissioned by Secretary General Kofi Annan, who was then head of the peacekeeping department, spares no one, naming those in the highest reaches of the United Nations who were running the operation in Rwanda, including Mr. Annan and his predecessor, Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Mr. Annan and others in his department made weak and equivocal decisions in the face of mounting disaster, the panel found. At the same time the Clinton administration -- represented at the United Nations by Madeleine K. Albright -- persistently played down the problem, setting the tone for a Security Council generally lacking the political will for a tougher response. ." The Sydney Morning Herald 1/10/00 Pamela Bona ".Two Australian lawyers are driving the world's first lawsuit against the United Nations, accusing it of genocide. The prominent human rights lawyer Mr Geoffrey Robertson and Mr Michael Hourigan, a former South Australian crown prosecutor, are acting for two Rwandan women whose families were murdered by Hutu militants during the 1994 genocide. The women claim the UN soldiers whose task it was to defend their families either handed them over to their killers or ran away Mr Hourigan also has previously secret documents which allegedly show the UN had warning the genocide, in which as many as a million people were slaughtered within 100 days, was taking place.." Associated Press 1/23/2000 ".Vandals sacked election offices and burned voter registration materials in three towns on the eve of registration for March elections, officials said Sunday..Saturday night, attackers broke into the election office in Beaumont, a town of some 14,000 people some 250 kilometers (150 miles) west of Port-au-Prince, election official Marie-Roselore Aubourg said. They torched documents, blank cards and other materials. Early Sunday morning, the election bureau in coastal Petit-Goave, some 70 kilometers (40 miles) west of Port-au-Prince, was also sacked, she said." BBC [Blair Broadcasting Corporation, Ministry of Truth] 1/21/2000 ".The plane carried one soldier and 15,000 pounds of equipment The last US troops have pulled out of Haiti, marking the end of a five-year presence. A lone soldier flew out of the capital, Port-au-Prince, on board a US air force jet carrying equipment used by the troops to help build roads, bridges and schools. Without ceremony or fanfare, crews nearby loaded a hydraulic lift, generator and other equipment onto the plane.." Newsday 1/10/00 AP "....A public hospital doctor who criticized South Africa's former health minister for not giving anti-AIDS drugs to newborns said Monday he had been reprimanded for bringing his former boss into "disrepute." Dr. Costa Gazi, director of public health at Cecilia Makiwane Hospital in Mdantsane, was brought before a disciplinary committee by the Health Ministry. The panel recommended a reprimand, he said. ...... The government in South Africa -- which has a soaring AIDS rate -- said the drug was potentially dangerous, too expensive and prevented only a minority of infections. Elsewhere in the world, AZT administered to pregnant women is widely accepted as a major weapon in preventing the transmission of the AIDS virus from mother to child....." CNN 1/10/00 "....A Florida family court judge has temporarily granted custody of 6-year-old Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez to his great-uncle, pending a full hearing March 6. Judge Rosa Rodriguez said Elian's father in Cuba should be notified of the hearing and said that she will change the date if necessary to accommodate him. The judge said she was convinced the boy would face imminent harm if he was returned to Cuba now....." AP 1/10/00 ".... Britain said Sunday it would protest an attempt by Libya to smuggle through London components of Scud missiles capable of carrying chemical or biological warheads. News that British customs agents discovered 32 crates of missile parts, disguised as automative spares, on a British Airways flight destined for Libya was widely seen as an embarrassment to both countries. The find - discovered on Nov. 24 - came days after Britain announced that it was restoring diplomatic relations with Col. Moammar Gadhafi's administration after a 15-year break. For Gadhafi, it marked a setback in his attempts at rehabilitation with the Europe and the United States. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook accused Libya of a ``clear breach of the European Union arms embargo.'' The export of missile technology to Libya remains illegal under international embargoes. ``We have long had concerns about Libya's ambitions to develop enhanced missile technology ... we will remain vigilant and alert to frustrate any attempt to breach them,'' Cook added in a statement Sunday. ...." World Tribune Online 1/10/00 ".... Officials said a crate of missile components were found at Gatwick Airport, south of London, and were bound for Tripoli. The components were said to have included jet propulsion system for Scuds with a range of more than 1,000 kilometers [600 miles]...... British sources on Sunday they were concerned that other shipments might have reached Iran. On Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi was scheduled to hold talks in London for the first time since the 1979 revolution. Earlier, thousands of supporters of the ruling Islamic clergy in Teheran called for the expulsion of British ambassador and

cancel his visit. ....." BBC 1/20/2000 Barnaby Phillips ".. Religious and ethnic tensions in Nigeria are never far from the surface. But the decision of the state of Zamfara, in the far north of the country, to introduce Sharia, or Islamic law, on 27 January, has brought them very much to the forefront once again. The move by Zamfara, one of 36 states in the Nigerian federation, has been widely welcomed across the mainly Muslim north of the country; and several other states have now said they intend to follow suit. But Nigeria's Christian population, who form the majority in the south, have reacted with dismay, saying it could unsettle the country's newly installed democracy, after the hand-over from the military in May 1999. One worried man is Reverend Olu Joseph. A preacher in a small evangelical church in the Zamfara state capital, Gusau, he feels his way of life is threatened. "This declaration of Sharia is bad news for Christians," he told me. "It's going to restrict our freedoms". Members of his congregation are more forthright. "We are ready to lay down our lives for Christianity," said one man.." Sudan.net 1/21/2000 AFNA "..Nairobi - Whether or not slavery exists in Sudan is a thorny issue that continues to generate much debate the world over. As far as Khartoum is concerned, allegations of existence of slavery are the creations of its foes hell bent on tarnishing the name of the Islamic state. Yet more and more independent sources continue to give evidence to the contrary, reports AANA Correspondent Charles Omondi. According to the Collins Concise Dictionary, slavery is the subjection of a person to another person, especially in being forced into work. Going by this definition, many analysts agree, the practice is rampant in Sudan especially in the context of an internecine civil war now in its 17th year. A principle characteristic of the war that pits the predominantly Arab and Islamic north against the Christian and traditionalist south, has been sustained raids on the latter by either the government or government militias. On such occasions, thousands of captives, mostly women and children are taken away as part of the war booty.." Sudan.net 1/21/2000 AFNA ".. It dates back to the 16th century when Arabs first conquered the Nuba of Central Sudan. Having been subjugated, the Nuba were required to supply their masters with slaves, forcing the former to turn to their Black brothers down south. Against this background, the Arabs came to believe that Blacks in Sudan were only suitable as slaves.. Whereas the government does not openly support the practice, it gives the Muraheleen (Arab militia men) a free hand to capture the southerners and their property as their (Muraheleens') pay for the raids on the enemies. In its 1999 report on Sudan, the Human Rights Watch talked of the government's complicity in the slave raids: "The government also armed tribal militias to use as proxy fighting forces. It claimed that it did not violate the cease-fire when on January 28 last year 60 Arab Baggara militia members (Muraheleen) attacked Bararud in Bahr El Ghazal on horseback, killing 10 people and looting the medical compound and feeding centre. "The resurgence of slavery was an outgrowth of the war and the arming of the Muraheleen, who were incorporated into the army in 1989. They were allowed to keep all cattle and people they captured as war booty while guarding the military's supply train to the south or on freelance raids," says the report. "The government," adds the human rights watchdog report, "denied all slavery allegations until May 1999, when it acknowledged the problem of "abduction and forced labour of women and children and set up a committee to address it, including a Dinka non-governmental activist experienced in locating and retrieving Dinka children from slavery".." ABC Raw News 1/30/2000 AP "....ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) _ In a dusty town in northern Nigeria, the Muslim faithful parade in joyous marches, welcoming the coming of Islamic law to their sliver of this sprawling country. But elsewhere in a nation sharply divided along ethnic, religious and geographic lines _ and where such divisions regularly explode into violence _ the arrival of Sharia law has created a feeling of unease, and a nagging fear that Nigeria's religious chasm is growing even wider. Christian leaders denounce the arrival of Islamic law, and the country's newspapers, many based in the largely Christian south, fill pages with headlines warning that non-Muslims will face fierce discrimination. The country's political leaders, in the central capital city of Abuja, remain largely quiet on the subject, afraid of inflaming emotions already running high. Still growing accustomed to democracy, which returned to Nigeria last year after 15 years of brutal and corrupt military rule, the new politicians instead simply hope that the support for Sharia sweeping through the country's heavily Muslim north will quietly fade away...... But months ago, long before Sharia was officially enacted, a number of laws had already reached into the Christian community. Most schools, even public ones, are now segregated by gender, and the state government says public transportation will soon follow suit. Buying alcohol is impossible nearly everywhere in the state _ except at a couple bars near a military base, where the soldiers have refused to bow to state authorities. ......" WorldNetDaily 1/30/2000 Anthony C LoBaido "Nikki counted the money and then hid it in her bosom, as she had with the diamonds. It was a small, seemingly unimportant event in the grand scale of the global economy. Yet upon closer analysis it was a vital move -- one of countless such moves -- in a dangerous endgame pitting the anti-communist, Christian rebel army UNITA against the Marxist MPLA, United Nations and Western transnational corporations that, together, have sought unsuccessfully to destroy UNITA since

1965. "They say that diamonds are forever," said Nikki in an interview with WorldNetDaily. "So is the war between good and evil. These diamonds and the money they are exchanged for have a wonderful purpose. They will provide the funds to sustain our struggle against the forces of communism and world government which seek to destroy our Christian way of life." Nikki paused, calling her daughter to come and sit on her lap. "UNITA must not fall," Nikki continued. "You see, that is what the United Nations and the so-called New World Order wants. It is what the amoral West wants. It is what Nelson Mandela and the communist ANC wants. It is what Bill Clinton wants. But they're not going to get what they want." "What they want is for UNITA to surrender. To give up our faith as Christians. To hand over our mineral wealth to the foreign corporations. To be slaves in the global corporate society. But we will never surrender. Ever." .." WorldNetDaily 1/30/2000 Anthony C LoBaido " After fighting off the U.S.S.R., Cuba, North Korea, East Bloc, MPLA, United Nations peacekeepers, Executive Outcomes, ANC, the betrayal of the Afrikaner government, the CIA, U.S. State Department, and Western-based global media and transnational corporations, one might expect that these forces would finally back off and allow UNITA to exist within its own newly formed nation of Southern Angola. But there was no chance of that. UNITA controls vast diamond reserves in Southern Angola and sells billions of dollars worth of diamonds on the European market. Because of this fact, in 1998 President Clinton, heeding the demands of the Marxist ANC, DeBeers diamond cartel and the U.S. State Department, signed into law Executive Order 13098. This presidential decree, unknown and undebated in the U.S. Congress or by the American public, directed all U.S. agencies, including the Department of the Treasury, to seize all assets of UNITA leaders and to prevent the sale and importation of UNITA diamonds into the United States. The order also sought to subvert the ability of American individuals and companies to do business with UNITA. President Clinton seemingly has dealt the death blow to UNITA, the last anti-communist rebel movement in the entire southern hemisphere.." NewsUnlimited 1/30/2000 Henry Belfast Patrick Wintour ".THE Northern Ireland peace process entered a new and potentially terminal phase last night after Gerry Adams warned that the IRA would never decommission arms if the Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson suspends the Province's powersharing executive this week...." UPI 1/27/2000 Elizabeth Bryant ".Egyptian lawmakers passed controversial legislation that would make it easier for a woman to seek a divorce, but stripped it of a key provision that would help a woman travel abroad without her husband's permission. Endorsed by President Hosni Mubarak's government, the bill has sparked fierce debate among conservative Muslims, women's rights activists and even the normally docile governing party. Conservatives argue that the measures will destroy the family, while some women's rights activists say the bill doesn't go far enough. The watering down of the final legislation -- striking out a provision allowing women denied the right to travel abroad to pursue their cases in court -- disappointed activists. The legislation, a revision of Egyptian personal law that deals with family issues, would make it easier for women to seek divorces on grounds of incompatibility. Traditionally, Egyptian women must usually prove they have been physically abused or abandoned. By contrast, men can divorce their wives relatively easily. The bill would also recognize unconventional, or "urfi," marriages, at least for the purposes of obtaining a divorce.." Times (London) 1/24/2000 Michael dynes "....AFRICAN leaders will today accuse their Western counterparts of hypocrisy and racism at the opening of a five-day "special" meeting of the UN Security Council, called in an effort to prevent a fresh outbreak of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Western nations stand accused of being willing to take "quick, costly and risky" action in places such as Kosovo and East Timor, while showing a marked reluctance to act decisively to help to deliver peace to the war-torn jungles of former Zaire. ..." CNSNews.com 1/23/2000 Jim Burns ".Gaffney circled the globe in his speech pointing out the hot spots where he feels the Clinton Administration is either making a dangerous policy mistake or making a bad situation worse. On North Korea, Gaffney accused Clinton of putting America on a track to normalizing relations with the communist regime that Gaffney said is clearly continuing to build weapons of mass destruction and longer range missiles to use against America and its allies. On Libya, Gaffney said Clinton has "given a get out of jail free card to Moammar Ghaddafi. We're trying to normalize relations with him, too. Going along with this absolute ridiculous trial of two people who he says might have been involved, when, in fact, it was Moammar Ghaddafi who bore principal responsibility for destroying Pan Am 103 (over Lockerbie, Scotland) and killing hundreds of Americans. That's wrong." On the Middle East, the Clinton Administration, according to Gaffney has allowed Iraq's Saddam Hussein to get back in business. "The weapons of mass destruction business, the threatening our friends and allies and ultimately us business.That's wrong," Gaffney said. Syria is a country that's basically "in the tank" at the moment, according to Gaffney. "It's economy has cratered. It's president is dying and he can't as far as I'm concerned, die too soon. This President (Clinton) is trying desperately to provide American life support for Hafez Assad, if he'll agree to make some phony peace agreement with Israel, which will threaten the future security of one of our most

important, indeed, our most important ally in the Middle East. That's wrong. And now, you know what he (Clinton) wants us to do about it. He wants you to pay for it. He has in mind spending tens of billions of dollars, conservatively on Syria and Israel, trying to make this look as though it's going to be secure and peaceable," according to Gaffney. Another possible Clinton move in the Middle East also worries Gaffney. "Worst of all, ladies and gentlemen, he's talking about putting American troops on the Golan Heights. And if you like Beirut, you're going to love that deployment. This is a disaster in the making and it' wrong, " Gaffney saidGaffney closed his remarks saying we are in dangerous world, that is getting more dangerous and not less. "Thanks to Bill Clinton and Al Gore we are less capable of dealing with that world today than we need to be and we will be still less capable, if they are able to work their will over these next 11 months. We must not let this happen.." Reuters 1/25/2000 Andrew Cawthorne ".Cuban authorities have jailed a dissident journalist for "hoarding" toys, and picked up two well-known activists, in an ongoing crackdown that began around last November's Ibero-American Summit, dissidents said Tuesday. Police arrived at dawn at the Havana homes of leading moderate activists Oswaldo Paya and Hector Palacios, before taking them away to an unknown destination, a local human rights' group reported. ".." Long Island Newsday 2/1/20000 ".....At no other time in its history has the United Nations engaged in as many global peacekeeping efforts in brush wars and nationalistic conflicts as it has today. And now it is contemplating what could end up as the most ambitous peacekeeping mission of all-in Congo. At the UN Security Council, the United States is being asked to play a decisive role in it. President Bill Clintonmust think long and hard before committing the nation to a mission of uncertain scope and duration which could turn into a heartbreaking quagmire. For the past three years, Congo has been wracked by a vicious civil war that has sucked in half a million troops from neighboring nations and now threatens to destabilize Africa's Great Lakes region, with Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda backing Congolese rebel factions. The conflict is rife with reports of gross abuses of human rights-among them a practice of burying women alive. Last week, after seven African heads of state beseeched its members to step in, the Security Council made the first formal moves that could lead to the authorization of a Congo peacekeeping force. ....." Reuters 2/1/2000 Martin Cowley "....Anxiety grew about Northern Ireland's peace process on Tuesday as British and Irish ministers headed for crucial talks on prospects for disarmament by IRA guerrillas. Ahead of the talks, the province's Protestant leader David Trimble said he believed a long-awaited report on Irish Republican Army disarmament would signal that the guerrilla group was not prepared to hand over its weapons...... Trimble, First Minister of the British province, warned he might pull out of a new coalition government with the IRA's Sinn Fein political wing. ....... ``Continuing in government with Sinn Fein -- linked organically to a terrorist group that has not changed -- would be to destroy the (Northern Ireland peace) agreement. I'm not going to do that, the agreement has to be kept alive.'' ....." South Africa Daily Mail and Guardian 1/28/2000 Evelyn Leopold ". THE Security Council, responding to demands from African presidents for UN troops in the Congo, is promising to move quickly in authorizing military observers but has not committed itself to a full-fledged force. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has recommended 5 000 troops and military support personnel to protect 500 unarmed military observers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, thereby laying the groundwork for a possible larger force. ." South African Daily Mail & Guardian 1/28/2000 Cameron Duodo ".. SINCE 1995, an organisation based in Switzerland, called Christian Solidarity International (CSI), has spent $1-million redeeming 20 000 Dinka slaves, captured in Southern Sudan, in the wake of the war the government of Sudan is waging against the south. The slaves are captured in raids on their villages which may or may not form part of the Khartoum government's war effort. Freelance raiders, aware that the government won't ask too many questions about raids into the territory of the Dinka people -- from whom Khartoum's enemy, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA), draws many of its recruits -- take advantage of the situation to capture slaves.. The slave raiders prefer women and boys. In order to catch them, they kill the men and burn down their villages. When the women and children run into the bush, they are chased and captured. They are made to carry the "spoils" of the raid, usually sacks of grain, to the north. They are then sold to wealthy Arab families. ." AP 1/28/2000 Tom Raum ".. The Florida nun selected as a neutral party in the custody battle over Elian Gonzalez today endorsed legislation to grant the boy U.S. citizenship. But she said Attorney General Janet Reno does not appear willing to change her mind that the boy should be returned to his father in Cuba. Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, whose Miami Beach home was used earlier in the week for a meeting between Elian and his grandmothers, made a personal appeal to Reno for the boy to remain with his Florida relatives. But Reno did not feel she had the legal reasons to change her mind, O'Laughlin told reporters at the Justice Department. She said she left her meeting with Reno with both making "a promise that we will both keep pursuing the truth as we see it." O'Laughlin cited a change of heart after meeting the boy. "I am no longer

neutral," she said. .." International Herald Tribune 1/28/2000 David Ottaway ".. American conservative religious and human rights groups have opened a campaign to try to block China's largest petroleum company from listing an affiliated company on the New York Stock Exchange next month, because of the company's oil investments in Sudan, which is under extensive U.S. sanctions for alleged support of terrorism and persecution of Christians. Leaders of the campaign assert that the Chinese-backed Islamic fundamentalist regime in Sudan is committing ''genocide'' in its war against a Christian-led rebel movement in the south and encouraging a flourishing trade in non-Muslim slaves. They have urged the Clinton administration to bar the Chinese company from the New York exchange, where it hopes to raise $5 billion in new capital through a public stock offering. They have already helped to persuade a number of big U.S. public pension funds to divest their holdings in a Canadian oil firm associated with the Chinese in the same oil project. China National Petroleum Co., China's state-owned oil company, has taken a number of steps to blunt the campaign. The most important was to create a separate company, PetroChina Co., that will operate only in China while CNPC holds onto its overseas operations. It will be shares in PetroChina that will be offered on the New York exchange. After the initial public offering, the Chinese government will still hold 85 percent to 90 percent of PetroChina's stock. .." Independent News 1/28/2000 Lucy Hannan "..A five-year-old boy stares at the camera in a state of mute shock minutes after being hacked with a machete on his neck - the wound is so deep that the bone is sticking out. An old man sits forlornly waiting for medical treatment, a barbed spearhead embedded deep in his scalp. Houses are in full flame as a young man runs out with an arrow pinning his arm to his chest, and an old woman flees with burning hair. Three survivors with huge open machete wounds on their heads and bodies try to get to safety. The video footage recording these scenes is the most graphic ever seen from the Congo. It is so hideous it has been deemed "unusable" by at least one international television news organisation. Smuggled into Kenya by aid workers, and seen by The Independent, the video is the first direct documentary evidence of ethnic massacres in former Zaire, renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo after the overthrow of the Mobutu dictatorship in 1997. There have been consistent rumours of killings in Congo - including discoveries of mass graves and human remains. The evidence now gathered has raised fears that a genocide, similar to that unleashed in Rwanda claiming up to one milion lives, could be under way. Aid workers say up to 7,000 people may have already died. Some 100,000 people are believed to be displaced and scores of villages razed. .." Washington Post 1/27/2000 ".* CBS correspondent Rita Braver, wife of Clinton family lawyer Robert Barnett, wanted to know if Haiti was any better off after five years and $2 billion of President Clinton's military occupation policy. Last Thursday, while doing some on-camera narration in Port-au-Prince for "CBS News Sunday Morning," she got a sharper answer than she bargained for. "I was scared," Braver told us yesterday, recounting an incident in which "two thugs" interrupted her stand-up, emerging from a crowd of angry slum-dwellers and confiscating two videocassettes after threatening producer James Houtrides, photographer Mario DeCarvalho and sound technician Manny Garcia with a chrome-plated Colt .45. "The U.S. permanent support mission in Haiti is coming to an end next Monday, so we decided to find out how the country was doing. People are very angry at Americans. They were shouting at us to go home. It's so poor and the conditions are so depressing. They thought the U.S. presence would mean their lives would really change." .But it turns out that the country is "in a shambles," with a powerless police force and no sitting parliament, said the just-returned Braver." United Nations 1/24/2000 ". COMMITTEE ON NGOS RECOMMENDS REJECTING UNIVERSIDAD LATINOAMERICANA DE LA LIBERTAD FRIEDRICH HAYEK FOR CONSULTATIVE STATUS .. Acting by vote this morning, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations decided to recommend rejecting the application of the Universidad Latinoamericana de la Libertad Friedrich Hayek for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council Continuing, she said the Universidad had been established and was supported by the Cuban American Foundation and was closely linked to other organizations of a terrorist nature, including Hermanos al rescate, which devoted their activities to organizing the overthrow of the legitimate Government of Cuba, through means including assassinations. The group was part of an important political lobby in the United States; it promoted aggressive policies against the Government and people of Cuba -- including the blockade against her country -- which the General Assembly had rejected." The Boston Globe 2/12/00 Charles Jacobs ".It is time for Bill Clinton to end his silence on the horror of Sudan. A man who cares about his legacy should know that history will chronicle what he did when the deaths in that country approached 2 million - and it will judge what he did to free the slaves. A decade ago, a radical Islamist faction took power in Khartoum by force and turned Africa's largest nation into a killing field. The regime determined to impose its version of Islam on the entire country - on people of tribal faiths, on Christians, and on moderate Muslims. It conducted a self-declared ''holy war'' by preventing food deliveries to starving people, bombing villages, and taking slaves. Slave-raiding is the terror weapon of choice. Arab

militias storm African villages, kill the men, and take women and children. Escaped and redeemed slaves tell of being ripped from their homes, roped by the neck, and force-marched in columns north where they are raped, branded, bred, and forcibly converted. The little boys who reach adolescence in captivity and become less pliant have their throats slit. President Clinton has not protested this human bondage.." EWTN 2/11/00 CWNews.com ".A Sudanese government jet bombed a Catholic school in Kaouda in southern Sudan this week, leaving at least 14 children and one teacher dead and 17 others injured. The Russian bomber dropped four explosives near the Upper Kaouda Holy Cross School on Tuesday during an outdoor lesson. Witnesses also said the plane dropped eight more bombs on two villages nearby. Most of the children hurt and killed were first-grade students. Ten students are still missing from the school. The Sudanese government defended the attack, saying the school was legitimate target. The mainly African Christian and animist south of Sudan has engaged in a civil war since 1983, seeking independence from the mainly Arab Islamic government. "I think it's atrocious that they could do such a thing on children. They must have known," said Father Tiscornia from a nearby Catholic parish.." New York Post 2/12/00 Marilyn Rauber "..President Clinton yesterday rebuked the IRA for being too slow to disarm -- even as pro-Irish lawmakers blasted Britain for taking back control of Northern Ireland. "I regret that the IRA did not give ... a more timely commitment on arms decommissioning," Clinton said in a statement after Britain decided to strip away the powers of the new Protestant-Catholic Cabinet in Belfast. The British move came as Protestant leader David Trimble threatened to bolt the new government over the IRA's refusal to start disarming. Analysts described suspension of the coalition government as a British bid to buy time to save the peace process. ." MSNBC 2/11/00 ".. Britain has stripped Northern Ireland's power-sharing Cabinet of its authority - in a bid to prevent its collapse. The move came despite a last-minute offer by the Irish Republican Army on disarmament, which Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said he delivered to the British government. NORTHERN IRELAND Secretary Peter Mandelson said he had no option but to make the decision, which ends a 72-day experiment to share responsibilities among two British Protestant and two Irish Catholic parties in the province. The switch of power from Belfast to London will take effect at midnight. .." EWTN 2/4/00 ".Thanks to the collaboration of over 100 U.S. classrooms, Christian and animist slaves in southern Sudan are being freed from captivity. For years, Islamic fundamentalists have raided southern villages, selling the women and children into slavery, while the Khartoum government looks the other way and denies there is religious persecution on its borders. Barbara Vogel and her students of Highline Community School of Denver, Colorado, are spearheading the U.S. anti-slavery campaign. In Europe several NGOs are also contributing to the cause. Christian Solidarity International (CSI) buys slaves at market price in order to set them free. ..." CIA Website 2/2/200 George Tenet ". Mr. Chairman, South Asia presents a discouraging picture but it hardly compares to sub-Saharan Africa, which has been largely bypassed by globalization and the accelerating spread of technology. The region has little connectivity to the rest of the world-with just 16 telephone lines per 1,000 people-and its battered infrastructure, the population's limited access to education, and widespread health problems such as AIDS and malaria have deterred many foreign investors. * One indicator of Sub-Saharan Africa's marginalization is its infinitesimal share of world trade in goods and services, which slipped from 2.8 percent in the early 1980s to just 1.5 percent in recent years. As Africa's already small role in the international economy has faded, instability has intensified. Humanitarian crisis is constant. Since 1995, violent internal unrest has wracked 15 of the region's 48 countries, and 19 Sub-Saharan governments have deployed military forces-as peacekeepers, protectors of beleaguered regimes, or outright invaders-to other African states. Instability fosters conditions potentially leading to genocide and other massive human rights abuses. In the Great Lakes region, Congo (K)'s beleaguered government periodically targets Tutsis as suspected saboteurs, while the civil war in Burundi could with little warning degenerate into another round of wholesale ethnic killings. In Sierra Leone, the rebels who used widespread mutilations of civilians as a conscious tactic of intimidation are poised to break a tenuous ceasefire and resume a campaign of terror. Finally, endemic violence and instability increase the danger that criminal and insurgent groups will zero in on individual US citizens as soft targets" Associated Press 2/5/00 ".An EgyptAir pilot who claims to have information about the crash of one of the airline's planes last year that killed everyone on board reportedly has asked for political asylum in Britain. The official Middle East News Agency carried a statement Friday by EgyptAir quoting the airline's chairman, Mohammed Fahim Rayan, as saying that the pilot, Hamdi Hanafi Taha, had asked for asylum, saying "he has information on the EgyptAir crash." But the report said that Taha "does not have any connection to or knowledge about the cause of the plane crash." " Agency France Presse 2/5/00 ".. The Community of Sahel-Saharan States'second summit ended here

Saturday as a success for its chief sponsor Libyan President Moamer Kadhafi, whose calls for new members and a security charter were answered. New members Djibouti, Gambia and Senegal joined the eight COMESSA states in signing the security charter which aims to preserve peace and stability in the region. Founded on Libya's initiative in February 1998, COMESSA was designed to promote economic, political and cultural integration within the region and already counted as members Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Eritrea, Libya, Niger, Mali and Sudan. The admission of three new members makes COMESSA Africa's largest international grouping, fulfilling a long-term Libyan policy goal. Kadhafi on Friday gave a highly-applauded speech calling for more African states to join the eight-member group he founded in 1998"We should think about creating a United States of Africa," the Libyan president said, adding that COMESSA should form the cornerstone of an African union" Russia Today 2/4/00 Reuters ".Ukraine has sent a T-84 tank to Turkey for tests in a bid to win a $2 billion international tender to sell 1,000 tanks to Ankara, an industry official said on Thursday. "The tank was sent to Turkey on Wednesday," Serhiy Samoilenko, director of the state-run Progress military company, told Reuters. He gave no details. Ukraine has said it will offer Turkey 1,000 T-84 tanks, worth a total $2 billion. ." South African Daily Mail & Guardian 2/7/00 Steven Mann ".UP to 30 000 inmates guilty of minor crimes could be electronically tagged and freed to do community service over the next three years, in a bid to relieve over-crowding in prisons. Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete said on Monday the country's prisons were overpopulated by 61,4%. One third of all inmates are awaiting trial. By the end of December last year the country had 161 000 prisoners, some of whom have spent more than five years behind bars without being tried. .." The Zimbabwe Herald 2/8/00 ".THE Government has already put in place programmes to implement the draft constitu-tion, should the people of Zimbabwe vote yes in this week-end's ref-erendum, the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa said yesterday. He told journalists last night that a Constitution Bill has al-ready been drafted to pass the draft constitution into law, if people approve it...." The Zimbabwe Herald 2/8/00 "..In a statement released yesterday, WB president Mr James Wolfensohn said Dr Madavo had been sharing responsibility for the 47 countries with his fellow co-vice presi-dent, Mr Jean-Louis Sarbib, who will now as-sume responsibility for the bank's Middle East and North African region. Dr Madavo said apart from routine staff ro-tations, the team of country directors and res-ident representatives in the WB's 30 offices on the continent would remain the same, adding that the transfer of responsibilities would be completed on May 1. The WB is the largest source of develop-ment assistance and advice to Africa...." AP 2/5/00 ".South Africa's Department of Health said it plans to start testing schoolchildren for HIV in an effort to gauge how quickly the disease is spreading. The tests would be voluntary and require parental permission, the Saturday Star newspaper of Johannesburg reported. Nearly 10 percent of the country's 42 million people are estimated to be infected with the AIDS virus. But so far, HIV surveys have tested only pregnant women, giving an incomplete picture of the epidemic. ." Oil & Gas News 2/12/00 Kerm Yerman "..Oil power Saudi Arabia has kept the pressure on its customers in the West by tightening supplies for March, oil traders said on Friday. Already gasping for supply, European crude customers were hit by news that they will receive between 35 and 40 percent less than standard contract volumes in March, compared with cuts of between 30 and 35 percent in recent months, traders said. U.S. lifters will get around 25 percent less crude than standard contract volumes next month against cuts of around 21-23 percent in recent months, the traders added. .." CBSNEWS.com 2/12/00 ".Thus far, only the war of words has resumed in Northern Ireland, CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips reports, with ancient hostilities resurfacing as the almost two-year-old peace process has taken its most serious stumble to date. The Northern Ireland coalition government, which includes British Unionists headed by David Trimble and members of Gerry Adams' Irish Republican Sinn Fein, has been shelved for the time being. Administrative power was re-assumed by the British Government in London on Friday. At issue are the arms the IRA still has and which the Unionists want handed in or decommissioned. ." New York Times 2/8/00 William Stevens "..Lately, it has become increasingly clear to scientists that in the 10,000 years since the last ice age ended, the world's climate has often served up droughts far surpassing anything seen in the last 150 years, resulting in some cases in the collapse of entire ancient civilizations. .. Now a new study has found that over the last millennium in equatorial East Africa, decades-long droughts far longer and more severe than any in recorded weather history have alternated with periods when rainfall was heavier than today. The droughts dwarfed any experienced by humans in the 20th century, including the

heavier than today. The droughts dwarfed any experienced by humans in the 20th century, including the American Dust Bowl of the 1930's and the African Sahel drought of the 1970's. In each of the earlier droughts, some of which lasted as long as 80 years, according to oral traditions cited in the study, famine ravaged the land, provoking social and political upheaval and forcing large-scale migrations of people. Given this pattern of naturally occurring, long-term variability in precipitation, say the scientists who performed the study, there is a "very high probability" that a devastating dry period, possibly lasting decades, will visit tropical Africa again in the next 50 to 100 years. .." ABCNEWS.com 2/11/00 "..Britain today passed legislation to take back direct rule of Northern Ireland, leaving a last-minute statement by the IRA to disarm as the only way of heading off collapse of the province's peace process. With passage through parliament completed of a bill suspending Northern Ireland's powersharing government of Roman Catholics and majority Protestants, the clock was ticking on a late Friday deadline for direct rule to come into force. No one had given up hope of still averting the greatest challenge yet to the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement that ended 30 years of sectarian bloodshed in the British province. But the signs were not good and with 24 hours left there was no word of an IRA statement to disarm. ." Guardian (UK) 2/15/00 Richard Norton-Taylor "..Parliament's intelligence and security committee is to question MI6 on what it knew about a plot to assassinate Colonel Muammar Gadafy, the Libyan leader, the Guardian has learned. he cross-party committee, chaired by Tom King, the former Conservative cabinet minister, is expected at a private meeting today to agree to ask MI6 whether ministers were told about the plot, details of which are contained in a secret British intelligence report placed on the internet. In a separate development Francis Maude, the shadow foreign secretary, yesterday tabled a series of questions to Robin Cook about the affair. He asked the foreign secretary to set up an inquiry into allegations that MI6 knew of the assassination plot. .." Daily Oklahoman 2/20/00 "PRESIDENTIAL elections seldom turn on foreign policy issues, and this year probably will be no different. Still, whoever wins the Republican nomination will be well-stocked to argue that America can't stand more Clinton-style management of U.S. affairs abroad. Look around the globe. In less than a year Bill Clinton will turn over to a new president a world marked by hot spots: Russia, China, Kosovo, North Korea, Northern Ireland, Palestine, Iraq, Indonesia, India, Pakistan and more. Playing up his legacy, Clinton can say the United States isn't at war. Yet any number of these seething situations could boil over at any time. ." The Hindu 2/20/00 P. S. SURYANARAYANA "THE CENTREPIECE of the strategic calculus in South-East Asia is often believed to be economic security. Japan is active in promoting this, as evident once again on the sidelines of the 10th session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) that ended in Bangkok on February 20. However, the recent resumption of military exercises involving the U.S. and the Philippines, besides a diplomatic offensive that China embarked upon some time ago, have now brought into sharper focus the criticality of longer-term political security issues. The strategic mindgames of the U.S., as also China and Japan, in relation to the larger Asia-Pacific spectrum, in general, besides the South East Asian segment, in particular, can be discerned behind the scenes. These games may assume greater visibility as the 21st century wears on. Outwardly, the mainstream ASEAN members, as distinct from Vietnam and Myanmar on certain occasions, do not contend with the bogey of a U.S. militarist hegemony. ......, But, for the present, the Philippines has come back to the forefront of playing Man Friday to Uncle Sam in the strategic sphere. Simple is the explanation for the move by the Filipino President, Mr. Joseph Estrada, to opt for facilitating Washington's strategic presence in the Far East at this time. Given the lingering memories of the Filipino opposition in the early 1990s to the U.S. presence and Washington's withdrawal from the Subic Bay naval facilities, Mr. Estrada's latest action is no less controversial even in his own country. However, his portrayal of Beijing as the bogeyman sailing across the South China Sea within Manila's geopolitical zone is not without acceptance in the Philippines. Mr. Estrada's recent proposal for the formation of an East Asia Security Forum is seen by the West as an aspect of his penchant for promoting the strategic interests of the Filipinos. The composition of the proposed forum has not been properly spelt out, although top Filipino officials indicate the possibility of including Washington. In essence, the forum, visualised as a reality in the 21st century, does not exclude China, the diplomatic compulsion being the ASEAN policy of seeking engagement with Beijing, in addition to a containment of China through the U.S. military presence in the Far East. .." Washington Times 2/18/00 Bill Gertz Rowan Scarborough ".. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen completed a visit to Africa this week that was nearly invisible to the U.S. news media. Mr. Cohen cut short his trip to Morocco and South Africa after a sandstorm prevented him from flying to Nigeria. In preparation for the visit, the Defense Intelligence Agency recently wrote up a classified report on the arms flow to the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to DIA, Congolese President Laurent Kabila concluded a secret agreement with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in October. The deal involves several companies that have formed a joint venture and will allow Zimbabwe, Namibia and Congo to pool their military and other

resources against Jonas Savimbi's rebel forces in Angola. The companies are enriching those nations' leaders with gold and diamonds and also purchasing arms and weapons from a former Rhodesian arms dealer based in Belgium named John Bredenkamp, who has been granted an "arms monopoly" by Mr. Mugabe......." The Asian Age 2/16/00 Abhik Sen ".Human rights group Amnesty International has warned that the conflict between the Nepalese government and armed Maoist groups is "turning Nepal into a human rights disaster like Sri Lanka, Kashmir and Karachi." In a recently-released country report, Amnesty lists a grim catalogue of violence and gross violations of rights by both Nepalese security forces and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in the four years since the Communist outfit launched its "people's war." According to the report, the CPN has killed hundreds of people since the beginning of its "war." Most of the victims were civilians who were branded "enemies of the people" for their links with the state. The Maoists have also been handing out cruel forms of punishment through their kangaroo courts. ..Amnesty has also accused Nepalese security forces of unjustly executing hundreds of people, including many who had already surrendered. .."At least 400 out of nearly 800 killed by police may have been deliberately executed. Forty-four others have 'disappeared,' including many students and lawyers. .." BBC 2/15/00 "..Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has accepted defeat in a referendum on a new constitution. "The government accepts the result and accepts the will of the people," the president said in a televised address to the nation. He added that the result was "unfortunately a 'no' vote". Opponents of the president secured 697,000 votes in the weekend referendum, while the president's supporters garnered only 578,000. The proposed constitution would have consolidated presidential powers and allowed the government to confiscate white-owned land for redistribution to black farmers without compensation. The referendum was seen as a barometer of the deeply unpopular government. The opposition has predicted that the government now faces defeat in elections due in April. ." New York Times 2/15/00 Stephen Kinzer "..A growing scandal stemming from a crackdown on a religious terror group has led to accusations that the group may have received weapons from the Turkish government. In a series of raids that began last month, the police have found 56 gruesomely tortured bodies buried at hideouts used by the group, called Hizbullah. There was another raid today in the eastern provincial capital of Van, resulting in a shootout in which five police officers and two suspected militants were killed. Soon after the first bodies were discovered, several leading politicians and news commentators charged that Hizbullah had worked with the military in its war against rebels among the Kurdish ethnic group in eastern Turkey. Military commanders denied the charges. " Associated Press 2/15/00 Shawn Pogatchnik ".The IRA, stung by Britain's decision to suspend Northern Ireland's power-sharing government, broke off negotiations today with the province's disarmament commission. In a hard-line statement, the Irish Republican Army accused the British government and the province's major Protestant party, the Ulster Unionists, of seeking "a military victory" over the outlawed group. .. IRA Statement Regarding Disarming Statement from the outlawed Irish Republican Army, which announced Tuesday it no longer would meet with Northern Ireland's disarmament commission: On November 17 (1999) the leadership of the IRA agreed to appoint a representative to enter into discussions with the IICD (Independent International Commission on Decommissioning). . The British secretary of state (Peter Mandelson) has reintroduced the unionist veto by suspending the political institutions. This has changed the context in which we appointed a representative to meet with the IICD and has created a deeper crisis. Both the British government and the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party have rejected the propositions put to the IICD by our representative. They obviously have no desire to deal with the issue of arms except on their own terms. ." Reuters 2/15/00 Cris Chinaka ".Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe suffered a humiliating defeat Tuesday in a referendum on a draft constitution his opponents said was designed to entrench his 20-yearold rule. The referendum was a crucial test for Mugabe's government before general elections due in April, in which it will be challenged by a new broad-based opposition movement spurred on by the country's worst economic crisis in decades. Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede told a news conference the opposition's ``no'' campaign had won a 697,754 votes or 55 percent of the total against 578,210 for the ``yes'' vote after counting was completed in all 120 constituencies. There was no immediate reaction from the government. But official sources said earlier that the atmosphere in the corridors of power was grim as a defeat would be seen as a public vote of no confidence." Agence France Presse via Yahoo! 2/25/00 Simon Mann " The Pentagon urged the US Congress Thursday to authorize a huge hike in military aid to Bogota, and advised against tying the aid to a requirement that the Colombian army break its ties with right-wing terrorist groups. "I urge speedy approval of the Colombian supplemental," said General Charles Wilhelm, Commander in Chief of the US Southern Command, in a presentation to the Senate Appropriations Committee of Pentagon plans for the proposed

1.3 billion dollars in new aid. Congress this year already approved 300 million dollars for Colombia, which receives more US military aid than any other country in the world except Israel and Egypt. Of the additional 1.3 billion dollars -- most of it military aid -- 900 million dollars would go to Bogota this year and 400 million dollars would go in 2001." The Washington Times 2/22/00 Audrey Hudson "..An international animal rights group used U.S. funds to underwrite assault-weapons training for special anti-poaching "brigades" using Senegal army personnel in Africa, according to documents obtained by The Washington Times. The program hired a former Israeli security official to train troops to protect African elephants using weapons captured from Saddam Hussein's army. Friends of Animals pressured U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials in a March 1993 letter to award the first grant of $46,000 under the African Elephant Conservation Act to protect 28 elephants from poachers in West Africa. Bill Clark, Friends of Animals' international program director, said in the letter to Kenneth Stansell, authority division chief at Fish and Wildlife, that training of the special brigades with AK-47 rifles would be disrupted unless they received the grant money. "Air freighting grant-purchased equipment in time for the training program is now out of the question," Mr. Clark said. "However, we intend to proceed with what is available, particularly with the French Army equipment and the U.S. Army 4X4s." .." Sudan.net 2/23/00 John Muto-Ono p/Lajur ".Uganda People's Defence Forces 4 Division Commander, Col. Samuel Kawaga said on Monday that the army is ready to pursue the Lord's Resistance Army rebels to Sudan if wananchi convince Parliament to give him a go-ahead. "You ask your MP [Absolom Ongom) to convince Parliament to allow the UPDF to pursue the LRA inside Sudan. Once we enter Sudan, we shall have the opportunity to use all our weapons which would not be used at home to defeat them and their supporters," Kawaga said. Kawaga was addressing security meetings at Acet market and Lalogi trading centre, in Gulu. He said fighting the LRA from inside Uganda is like a domestic fight between a couple. "When a man fights a woman, he takes care of the pots and sometimes only slaps the woman instead of using heavy weapons ... [but] when we are to fight the LRA inside Sudan, we shall not take care of anything infront of us nor fear to use big guns," Kawaga said. .." Colorado Springs Gazette 2/23/00 ".. The day after President Clinton called for U.S. involvement in yet another international military conflict, the national media and the public didn't take much notice. That's disappointing. Although the proposal to fund a "peace" monitoring force for the Congo would not include American ground troops, it does merit wider debate. Apparently, Americans are so accustomed to U.S. world policing that the announcement of a possible new engagement doesn't raise many questions. After deployments to Grenada, Haiti, Somalia and Kosovo, among others, the U.S. public seems not to care where the president sends our troops and money, or even whether they should be there. "It is no longer an option for us not to know about the triumphs and trials of the people with whom we share this planet," the president said last week during a National Summit on Africa. "We can be indifferent, or we can make a difference." If he were referring mainly to the need for America to trade freely with African nations and to encourage anticorruption policies and diplomatic solutions to wars and internal conflicts, we would applaud him. But these platitudes serve as poor justifications for approval of $42 million to help pay for U.N. forces to monitor a cease-fire that virtually no one in the Congo is obeying. .." MSNBC 2/23/00 Stefan Lovgren, Preston Mendenhall "Occasional shots rang through the Nigerian city of Kaduna on Wednesday as security forces tried to prevent more riots between Christians and Muslims who are demanding the introduction of Islamic law. TWO STATES in the largely Muslim north signed legislation on Tuesday adopting Islamic sharia law, bringing the number of states that have done this to three. Several others are considering adopting a version of the law and penal code. Two days of violence in Kaduna left dozens dead, churches and mosques torched and a big question mark over the long-term future of the diverse West African country of at least 108 million. "Thank God things are a bit better this morning," one senior police officer said in Kaduna. Rioting erupted in Kaduna on Monday after thousands of Christians marched in protest against Muslim demands for the divided state to introduce sharia law -something the state government is studying. ." The Straits Times Interactive 2/19/00 AFP "..The Cuban government on Saturday said that it did not intend to withdraw a Washington-based diplomat accused of spying by the United States, and claimed the accusations were without foundation. Deputy Foreign Minister Fernando Remirez said in a statement released here that the spying accusations against the diplomat, who has not been named publicly, were an attempt to discredit the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service ahead of next week's custody case for sixyear-old Elian Gonzalez. Mr Remirez said in the statement that "The Cuban government will not withdraw any official."... ..." WORLD Magazine 2/19/00 Joel Belz " In sports, it's hard to play catch-up-and sometimes it's dangerous as well. When it's late in an important game, you're still behind, and you very much want a place in the record books, the temptation to do risky things gets ominously big. So the presidency of Bill Clinton bears

watching over the next few months. The man whose chief notation in the history books is still likely to be focused on the word impeachment doesn't want to be remembered as a loser. With time running out, he'd obviously love to pull off a big play or two to shift the crowd's attention away from earlier fumbles, interceptions, and assorted miscues. So it's no accident that a good bit of Mr. Clinton's attention since last year has been directed to issues in places like Northern Ireland and the Middle East. With no dramatic victories available to be won on the home front, he must be thinking, maybe the historians would look with favor on a couple of demonstrations of peace where only war had been known for generations" BBC 2/25/00 "..The anti-slavery association in Niger, Timidria, has said that slavery is still rife in all eight regions of the country. The head of the association, Iglas Wailler, made the claim in a speech to a conference on slavery in the southern town of Maradi. He estimated that there were about twenty-thousand people serving as slaves in Niger, mainly from the Tuareg, Fulani and Jam Songhai communities. He said that slave owners were usually traditional rulers and clergymen, while their victims were usually from a class of people known as untouchables. Mr Wailler said that young female slaves suffered sexual demands from their owners, while male slaves were often castrated or branded with hot irons" Reuters 2/25/00 "Heavily armed rebels blocked Indian and Ghanaian U.N. troops trying to deploy in Sierra Leone's diamond mining heartland where rebels are holding out despite a civil war accord, the United Nations said on Friday. The United Nations Military Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) said the confrontation on Wednesday in eastern Sierra Leone was part of repeated attempts by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels to prevent peacekeepers from deploying. In one incident on the same day, U.N. troops returned fire from a rebel group trying to loot a village, UNAMSIL said in a statement. It made no mention of casualties. "On 23 February, a convoy of UNAMSIL peacekeepers were blocked while on their way to Daru," the statement said, referring to a town in the eastern diamond region. " Yahoo! 2/25/00 AP ".Sudanese pro-government militias have killed 16 people and seized 300 women and children in a ``slave raid'' on 11 villages in war-torn southern Sudan, a humanitarian aid group said Thursday. Popular Defense Force militias forced those captured in the Bahr el-Ghazal region to go to government-held territories farther north, the Geneva-based humanitarian group Christian Solidarity International said. In a letter addressed to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and faxed to The Associated Press, CSI president Hans Stuckelberger urged the United Nations to punish the Sudanese government. He accused the predominantly Islamic, Arab government in Khartoum of using the abduction of civilians from the mostly Christian and animist south as weapon against southern Sudanese rebels. .." Reuters 2/24/00 Adrian Blomfield "..British Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain launched a scathing attack against members of Zimbabwe's government on Thursday, accusing them of perpetuating a brutal war in the Congo. He also said Ukraine and Belarus were fueling conflict in Africa by selling arms to the continent -- a practice which could prevent the two nations from joining the European Union. The African-born minister said in an interview that some members of the Zimbabwe government were profiting from human misery by acquiring lucrative diamond and mineral concessions in the Democratic Republic of Congo. "Zimbabwe has got involved in commercial interests, diamond concessions and so on and army commanders and some senior figures in the government have private interests," he said. "That is very serious. Once the war is privatized, once you start making profit on the side, then you are likely to stay there even though it is bleeding your public finances dry." Zimbabwe, along with Angola and Namibia are backing forces loyal to Congolese President Laurent Kabila, while Uganda and Rwanda back rebels opposed to the Kabila regime. The plundering of the Congo's resources occupied the U.N. Security Council in New York for several days, with several members proposing a panel to probe abuses. .." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 2/18/00 Johnson Young Lancaster ". WHILE U.S. foreign policy toward Central and South America has always been dubious, its latest foray into Colombia looks like a dirty little war about to grow bigger. What is thinly disguised as an all-out assault on narcotics traffic amounts to the safeguarding of the investments of companies like Xerox, Naturalizer Shoe Co., SmithKline Beecham, Texaco, Exxon and Occidental Petroleum. Three hundred of the 400 companies in Forbes magazine's annual ranking do business in Colombia, a country of 35 million people whose main trading partner is the United States. Oil exports make up 27 percent of U.S. trade with Colombia while its best known export -- coffee -- accounts for 17 percent of U.S. trade. Since 1964, two guerrilla groups have fought the Colombian government for control of the country. FARC, (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN (National Liberation Army) control 40 percent of Colombia's mountainous beauty. The FARC, led by Manuel Marulanda, negotiated limited political autonomy over the areas it holds. About 231 active duty and retired U.S. soldiers, including Green Berets, are in Colombia, training and advising Colombian troops. The United States has lent sophisticated spy planes for directing combat operations. Colombian President Andres Pastrana visited the United States last month lobbying Congress for a $1.6 billion military aid package backed by the Clinton administration. Curtis Kamman, U.S. ambassador to Colombia, said the United States will provide Blackhawk helicopters to protect American commercial crop dusting pilots who are fumigating large coca

plantations" Sunday Times UK 2/9/00 Jan Raath ".Zimbabwe, a small, pretty country with friendly people who are among Africa's best educated, has the most robust and varied economy in Africa outside South Africa, and its infrastructure makes it seem like a First World country. Robert Gabriel Mugabe, 75, was voted into power in 1980 after running a seven-year guerrilla war against white rule in Rhodesia. Under a British-drafted Constitution, he swiftly shed his radical Marxist exterior and earned worldwide acclaim for adopting a policy of reconciliation between the country's blacks and whites, and for his acceptance of Zimbabwe's prosperous capitalist economic system. But after 20 years of unquestioned rule, bungled policy decisions and, more recently, rampant corruption, Zimbabwe can take no more. .." Times (London) 2/20/00 Maeve Sheehan "..THE Irish police and FBI are investigating claims that the IRA shipped part of a 20-ton cache of guns and heavy weaponry into Ireland last summer while apparently negotiating to decommission arms under the Northern Ireland peace process. The consignment included sniper rifles and machineguns from Venezuela and Colombia. A further two tons of 9mm and .45 handguns may have been shipped from Mexico to Londonderry. An Irish police source last week confirmed that an investigation had been launched into an alleged arms plot...." San Jose Mercury News 2/20/00 Clarence Lusane "..THE Clinton administration declared January the ``month of Africa,'' hoping to focus attention on the continent, including the civil war in the Congo. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, speaking before the U.N. Security Council, called the conflict ``Africa's first world war.'' The month has come and gone, but the attention must not fade. A new report from the New York-based World Policy Institute implicates the United States in the Congo war and other troubles besetting Africa. The report documents the continuing trade in U.S. arms to Africa, specifically the Congo, under the Clinton administration. Titled ``Deadly Legacy: U.S. Arms to Africa and the Congo War,'' the report says the United States played a significant role in propelling the ``cycles of violence and economic problems'' that confront tens of millions in Africa. Through the Cold War, the United States provided more than $1.5 billion in weaponry to Africa. Between 1991 and 1998, the United States gave more than $227 million worth of weapons and military training to the continent. " Houston Chronicle 2/15/00 Edward Hegstrom " The U.S. military has the power but lacks the public support to stop genocide around the world, retired Gen. Colin Powell said Monday. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, here to receive a "moral courage" award from the Holocaust Museum Houston, said the United States, even had it known about the slaughter of Jews at the outset of World War II, could not have stopped it unilaterally because it lacked the military power. But now that the U.S. military has become the world's most powerful, deciding where to intervene has become an agonizing moral decision, he said. "It's very difficult to say to the American people that we ought to (intervene) whenever a country has a 911 situation," Powell said prior to a dinner where he received the award. ." Reuters 3/5/00 "..The United Arab Emirates said on Sunday it had signed a long-awaited $6.4 billion deal with U.S. defence firm Lockheed Martin for 80 F-16 Block 60 fighter aircraft, with delivery to start at the end of 2004. "The contract has been signed today and delivery will be at the end of 2004," Obaid al-Kutbi, director of purchasing for the UAE armed forces, told a news conference. Kutbi said the $6.4 billion deal covered 80 aircraft and associated equipment, including electronic warfare equipment from Northrop Grumman and the cost of plane engines. Pratt and Whitney and General Electric Co were still competing to supply the engines, said Kutbi, who is also spokesman for the Triple International Defence Exhibition and Conference (TRIDEX) 2000 where the signing was announced. Kutbi said deliveries would be made according to a schedule starting at the end of 2004, but he did not say when all the planes would be handed over. He said the UAE had agreed with the U.S. government to purchase the necessary weapons systems for the aircraft. .." EWTN 3/4/00 Zenit ".Exiled Bishop Macram Max Gassis of El Obeid, Sudan, who visited the United States to receive an award for his work and inform authorities, churches, and the humanitarian organization "Sudan Relief & Rescue" about the situation in his country, said that there is a genocide being planned against Christians in southern Sudan by the Islamic regime of Khartoum. As already reported, the last action against the southern Christian population by the army of Khartoum was the bombing of a Catholic school in Kauda, in which 21 children and their teachers died. The Bishop sent a message to the people of the Nuba mountains, especially those of Kauda, and to all his faithful, offering his prayers and support at this difficult time. "Once again I have said to the world that the National Islamic Front of Khartoum is carrying out a genocide against Christians, and Africans who are not Arabs, with the objective of establishing a radical Islamic state. These terrible, heartbreaking incidents, are another example that this war is an ethnic and religious war, launched by the Khartoum regime,in order to destroy my people. I cannot give you back your 21 children, killed in Kauda by the regime. Today there are many Rachels in Kauda who weep over the loss of their children. But we must insist that the international community act before it is too late." During his stay

in the United States, Bishop Gassis met with Church leaders to request their prayers for peace and justice in the country. "I can assure you that in many churches of the United States, our brothers in Christ -- Catholics and Protestants -- are praying for us," the Bishop said. .." Chicago Tribune 3/5/00 " Dogged by organizational problems that left more than 1 million voters unregistered, Haiti on Friday postponed March 19 elections, without specifying a new date. The announcement came only hours after the UN Security Council urged Haiti to stick "as closely as possible" to its schedule for elections, which it said were crucial to the Caribbean nation's fledgling democracy. "A new electoral timetable for the balloting will be published as soon as possible," said electoral council spokesman Roland Sainristil. He cited "innumerable difficulties surrounding voter registration." .." Reuters 3/4/00 Pascal Fletcher "..Cuba's president Fidel Castro has said he is fighting for a total end to U.S. hostility against his country and this battle would go on even after Cuban shipwreck boy Elian Gonzalez was returned to the island. "We will carry on fighting ... until the whole conspiracy against our nation disappears," the 73-year-old leader told reporters after attending a gala dinner for cigar lovers in Havana which went on into the early hours of Saturday. Castro, who has launched a patriotic crusade for the return of six-year-old Elian from Miami, made clear he saw the three- month-old custody row over the boy as merely one battle in a wider war to overturn U.S. policy against communist-ruled Cuba. "When Elian comes home there will be no party," he said. .." Newsmax 2/4/00 Ken Hamblin ".. Aids now is officially recognized as the No. 1 killer in sub-Saharan Africa, slaughtering 10 times more black Africans than have perished from tribal warfare. That fact became official a few weeks ago, when Vice President Al Gore pledged to put the African AIDS crisis on the world's security agenda. Seated in the president's chair at the United Nations, Gore outlined a new American policy designed to combat the African AIDS epidemic -- an epidemic which, time and time again, I have attributed largely to the lax, amoral sexual behavior of many in black Africa. Gore did not address that possibility. Instead, he announced to the world that the White House has asked Congress to cough up 150 million of our tax dollars for research and prevention programs in Africa I've been trying to bring the African AIDS problem to the attention of African-Americans for a long while. But, to judge by the e-mails and telephone calls that come into my syndicated talk-radio show, many black Americans are determined to remain in denial because they're put off by the way I deliver my message about the crisis in darkest Africa. Apparently, they don't like my refusal to coddle the victims when I talk about the rampant sexual misbehavior which threatens to substantially reduce the African population. Apparently they don't care for the urgency of my warnings that the premature deaths of several generations of black Africans eventually could make black Africa a virtual wasteland. Apparently they would rather watch their black brethren be buried in early graves than open their eyes to the undeniable facts that are staring them in the face. Certainly, those facts are grim, none more so than the deaths of black babies who never had a chance to live. Even grimmer, in its way, is that those deaths would never have occurred were it not for the promiscuous behavior of black Africans and careless drug use in our own United States. .." Islamic Views 2/29/00 "The three northern Nigerian states which declared Islamic Sharia law have agreed to withdraw the legislation, Vice President Atiku Abubakar said Tuesday, after a wave of unrest claimed hundreds of lives. Abubakar said that a meeting of the National Council of States presided over by President Olusegun Obasanjo agreed that the three states of Zamfara, Niger and Sokoto should return to the "status quo ante" (situation preceding) declarations of Sharia made in recent months. "It was decided and agreed that, as far as the Sharia law is concerned, we will return to the status quo ante," he told reporters after the meeting, amid reports of religious violence and reprisal killings in southern Nigeria. The governors of the three northern states had accepted the decision, he said. .." Reuters 2/29/00 "..Army bomb experts examined what appeared to be an abandoned hand-held rocket launcher near a British Army barracks on Tuesday, police said. "It looks like the real thing and was primed and ready to be fired, with a warhead inside it," a security source told Reuters. "As the device is hand-held it would appear they were not targeting the barracks but waiting for a passing army patrol." Police found the device in the front garden of a home in Dungannon on Tuesday morning after they were alerted to a "suspicious object" near Killymeal ..." Reuters 2/29/00 Stephanie Nebehay ".. United Nations agencies on Tuesday appealed for more helicopters and other emergency aid for Mozambique, where up to 100,000 people have yet to be evacuated from rising waters bearing diseases including cholera. Donor countries pledged $13.5 million at emergency talks in Geneva, according to Donato Kiniger-Passigli, spokesman of the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Italy and the Netherlands led the pledges with $5 million and $3.15 million, followed by Portugal with $2 million...." Electronic Telegraph 3/2/00 David Blair ".. THOUSANDS of black squatters invaded white-owned farms in

Zimbabwe yesterday, beating war drums and waving axes, as the government contemptuously swept aside its referendum defeat last month and pressed ahead with plans to seize land without compensation. Land contention: Zimbabwean war veterans occupy a farm west of the capital Harare At least 70 farms have been overrun by mobs who have imprisoned farmers in their homes and terrified families by chanting slogans from the independence war against white rule. Taking advantage of the West's focus on Mozambique, President Mugabe made a blatant bid for votes in the election due next month, by publishing an amendment to the constitution demanding that Britain should pay any compensation for land seizures. The amendment is along exactly the same lines as a clause in a new draft constitution which was rejected by voters in the referendum last month. Ministers made clear that the popular hunger for land owned by whites would be satisfied by the amendment, which will be submitted to parliament next month and would remove the final legal barrier to nationalisation. ." Tampa Bay Online 3/4/00 AP "..Kuwait's oil minister on Saturday welcomed a recommendation by three major oil producers for a production boost in an effort to ease global oil prices from their highest levels in nine years. Sheik Saud Al Sabah said in a statement that the position of Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Mexico was a "step in the right direction toward achieving a unified position by OPEC and non-OPEC countries" in the effort to maintain market stability.." The Electronic Telegraph 3/4/00 David Blair "..PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe yesterday gave his seal of approval to the wave of land invasions in Zimbabwe, flatly contradicting a conciliatory pledge from the government as the leader of the squatters vowed to "deport the whites back to Britain". Sit in protest: war veterans relax in an occupied farmyard Across the country, dozens more farms were overrun by mobs armed with spears and axes, many of them drunk or under the influence of drugs. Dumiso Dabengwa, the home affairs minister, had assured farmers on Thursday that all squatters would leave "with immediate effect". However, mobs have since overrun a further 40 farms, bringing the total under chaotic occupation to about 140. .." Reuters 3/1/00 "..Venezuelan oil union leaders said Wednesday they will call an indefinite national strike in the near future after national oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) refused to restart contract talks. "Rest assured that a general strike is now irreversible," said Carlos Ortega, head of the Venezuela's largest oil union, Fedepetrol. A government-controlled Constitutional Assembly decreed in January that talks on a new collective contract be suspended until the opposition-run unions hold democratic elections.." Reuters 3/1/00 Deborah Zabaranko "..The United States said on Wednesday it will send helicopters and some 900 troops, including elite Army Green Berets and Navy SEALs, to help cope with catastrophic flooding in Mozambique. President Bill Clinton announced the African deployment in a statement, and Defense Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the troops, along with six heavy rescue helicopters and small boats, "will begin arriving over the next several days". ..." WASHINGTON POST 3/1/00 Angus Shaw "..Former guerrillas wielding axes, spears, and clubs invaded white-owned farms across Zimbabwe yesterday, with authorities doing nothing to stop them. A farmers' union said anarchy would take hold if no one protected the farmers. Landless blacks led by former guerrillas from the bush war that ended white rule in Zimbabwe in 1980 occupied at least 36 farms, the Commercial Farmers' Union said yesterday. Zimbabwe was known as Rhodesia before independence. The invaders threatened white farmers and their families and broke fences and gates, the union said. One elderly couple was assaulted and held hostage in their home for five hours Monday. No injuries were immediately reported. ''Unless the government restores law and order, anarchy will prevail,'' said David Hasluck, an official with the union, which represents 4,000 mostly white members." International Herald Tribune 3/1/00 Joseph Fitchett "The European Union plans to unveil an institutional arm to handle defense Wednesday. It will be the first concrete step by Europe's major countries to set up their own military forces as a complement to NATO. Three bodies are being created in Brussels by the 15 EU states: a political and security committee of ambassadors, a military committee of senior officers and a multinational planning staff. Some of the elements are being taken over from the Western European Union, a small body that used to work with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.." Reuters 3/1/00 "Criminal gangs have begun smuggling Turkish Kurds into the West through Kosovo and Albania, Albanian police said on Wednesday. Rexhep Mula, deputy police chief in the northern town of Kukes, said seven Kurds had been caught entering Albania illegally on Wednesday, the third such group in recent weeks. "The Kurds have now started to use the Morini border crossing to come into Albania and later go to Italy," he said. From Albania the would-be illegal immigrants generally cross to Italy by speedboat. .." The Heritage Foundation 2/25/00 Stephen Johnson ".. After the Soviet Union collapsed and its subsidies to Cuba ended, Congress passed important legislation to aid the Cuban people and bring political freedoms to the island. Regrettably, the Clinton Administration largely ignores or misuses these laws to pursue stable

to the island. Regrettably, the Clinton Administration largely ignores or misuses these laws to pursue stable relations with aging dictator Fidel Castro. For his part, Castro has kept the Administration in a conciliatory posture by provoking crises and manipulating events, such as the downing of U.S. civilian planes four years ago and the politicizing of the custody fight over 6-year-old refugee Elan Gonzalez. This tactic diverts attention from the continuing repression of Cubans. .." Electronic Telegraph 2/28/00 Tom Leonard ". TELEVISION broadcasters have orchestrated a dramatic decline in coverage of global affairs which has "dumbed down" Third World issues to the level of wildlife and holiday programmes, say Britain's biggest aid charities. There are now almost half as many dedicated factual and documentary programmes concerned with human rights, development and the environment as there were a decade ago, according to a study published today by the Third World and the Environment project, which is backed by Christian Aid, Oxfam, Save The Children Fund and the World Wide Fund for Nature. There has been a similar fall in the number of programmes on politics, religions, cultures and arts in the developing world. The report, which reinforces accusations that broadcasters are lowering programme standards in an obsessive hunt for high ratings, also identifies a "worrying" decrease in the quality as well as the quantity of what is shown. ." Yahoo! 2/28/00 Matthew Tostevin Reuters ".Scores of people were killed in rioting in southeast Nigeria in a backlash to last week's northern religious blood-letting as violence in Africa's most populous nation appeared to be spinning out of control. Witnesses saw 50 corpses in just the main streets of the southeastern city of Aba on Monday, while more deaths were reported from nearby Onitsha as ethnic Ibo Christians attacked immigrant Hausa Muslims in revenge for last week's riots in their northern homeland...." EWTN 2/28/00 "..The number of dead resulting from the conflict between Christians and Muslims over the enforcement of the Islamic Law ("sharia") in the city of Kaduna, in northern Nigeria, has risen to 400. Today, after a period of silence, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo spoke out, denouncing the application of the "sharia" as a violation of the Constitution. There was an eerie calm in Kaduna today. The army now controls the areas that were the scene of pitched battles with machetes, work instruments, and firearms. According to a nun who works in the city, this morning a band of Muslims tried to attack a group of Christians who survived the arson of a village near Kaduna, but the police intervened in time. At present, the streets of the city are being swept clean. There is filth and burnt material everywhere, to say nothing of bodies lying on the ground awaiting burial. .." Reuters 2/28/00 ".Ethnic riots erupted Monday in Nigeria's southeastern city of Aba in a backlash to last week's religious bloodshed in the north of the country in which hundreds of people died, residents said. ``The rioting started in the morning. There has been fighting between the Ibos and Hausas. Nobody can say how many dead there are now,'' one Aba resident told Reuters by telephone. Abia State authorities confirmed the violence and said police had been reinforced to bring the situation under control. ." BBC News Online 2/28/00 "..Increasing numbers of white-owned farms are being occupied by supporters of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's policy of land redistribution. Squatting began after the government lost a referendum two weeks ago which would have allowed large-scale reforms. About 15 farms now have squatters on them, ranging from small groups to several hundred. President Mugabe: Intent on land reform despite referendum defeat Each day, more white-owned farms are occupied by groups of government supporters belonging to the War Veterans' Association - a group which played a key role when the land issue last came to prominence two years ago. ." Enter Stage Right - A Journal of Modern Conservatism 3/6/00 Charles Morse " Marxist theoretician and African nationalist Frans Fannon, in the early 20th century, developed the idea that race conflict equals class conflict as a means of birthing world socialism. The left has subsequently developed "race consciousness" to further conflict between the races. The desired result is an empowered state which, acting as a white knight, steps in to save the citizenry from the planned anarchy. Race has been exploited with a measure of success in America by the left and this has poisoned the well of genuine civil rights in the process. Our Achilles heal is our race problems. The left exploits this by fanning the flames of racism. Setting one race against another proved so successful to the left that they have further defined categories in which to exploit conflict. These include ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and others. Their solution, although rarely articulated, is stronger and more invasive government i.e. socialism. Several ancillary goals are achieved as well on their road to utopia " WorldNetDaily 3/10/00 David Bresnahan "A shipment of Humvees and other military equipment was sent in error from the U.S. directly into Costa Rica, inadvertently exposing the existence of a secret operation there, according to government sources. Although the supplies are now being held by customs agents and cannot be released until a fee has been paid and papers signed, the U.S. military cannot acknowledge the equipment because it does not have permission to be in Costa Rica. Military sources told WorldNetDaily that incompetence caused the error, and that the supplies should have been flown in secretly to avoid exposing

the operation. If the U.S. does not claim the equipment within 60 to 90 days, it will be sold at auction to the highest bidder. The embarrassing situation is just one of a string of events that upset veteran military and intelligence sources who have spoken with WorldNetDaily on condition of anonymity. .." AP via Newsday 3/11/00 Nicole Winfield "..Several African nations have violated international sanctions by aiding Angola's UNITA rebels, supplying fuel and weapons and helping them fund their insurgency, a U.N. report says, according to two sources who have read the document. Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema and Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore are accused of having allowed their countries to be used as bases for activities that violate the sanctions, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. They said the unpublished report recommends punitive measures against the violators. Togo's U.N. ambassador, Roland Yao Kpotsra, said late Friday that he understood Togo was implicated but said he couldn't comment until he read the report. Officials at Burkina Faso's mission said no one was available to comment. ." UPI 3/8/00 Ashley Baker "..United Nations peacekeepers are "unintentionally" spreading AIDS in the countries they are supposed to be helping, a U.S. official told lawmakers Wednesday. "All too often, the sad truth is that at times, in trying to solve on problem such as preventing a war...or containing conflict, U.N. peacekeepers unintentionally contribute to another serious problem, the spread of AIDS," said Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Holbrooke added that the United States would oppose future peacekeeping missions unless the U.N.'s peacekeeping department attaches measures aimed at better controlling soldiers' behavior. "As long as I am ambassador, the United States will never again vote for a peacekeeping resolution that does not require specific action by the (U.N.) to prevent AIDS from spreading by or to peacekeepers," Holbrooke said. ." BBC online 3/7/00 "..American planes are bringing much-needed supplies A US military aircraft has arrived in Maputo, bringing further aid to Mozambique as rescue workers race to get emergency supplies to flood victims. Many displaced people are facing a desperate lack of clean drinking water. They have access only to stagnant pools and swamps left by the flooding - which are littered with corpses and which carry a risk of disease, particularly malaria and cholera. The official death toll is 400, but the figure is considered to be much higher..." Electronic Telegraph 3/8/00 Christopher Lockwood "..BRITAIN launched a fierce attack on Robert Mugabe yesterday, calling on Zimbabweans to "open a new chapter" in their history at forthcoming elections. Criticised: Robert Mugabe The attack is comparable to rhetoric meted out to Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic. Peter Hain, the Foreign Office minister, said Zimbabwe was in "a very, very deep hole and, if there is no radical change, it will cement itself into it". He went on: "Reserves are down to two or three days; inflation is at 60 per cent; the political leadership is bankrupt, and this is make or break time." Asked if he blamed Mr Mugabe for Zimbabwe's collapse, he said: "The policies pursued by Robert Mugabe are economically illiterate - indeed innumerate." They were the reason why the International Monetary Fund and World Bank would no longer lend to Zimbabwe. "There is no point in pouring money into a black hole. After 20 years, Zimbabwe is all but on its knees and there is only one group responsible for that - the ruling party." " Deutsche Press Agency 3/8/00 "The United States ``strongly condemned'' the government of Sudan Wednesday for bombing civilian targets in the country's south, including a hospital run by a U.S.-based charity organization. Government forces dropped at least 15 bombs Tuesday near the facility run by Samaritan's Purse in the southern town of Lui. The town was also bombed on March 1, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said. Since January, the government has intensified bombing of hospitals, relief sites, schools and other civilian targets, Rubin said. ``These bombings must stop,'' he said. ." Reuters 3/8/00 Stephanie Wolters "..A senior U.N. official spelled out three conditions for the deployment of peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Wednesday, with full respect for a ceasefire by all sides at the top of the list. Ambassador Kemal Morjane, head of a military observer mission in the Congo, told journalists that the warring parties must also present a viable plan for disengagement of foreign forces and guarantee U.N. personnel complete freedom of movement throughout the country...." National Post 3/1/00 Steven Edwards "..Three Tutsi informants have revealed to the United Nations that they were part of an elite strike team that assassinated the Hutu president in 1994, shedding new light on an event that triggered the genocide of at least 500,000 people in Rwanda. The informants told UN investigators in 1997 that the killing of president Juvenal Habyarimana was carried out "with the assistance of a foreign government" under the overall command of Paul Kagame, now the vice-president of Rwanda. The April 6, 1994, assassination proved to be a flashpoint in central Africa in 1994, igniting a bloodletting in which extremist Hutus targeted Tutsis and moderate Hutus. . The informants told the investigators that the front decided to kill Mr. Habyarimana because the group was not pleased with the slow pace of the talks.

"This information fitted in with claims by the Hutu extremists that the [Rwandan Patriotic Front] killed their president," the report said. But when the information was presented to Louise Arbour, then the chief UN war crimes prosecutor, she terminated the investigation, the report said. Ms. Arbour, now a Supreme Court of Canada justice, could not be reached for comment yesterday. " World Net Daily 3/12/00 Anthony C. LoBaido "..In an act bordering on naked aggression, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has overruled his own black majority and begun the process of seizing whiteowned farmland in Zimbabwe. Having watched the humiliating loss Mugabe suffered in the Feb. 14 constitutional referendum, many Zimbabwe-watchers familiar with the nature of the Mugabe regime wondered what his reaction would be. Their fears seem to be coming true. Mugabe has encouraged masses of Marxist operatives and citizens to simply squat on the farmland in question. In fact, so many squatters have taken up residence on white-owned farms that the rural farming areas of the nation "are on the verge of collapse," said one Zimbabwean official. ." Electronic Telegraph 3/12/00 Christina Lamb "..WHITE farmers across Zimbabwe were braced for violence last night after President Robert Mugabe gave official approval to the occupation of land by squatters amid reports that owners were being tortured into signing over their property. In an interview in yesterday's official newspaper, the Herald, Mr Mugabe said of the squatters: "They can remain on the farms as long as they are peaceful . . . We want the whites to learn that the land belongs to Zimbabweans." Keith Kirkman, whose farm is 15 miles south of Harare, said: "We are virtually in a state of anarchy. We have 30 or 40 people chanting and banging drums just 10 yards from our front door and we've been warned that tonight they might try to break into the house. The police won't come. It's very unnerving." .." Reuters 3/21/00 Jim Loney "From the saddening sight of a small boy who lost his mother to the bizarre vision of Cuban grannies flying about the country in Lear jets and helicopters, the interminable tale of Elian Gonzalez has bounced from the heart-rending to the surreal. And despite a U.S. judge's ruling Tuesday upholding a government decision that the 6-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor should be returned to his father in Cuba, the saga may not end soon. "Elian has not had his day in court," said Spencer Eig, an attorney for the Miami relatives who want to keep Elian, as he vowed to launch an appeal. After his rescue by fishermen following two days alone at sea on an inner tube, Elian Gonzalez has been claimed by distant relatives as their ward, by angry anti-communist exiles as their poster child and by Cuban President Fidel Castro as a kidnapped national hero. " Reuters 3/21/00 "Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush Tuesday urged the Clinton administration not to send shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba after a federal judge ruled against the child's U.S. relatives who want him to remain in Florida. U.S. District Judge Michael Moore dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Miami relatives who sought to force a political asylum hearing for the 6-yearold by claiming he would have a better future in the United States than in communist Cuba. .." AP 3/18/00 Michael Norton " Six years after U.S. troops landed in Haiti hoping to shore up democracy and promote stability, the international force that followed is leaving the island much as it was found: in a state of political crisis, crushing poverty and deep uncertainty. Long-delayed elections to replace the Parliament that President Rene Preval dissolved a year ago have once again been postponed. A spate of attacks on election offices have sharpened doubts about the police's ability to fight increasing street violence. And many Haitians say they've lost all faith in the government. The remnants of a U.N. force deployed in 1995 flew home this week, leaving Haiti's security in the hands of local authorities - which a recent U.S. State Department report describe as "an immature force that is still grappling with problems of corruption and human rights abusers," as well as narcotics traffickers "at all levels of the force." .." Independent Online 3/16/00 Basildon Peta "..Harare - President Robert Mugabe has warned that "death will befall" all people bent on destabilising his government and sowing seeds of disunity among Zimbabweans. Mugabe threatened that his enemies would pay for their sins "with their lives". Peter Gwinyai, spokesperson of the Zimbabwe Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, said his organisation had sent "a media alert" to make the whole world aware of Mugabe's threats, which were also targeted at journalists from Zimbabwe's small but vibrant independent media. .." Cubanet/Miami Herald 3/16/00 Jaime Suchlicki "..Vladimir Putin's rise to power in Russia, Hugo Chavez's electoral victory in Venezuela and China's willingness to increase trade and investments are encouraging Cuba to take a more-defiant stance against the United States. While not likely to solve Cuba's continuing economic crisis, these three events may add to the longevity of the Castro revolution. Putin, a former KGB officer with long-term relationships in Cuba, is likely to increase trade with Cuba, even to subsidize it. More important, however, a renewed close relationship with Moscow can provide Fidel Castro with spare parts and weapons to rebuild his military. " UK Times 3/13/00 Damian Whitworth " AL GORE's links to a controversial oil firm and a South American

UK Times 3/13/00 Damian Whitworth " AL GORE's links to a controversial oil firm and a South American tribe's threat of mass suicide have put the Vice-President's campaign for the presidency on the defensive. The Democratic candidate, who claims to be a champion of the environment, is under attack from activists over his silence on Occidental Petroleum's multibillion-dollar drilling project in an area of Colombian rainforest that an indigenous tribe claims as ancestral lands. The U'wa, a 5,000-strong tribe who inhabit a patch of remote cloud forest in the Colombian Andes, entered the US presidential race after Occidental was given permission by the Colombian Government to explore land a few hundred yards from their reservation. Their protests against the proposal to drill for oil have resulted in violent clashes with police and the death of three American environmentalists, apparently at the hands of revolutionary guerrillas that the tribe had said would move into the area if oil exploration began. The U'wa, who say they would rather die than see "the blood of Mother Earth" removed, have threatened to commit mass suicide by hurling themselves off a cliff, as many of their ancestors did to avoid being brought under Spanish rule in the 17th century. .." Stratfor.com 3/14/00 ".. Devastating floods in Mozambique may prompt a renewed struggle between the government and the opposition Mozambique Resistance Movement (RENAMO) in the north. The government, having failed to adequately assist its suffering populace, has subsequently undermined its support base and emboldened RENAMO to make threats of establishing a new government - through political or military means.." New York Times 3/14/00 AP "..As many as 30 Haitian immigrants came ashore today in a small boat and ran from the police when they hit the beach, the authorities said. Most were picked up by officers who quickly searched the nearby Hugh Taylor Birch State Park and surrounding neighborhoods, Capt. Dave Geyer of the police said.. ..." Independent Online 3/26/00 ".President Robert Mugabe insists that to evict ex-guerrillas and their followers from white-owned farms as ordered by a top judge would plunge the nation into chaos, a statecontrolled newspaper reported Sunday. "Naturally that would be very chaotic and it would be resisted by the war veterans anyway," Mugabe was quoted as saying in the Sunday Mail. The comments are expected to harden the standoff between the government and the courts as well as farmers and ex-guerrillas over the so-called land invasions. The squatters, armed with spears, clubs, axes and guns, have camped on about 600 farms across the country since February and in the past week occupied at least 60 more private properties, breaking down gates and fences and smashing their way into homesteads. Two farmers were injured in assaults. " Independent Online (South Africa) 3/26/00 "Land and Agriculture Minister Thoko Didiza on Sunday declined to be drawn on the invasion of white farms in Zimbabwe by former guerrillas. She told the SABC's television Newsmaker programme that she did not have enough information to comment. South African organised agriculture, and some opposition parties fearing a repetition in Zimbabwe, have been pressing the government to condemn the land invasions. Didiza said it was difficult for her to comment on what was happening in Zimbabwe. "It is not easy really to say what is one's feeling when you don't have all the facts, because what we have been seeing is what we have been getting in the media.... " Cuba Free Press (underground journalists) 3/17/00 Evenezer Ramirez "Havana.- The police entered and searched the Sacred Temple of God of the Baptist Church in the Mariana suburb of Guanabacoa. With threats of fine and/or imprisonment, the police ordered worship to stop in that place. s the police closed the premises where the Baptist Church of Ma=F1ana hold its worship services, the communist authorities gave unconvincing explanations to the pastor and the community. They said they had to apply "socialist legality" because the church was not registered in the Registry of Associations. The pastor replied that the church was founded seven years ago with all legalities and that its membership has grown and it is even a tithing church, recognized by the Southern Baptist Convention headquartered in the United States. ..This church is authorized by the Communist Party central committee in Cuba, so no one can understand where the order came from, who gave it or why the police put it into effect with an entry and search of the place. .." UK Press Association (Online) 3/25/00 "..Up to 20,000 white Zimbabweans may seek refuge in Britain if the violence in the crisis-torn country escalates in the run-up to elections, it has been reported. Foreign Office Minister, Peter Hain, revealed the Government was prepared for several thousand farmers and their families to apply to come to Britain if the security situation in the southern African country worsened. ." BBC 3/25/00 Anna Borzello Cathy Jenkins "The victims of the Kanungu fire were buried earlier this week Police in Uganda say scores of bodies found in mass graves at the site of last week's cult fire had been strangled or hacked to death. Some 153 bodies, 59 of them children, have been exhumed from three graves at a house used by the cult in Buhunga, in Rukingere district, approximately 50km (30 miles) from the church in Kanungu where more than 400 cult members perished in a fire last Friday. Police spokesman Assuman Mujenyi told the AFP news agency that some of the bodies found on Friday "had been suffocated using their clothes and others had been cut with sharp objects. They had been there about one or one and a half

months". .." UPI via Virtual New York 3/21/00 Lou Marano "..A woman who lost a child in the deadly bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 has condemned what she called a State Department effort to rehabilitate Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Susan Cohen's daughter was one of 189 Americans slain when a bomb tore a U.S. airliner apart over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, killing 270 passengers and crew. "If there's money to be made, the United States doesn't care," Cohen said. "The oil companies want back in," she said, and Washington has caved in to pressures from the United Kingdom and other nations. .." Stratfor.com 3/21/00 " One of the benchmarks of this process is the status of the Latin American left among its intellectuals. As in Europe, Latin American universities are historical centers of left-wing activity. During the 1990s, this sector was fragmented, marginalized and relatively unimportant. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the triumph of the United States and market economics was a severe blow to them. As important, the fact that Castro's Cuba was thrown onto the defensive for most of the 1990s meant that the Latin American left was isolated from its intellectual and, to some extent, organizational center. Throughout Latin America, the left ceased to be relevant to the real issues facing the continent. The left is now beginning to re-emerge. Its main target is the market system, which it calls "neo-liberalism." Its opposition to neoliberalism differs from traditional Marxism in several ways. First, it focuses on environmental issues in ways that Marxists never did. Second, it raises the question of the "fourth-world" of indigenous people more aggressively than Marxists did. But the most important change is the elevation of nationalism to center stage. The left in Latin America has always been anti-American. That is not the same as being nationalist.." AP 3/22/00 ".German lawmakers proposed Wednesday making amends to a long-neglected group of Nazi victims: thousands of men sent to concentration camps for being gay. The governing Social Democratic and Greens parties introduced a bill to acknowledge Nazi persecution of gays and ask the government to review whether to annul convictions under a Nazi-era anti-gay law that remained on the books in West Germany until 1969." UN 3/15/00 "A new peace-building mission is to start operations in Haiti today, replacing the United Nations Civilian Police Mission (MIPONUH) and the International Civilian Mission (MICIVIH). The new International Civilian Support Mission in Haiti (MICAH) was created by the General Assembly in December last year to consolidate the results achieved in that country by previous United Nations missions. ..." CBSNEWS.COM 3/18/00 "..Six years after U.S. troops invaded Haiti to restore democracy, the poor, island nation is stumbling in its efforts to hold parliamentary elections. Haiti's electoral council has rescheduled this year's vote for a second time. It's now set for April 9 and May 21- but President Rene Preval has challenged the council's authority to set new dates. The vote is supposed to elect Preval's successor. Preval claims the delays are logistical, and insists the date is secondary to assuring "serious" elections. But opponents say Preval is a dictator, since there is no parliament and the courts are notoriously corrupt. They charge he is delaying elections to ensure that Parliament is not installed by June 12, as the constitution requires. If it is not, Preval can choose to convene Parliament when, and if he pleases, limit the issues it can address. " Reuters Wire 3/18/00 "..A group of women stormed a Kenyan police station to demand officers either make love to them or close illegal drinking dens they said made their husbands impotent, a local newspaper reported Wednesday. The People newspaper said the women, from Kandara, north of Nairobi, brought business in the town to a halt with their day-long protest against excessive drinking by their menfolk. ``Our men have turned to vegetables. They leave home early and come back intoxicated. There is nobody to meet the sexual needs of wives,'' the newspaper quoted one woman as saying. .." Reuters via Yahoo! 3/18/00 "..More than 100 members of a Ugandan Doomsday cult have set themselves ablaze in a ritual mass suicide, police said Saturday. Followers of the obscure ``Ten Commandments of God'' sect gathered in a church 200 miles southwest of the capital Kampala Friday and set themselves on fire after several hours of chanting and singing, a police spokesman told Reuters. ``Prior to this incident their leader told believers to sell off their possessions and prepare to go to Heaven,'' the spokesman said. .." Washington Post via Kansas City Star 3/19/00 " UNITED NATIONS -- Worried by the threat of AIDS among peacekeepers, the United Nations has decided to distribute a condom a day to each of the 16,000 male troops it plans to send to Congo and Sierra Leone this year. The decision is the closest the United Nations has ever come to acknowledging one of the dirty secrets of peacekeeping: U.N. troops frequent brothels and are in danger of contracting the virus that causes AIDS, as well as providing a market for prostitution. A senior U.N. official said that the decision to include one condom per day in the regular supplies for peacekeepers should not be seen as encouraging daily sex, but that it would be naive to ignore the realities of life among the troops. "I think you want to be on the safe side," the official said. ."

EWTN 3/16/00 " Republican congressmen on Tuesday called for an investigation into the US Agency for International Development and allegations the Peruvian government is using US aid to force poor women to have sterilizations. Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kansas, was responding to a report by the Population Research Institute (PRI) which showed that poor women were coerced into sterilization, forced to receive injections of contraceptives during pregnancy, sterilized without their knowledge after caesarian delivery, and the subject of population control quotas by government officials. Although USAID told Congress last year that it had curbed the abuses in the Peruvian population control programs, PRI said its investigations found that abuses are rampant, with the Peruvian Ministry of Health setting quotas for sterilizations among poor minority women. ......" Newsmax 3/16/00 UPI "..In a major address to a private research group, a leading House Republican on Thursday used Cold War-era rhetoric to argue that the United States must stop treading lightly around potential foes and instead adopt a get-tough "peace through strength" approach to foreign policy. The United States must not shy away from being an aggressive leader of the world, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, told the Center for Strategic and International Studies: "We have a unique burden, a very special mission. We are a people with a purpose. That purpose is to serve as the sword and the shield of freedom This allegiance to core convictions will ensure that American values triumph over every form of tyranny on this Earth." In particular, he said, the United States must stop pretending Taiwan is a part of China, and it must make clear that China will not be allowed to "impose a communist future" on the island. The administration's "delicate diplomacy" with China has failed, he said. By trying to avoid upsetting China at all costs, he said, the United States has allowed itself to be bullied. The administration's policy of appeasement has proven not to work, he said. The policy is as tragic a mistake as when the United States and others failed to respond to Adolph Hitler's first threats to Czechoslovakia in 1938, he said. ..." Reuters via Daily Mail & Guardian 3/16/00 Simon Denyer " MORE than a quarter of a million people have fled their homes because of an upsurge in fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the past two months, aid agencies said on Thursday. Gangs of armed militias are roaming the forests of eastern Congo, preying on local people, even as the United Nations prepares a peacekeeping mission to the country, they said. "Over the last two months we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of internally displaced," said Charles Petrie of the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Kigali, the Rwandan capital. The number of people forced from their homes in the provinces of North and South Kivu alone had risen by 250 000 to around half a million in the last two months, Petrie said. ..In the whole country more than a million people have fled their homes since war broke out in Congo in 1998. ." AP via The New York Times 3/16/00 "..Militant black ex-guerrillas said Thursday they are ready to go to war, and would even fight to overthrow President Robert Mugabe, if his government moves to halt their seizures of white-owned farms. "We have a history of fighting for our land. We have reached a point of no return," said Agrippa Gava, a director of the Liberation War Veterans' Association, an organization that claims to represent some 50,000 ex-fighters. Veterans of the bush war for independence and other squatters armed with spears, axes, knives and guns have invaded 549 farms this month, but have since abandoned 116. Mugabe announced Friday that the squatters could stay on land they occupied, but his government is coming under increasing pressure to stop the takeovers, which experts say could hurt farm production. " Islamic Views 3/16/00 "..PAGADIAN, Philippines, March 16 (AFP) - Muslim separatist rebels mounted simultaneous attacks on six Army bases in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao on Thursday, leaving 17 people dead and shutting down a major highway, officials said. Fighting raged into the night along a 25kilometer (15.5-mile) stretch of the national highway, isolating the towns of Kauswagan, Linamon, Bacolod and Baloi, military spokesmen and local government officials said. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front attacked the Inudaran army base in Kauswagan at dawn while the Pangayawan and Kaduwalan army posts in Bacolod and the Robokon detachment in Linamon as well as the Lapayan camp in Kauswagan came under attack in the afternoon, said Major Johnny Macanas of the Army's 4th infantry division. .." Stratfor 3/16/00 " On March 12, the Islamic Command Council (ICC) announced at a press conference in the southern province of Lano del Sur that it would resume its guerrilla war against the Philippine government. The council is a faction of the country's former rebel front, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). At the press conference, a spokesman for the group claimed that it comprised nearly 90 percent of the original 20,000-25,000 MNLF forces. About 100 heavily armed members appeared before the media. On an immediate level, the ICC is calling for an independent Islamic state in Mindanao" CubaNet/prnewswire 3/14/00 "Less than two weeks after one of its diplomats was expelled from Washington on charges of espionage, the Cuban government has posted another high-ranking intelligence official to its diplomatic mission here. Fernando Garcia Bielsa, once a senior official with Cuba's notorious America Department (now defunct), replaced expelled envoy Jose Imperatori on March 6th. The America

Department coordinated Cuba's ties to guerrilla and terrorist groups throughout the hemisphere. "It is patently outrageous that only days after one Cuban official is expelled from the U.S. for spying, the door is again being thrown open to another Cuban intelligence operative," said CANF Chairman Jorge Mas. "Castro again makes a mockery out of established international norms, but what's worse, is that our government allows him to get away with it." ." Orlando Sentinel 3/23/00 Charley Reese " Will Fidel Castro, the world's last Stalinist dictator, go with a whimper or a bang? Most people who know him predict that he will go with a bang by attacking the United States. Surely, I jest, you might be thinking. But too many people close to Castro have said the same thing. This megalomaniac's ego simply cannot cope with being an old man discarded by his own people. He would rather commit the international equivalent of cop suicide by attacking the United States. Here is a paragraph from a paper written by Ernesto F. Betancourt of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American studies. "Finally, the third scenario is advanced by those who think Castro would rather end in an apocalyptic, lastditch struggle against the hated Americans, thus provoking a Gotterdammerung to seek a place in history for himself. In a letter to Celia Sanchez in June 1958, Castro referred to a war with the U.S. as his true destiny. All those who over the last decades have been close to him in moments of crisis coincide in concluding that an apocalyptic finale is his most likely choice." " ABC RAW NEWS 3/23/00 AO ".. Cuba's U.N. ambassador compared Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Snow White's evil stepmother Thursday after Albright urged the U.N. Human Rights Commission to condemn abuses by Fidel Castro's government. Albright told the 53-nation commission that "the Castro regime continues to suppress dissent, deny free speech, outlaw free assembly and harass human rights advocates" and others. Cuban Ambassador Carlos Amat dismissed Albright's proclaimed concern for human rights, ribbing her and her colleagues for their infrequent attendance at U.N. rights meetings" Associated Press 3/24/00 ".. Federal investigators have conceded that a senior immigration official charged with espionage may not be a Cuban spy after all, The Miami Herald reported Friday. Investigators have filed no evidence in court showing Mariano Faget ever passed secrets to the Cuban government, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified senior law enforcement official familiar with the case. Richard Gregorie, senior litigation counsel at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami, declined comment to the Herald. FBI officials said Faget still violated the Espionage Act by revealing classified information to a friend and lying about his contacts with Cuban officials over a 14-month period. ." The American Spectator 3/24/00 Tom Bethell ".Hype about AIDS in Africa has reached new heights. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Vice President Al Gore (at the U.N. Security Council) have declared it to be an international security threat. AIDS is now called the leading cause of death in Africa, with over two million deaths last year, and the epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is spreading "nearly unabated." Seventy percent of all AIDS cases are said to be African. On Newsweek's cover we read of "10 Million Orphans."..Skepticism about what governments say -- always scarce among journalists -- vanishes completely when it comes to "plagues" and epidemics. At the mention of AIDS, newspaper stories are virtually dictated by public health officials. The New York Times is the pre-eminent example, with other publications trotting behind uncritically...The author of The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, Fumento told me that he found the recent reports of HIV infection rates of 25 percent in some African countries to be not believable. The alarmist predictions about the progress of AIDS in this country have not been borne out, he said. African AIDS is an attempt to find the bad news elsewhere. Here, AIDS has not spread into the general population, and never will. It has remained confined to the major "risk groups," mainly intravenous drug users and fast-lane homosexuals. But in Africa, more women than men are said to be infected with the virus. Prof. Geshekter, too, sees African AIDS as a prolongation of the gravy train for public health experts. "AIDS is dwindling away in this country," he told me. "The numbers are down. What are the AIDS educators to do? Africa beckons." The American Spectator 3/24/00 Tom Bethell ".Here is an "African AIDS" primer. Over the years AIDS American-style was redefined more and more expansively. In 1993, for example, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta added cervical cancer to the list of AIDS-defining diseases, with the unacknowledged goal of increasing the numbers of women. The overwhelming preponderance of males was an embarrassment to infectious-disease epidemiology, given that the viral agent was supposed to be sexually transmitted. AIDS is a name for 30-odd diseases found in conjunction with a positive test for antibodies to the human immunodeficiency virus. Being "HIV positive," then, is the unifying requirement for an AIDS case. Here is the key point that the newspapers won't tell you. To diagnose AIDS in Africa, no HIV test is needed. The presence of the unifying agent that supposedly causes the immune deficiency, the ID of AIDS, does not have to be established. This was decided by public health officials at an AIDS conference in Bangui, a city in the Central African Republic, in October 1985. This meeting was engineered by an official from the CDC, Joseph McCormick. He wanted to establish a diagnostic definition of AIDS to be used in poor countries that lacked the equipment to do blood tests. He also succeeded in persuading representatives from the

World Health Organization in Geneva to set up its own AIDS program. The appearance of sick people in Zaire hospitals had persuaded McCormick and others that AIDS now existed in Africa -- this before HIV tests had even been conducted. And here was something important to write home about: Slightly more women than men were affected. Back in America, as Laurie Garrett wrote in The Coming Plague (1994), McCormick told an assistant secretary of Health and Human Services that "there's a one to one sex ratio of AIDS cases in Zaire." Heterosexual transmission had been established. Now we were all at risk! AIDS budgets would soar.." The American Spectator 3/24/00 Tom Bethell "..We needed a clinical case definition -- that is to say, a set of guidelines a clinician could follow in order to decide whether a certain person had AIDS or not. This was my major goal: if I could get everyone at the WHO meeting in Bangui to agree on a single, simple definition of what an AIDS case was in Africa, then, imperfect as the definition might be, we could actually start to count the cases, and we would all be counting roughly the same thing. His goal was achieved. The "Bangui definition," was reached "by consensus." It has proven useful, McCormick added, "in determining the extent of the AIDS pandemic in Africa, especially in areas where no testing is available." Here are the major components of the definition: "prolonged fevers (for a month or more), weight loss of 10 percent or greater, and prolonged diarrhea." No HIV test, of course. What this meant was that many traditional African diseases, pandemic in poverty-stricken areas with tropical climate, open latrines, and contaminated drinking water, could now be called something else: AIDSThe Bangui redefinition was published in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, and in Science magazine (November 21, 1986), but you would be hard put to find it in our major newspapers..The obvious problem was pointed out by Charles Gilks in the British Medical Journal in 1991. Persistent diarrhea with weight loss can be associated with "ordinary enteric parasites and bacteria," as well as with opportunistic infection, he wrote. "In countries where the incidence of tuberculosis is high," as it is in Africa, "substantial numbers of people reported as having AIDS may in fact not have AIDS." .." Electronic Telegraph 3/30/00 David Blair "ZIMBABWE'S embattled white farmers were preparing for the worst yesterday after President Robert Mugabe threatened them with "very, very, very severe" violence. Front line: Pippa van Rechteren and her twin daughters watch farm invaders sing songs of revolution outside the electric fence at her homestead in Centenary district His remarks raised the tension still further in the stand-off between farmers and thousands of squatters demanding land rights. During a Reuters Television interview on Monday, Mr Mugabe said the squatters could keep their gains and delivered a harsh warning to farmers. He said: "There have been very few cases of violence, but if the farmers start to be angry and start to be violent, then, of course, they will get that medicine delivered to them. And it can be very, very, very severe, but we don't want to get there." ..Mr Mugabe added that any farmer who "provoked" the squatters would face violence. The warning seemed designed to forestall action by white farmers against thousands of squatters who have invaded almost 20 per cent of all white-owned commercial farms in Zimbabwe. " NANDONET 3/29/00 "From North Korea to Iran to Libya, President Clinton is courting former adversaries, some of them still on the State Department's terrorism list, as he nears the end of his term and ponders his legacy. Clinton is attempting to rehabilitate ties with some of the same governments and leaders long vilified by the United States. Some examples: Two decades after President Reagan warned that Libyan "hit squads" might invade U.S. cities, the Clinton administration is considering easing restrictions on American travel to the North African country and exploring whether its oil might be made available to U.S. markets again. The administration this month lifted a ban on U.S. imports of Iranian luxury goods and said it would seek a legal settlement that could free Iranian assets frozen since 1979. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright invited Iran to enter a "new relationship" with the United States. Last September, the United States lifted trade, banking and other sanctions that had been in place against isolationist North Korea for decades. Former Defense Secretary William Perry has visited Pyongyang seeking closer ties, and a high-ranking North Korean official may visit the United States next month. The three nations remain on the State Department's list of seven countries that support or sponsor terrorism, along with Syria, Iraq, Cuba and Sudan. Trade between the United States and these countries is essentially prohibited. .." XINHUA 3/24/00 ".Most government hospitals of Zambia are facing critical shortage of blood, making it difficult for them to carry out major operations, the Times of Zambia reported on Thursday. The newspaper quoted the country's Health Minister David Mpamba as saying that this shortage is caused by the prevalence of AIDS and HIV in the country, because most of the donated blood is rejected after screening. The government is doing everything possible to ensure that operations are not disrupted, he said. "We have this problem because of the AIDS prevalence but we are doing everything possible to control the situation," he said. "As I am talking to you right now our men in Lusaka are out in the field collecting blood from donors." .." International Herald Tribune 3/28/00 "......The good relations that prevailed between Germany and the United States over most of the postwar period have turned sharply worse. This is important for American

relations with the European Union, since German-American intimacy has always counterbalanced the tension that consistently marks American relations with France, the other of the two leading states in the EU. The national weekly newspaper Die Zeit wrote early this month that the time was over when Germany was afraid of its ''own courage and rather hid differences under the carpet.'' That comment concerned Washington's veto of Germany's initial nominee to the presidency of the International Monetary Fund. But that episode was only one of the serious recent clashes, some of them official, which were played down but which embittered relations between the two countries. ...." AFP 3/29/00 "......As her tenure as secretary of state winds down, Madeleine Albright is coming under increasing fire from critics questioning her diplomatic style and ability to represent US foreign policy interests. On Tuesday, for the second time in three months, a leading US daily published a scathing review of Albright's performance as the top US diplomat. The Washington Post report quoted academics and current and former US officials as saying Albright, the first female secretary of state and highest-ranking woman ever in US government, is "insecure," "indifferent" and "obsessed by her public image." ...." Drudge 3/28/00 ".....President Clinton is prepared to call in the National Guard if there is massive unrest in Miami over Elian Gonzalez, according to administration sources. INS officials have warned that they will terminate Elian's temporary parole to remain in the United States at 9 a.m. Thursday if the relatives do not give their written assurances to surrender the boy should they lose their next court battle. ....." BBC News (Online) 3/28/00 Grant Ferrett "......The Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, has launched a stinging attack on the British government, accusing it of leading an international campaign against Zimbabwe based on a gay philosophy. Speaking in a television interview, he said calls for Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth would not succeed. He went on to warn of severe consequences if white farmers attempted to remove thousands of government supporters who have occupied their land, demanding to be resettled. President Mugabe rarely misses an opportunity for confrontation with the British government. His latest remarks are no exception. ....." New York Times 3/29/00 Ian Fisher ".....In one room the concrete floor looked a little new, and on a hunch, the police began to dig there today. First they found a human foot, sole upturned, poking up from the rubble. Within a few hours, 28 bodies were hauled out of a pit -- carefully sealed with cement, maybe months ago -inside the house owned by a leader of a cult in western Uganda. By dark the pit was only half emptied. ...... It was, on one level, another horrifying discovery in the 11 days since more than 300 people were found burned to death at a church not far from here. The death toll, from three sites, has now risen to at least 591, including 74 bodies found buried in the backyard of this same house on Monday. There are at least two more suspected grave sites. ....... But the discovery of the pit may also indicate just how well organized, and perhaps longstanding, this march to mass murder in Uganda was. ...." The National Review 4/17/00 kate OBierne "The only thing worse than being a typical child in Cuba is being Elin Gonzlez back home under the triumphant glare of Fidel Castro. Before his mother made her desperate escape, Elin faced the same deprivation and indoctrination as all Cuban children. Now, Castro rails against the evil imperialists who kidnapped the six-year-old he calls the island's "boy hero." Although attorney general Janet Reno stubbornly insists that the primacy of family ties warrants Elin's return to his father, Cuba's dictator makes a mockery of parental prerogatives. He has pledged to "reprogram" the child so his attitudes don't disappoint the crowds in Havana who chant that Elin has become "the new patriot of the Revolution." Reno is upholding the rights of a parent who has none. Cuba's top diplomat in Washington called Elin "a possession of the state," which is plainly true under Cuba's "Code of the Child, Law No. 16." The development of a child's "Communist personality" is paramount, any influence contrary to Communism must be fought, and advanced schooling is predicated on a child's political attitude. The state may remove custody from parents found to be "hindering" their children's Communist formation. .." Washington Times 4/13/00 Bill Gertz "..China is providing assistance to Libya's long-range missile program and made its latest technology transfer to the North African nation last month, according to U.S. intelligence officials The director of the National Security Agency (NSA), Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, outlined the transfer in a classified report sent March 2 to senior U.S. government officials. Disclosure of the NSA report on the missile cooperation follows announcement Tuesday that the United States and China will resume talks on the spread of weapons of mass destruction and missiles to rogue states" 4/4/00 Reuters ".The United States is poised to lift a 13-year-old ban on travel to Libya, a step toward normalizing relations with the North African country that is trying to shed its pariah status, USA Today reported Tuesday. The paper quoted U.S. officials as saying a State Department delegation that visited Libya last month for the first time in 20 years came back satisfied that U.S. citizens faced no ''imminent danger'' there. Their recommendation will be sent to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for a final decision as early as this week, the paper reported. ``Imminent danger'' is the criterion Albright uses to

determine whether U.S. passports can be used for travel to a given country. .. A decision to lift the ban would enable Americans to travel to Libya without special permission. It also would facilitate a visit by a congressional delegation expected this month. .." AP vis Canoe.com 4/14/00 Nicole Winfield "Shamed by its inaction, the Security Council accepted responsibility Friday for having failed to stop Rwanda's 1994 genocide and vowed to do more to prevent another slaughter of innocents. In their first formal response to a critical report of the U.N. role in the genocide, ambassadors acknowledged the expose's key findings: that world governments lacked the political will to stop the massacre of half a million people and deprived the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Rwanda of the resources needed to save lives. "I doubt any in this chamber can look back at that time without remorse and a great deal of sadness at the failure to help the people of Rwanda in their time of need," said Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, who presided over an open meeting of the council. The brutality "made a mockery, once again, of the pledge 'never again,"' he said, referring to the promise made after the Holocaust. .." Telegraph of London 4/5/00 ". ZIMBABWE'S embattled whites came under renewed attack yesterday as a senior cabinet minister told the community to "behave". Chen Chimutengwende, the Information Minister, told the that BBC whites could stay, but said: "It is necessary for them to behave, and accept majority rule. They were defeated in a war, but they have not quite accepted that defeat. They still want to stage a comeback through the back door." With the political temperature rising as the campaign for the general election due next month intensifies, the 75,000 whites still in the country are becoming a useful punchbag for the ruling party, Zanu-PF. About 20,000 of them hold British passports. Ian Kay, a 51-year-old white farmer, was still in hospital yesterday after being set upon by 25 squatters who beat him with sticks, threatened to kill him and bound his hands with wire. The gang confronted him beside a school he had built on his farm in Wedza district, east of Harare. As they grew threatening, Mr Kay retreated into the school, but his assailants kicked down the door and attacked him with sticks. As he was dragged bleeding out of the school, his hands were bound and the squatters threatened to kill him. When Mr Kay feared that he was about to be murdered, his son appeared driving a pick-up truck on the other side of a dam. While his assailants were distracted, he broke away and dived into the dam and escaped. ......" New York Times 3/31/00 Barbara Crossette Eric Schmitt ". Fourteen foreign envoys and Richard C. Holbrooke, the ubiquitous American ambassador to the United Nations, visited Washington today as individual sightseers -- just 14 guys and one woman, Patrica Durrant of Jamaica. It was not, they said emphatically, an official visit by the Security Council. That didn't stop the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from distributing a press packet labeled "Visit of the United Nations Security Council to the United States Senate.". .. But the diplomatic gloves came off this afternoon. At a "round-table discussion" -remember, this wasn't an official hearing -- one ambassador after another criticized the Foreign Relations Committee for America's ambivalent leadership and a law that pays $926 million in American arrears, but only if the United Nations takes steps to eliminate waste, a condition many diplomats consider unwarranted micromanaging. The United Nations puts the American debt at $1.7 billion. " London Times 4/2/00 Tom Walker Ray Chotto ".. Harare ZIMBABWE slid further into chaos yesterday as riot police firing tear gas in central Harare failed to prevent hundreds of war veterans from attacking demonstrators on a "march for peace" against the government of President Robert Mugabe. Elderly white couples and black families alike fled in terror when veterans chanting "hondo, hondo" ("war, war"), lashed out with branches ripped from trees and hurled stones at the protesters. Witnesses said police stood by and military helicopters hovered overhead as about 300 veterans launched their assault. Up to 15 people were reported to have been seriously injured. Peter Hain, the Foreign Office minister, denounced the violence last night as "thuggery orchestrated from on high". He said there was clear evidence of racist, anti-white attacks. The demonstration, organised by the opposition National Constitutional Assembly, was in protest at threats by veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s independence war to organise violence if Mugabe's government loses the forthcoming general election next month. .." Newsday.com 4/3/00 Susanna Loof AP "Pfizer Inc. is offering to give away an expensive AIDS drug to poor South Africans, a move that follows a series of protests and raises hopes other pharmaceutical companies will follow suit. The drug, Diflucan, treats cryptococcal meningitis, a lethal brain infection that occurs in nearly one out of 10 HIV-patients. In South Africa, the daily dose of Diflucan costs about $15, far more than the country's many poor can afford. Those with the infection must take medication for the rest of their lives. The HIV and AIDS Treatment Action Campaign, an advocacy group, had lobbied the New Yorkbased Pfizer for a year to reduce the drug's price, said volunteer coordinator Midi Achmat. Last month, a group of protesters broke into Pfizer's New York headquarters to demand a meeting with Chairman William Steere, though ultimately met with a lower-level executive. .." Reuters 4/14/00 Andrew Cawthorne ".......Infuriated by the latest delay in reuniting castaway Elian Gonzalez

with his father, Havana said Friday the custody dispute may be heading for a "Bay of Pigs"-style political disaster for the child's most strident supporters in the United States. The ruling Communist Party's daily Granma sharply criticized the 6-year-old boy's Miami relatives, who are backed by Florida's powerful Cubanexile community, for escalating the confrontation with U.S. authorities by not surrendering the child this week as ordered. "They are looking for a political Bay of Pigs," Granma said. ....." CNN/Reuters 4/14/00 "...... Zimbabwean war veterans have vowed to continue their occupation of whiteowned farms despite a court order that compels police to remove thousands of squatters, local newspapers reported on Friday. Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi, leader of veterans of the 1970s guerrilla war against white settler rule, said the former British colony was now at war. "We are going to continue with our work. We are now at war," ......" Nando Times 4/4/00 Angus Shaw ".HARARE, Zimbabwe (April 4, 2000 6:12 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - A police officer was shot and killed Tuesday as he tried to arrest a suspect in the beating of a white farmer, said union leaders. The incident raised fears that the conflict in Zimbabwe over land might escalate. Police spokesman Bothwell Mugariri said a constable had died on the farm of landowner Ian Kay, who was beaten on Monday. Mugariri said he had no further details and that authorities were investigating the death. However, the Commercial Farmers Union said police had arrested three suspects in Kay's beating and were believed to be carrying out further arrests when gunshots were heard on Kay's property. Farmers said they saw the body of a policeman being lifted into a police vehicle, the union said. The death was a serious escalation in a monthlong standoff between white landowners and squatters, who are being led by the veterans of Zimbabwe's 1980 independence war. .." deutsche presse 4/5/00 ". Johannesburg (dpa) South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) Wednesday accused white and foreign media organisations of portraying the country's black leadership as corrupt, anti-democratic and dictatorial. ``The racism that is peddled by our media is not anti-white but antiblack racism,'' ANC policy head and Public Enterprises Minister Jeff Radebe told a Human Rights Commission (HRC) inquiry into racism in the media. Radebe said many local and foreign journalists carried in their heads the stereotypes of Africans as violent, imm and driven by hereditary dark, satanic impulses" Miami Herald 4/6/00 Lisa Arthur ". 'MY PARTY IS READY': Jean-Bertrand Aristide speaks at Nova Southeastern University Law School. Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide called Wednesday for immediate parliamentary elections in his country, publicly distancing himself from forces that have postponed the vote for more than 1,000 municipal and parliamentary seats for months. ``We need elections, Aristide said during a one-hour forum with students at the NovaSoutheastern University Law School in Davie. ``We must have elections in good conditions. My party is ready to participate in elections as soon as the date is set. Dates have been set, then postponed, and the whole process is now bogged down in conflict between President Rene Preval -- a member of Aristide's Lavalas Family party -- and the Provisional Electoral Council, with no agreement on when voting will be held. The Clinton administration expressed frustration Wednesday over the lack of progress in a country where the United States has committed troops, time and money to restoring democracy. .." The Sydney Morning Herald 4/7/00 "Zimbabwe's parliament today approved a controversial bill that enables the government to seize white-owned land without compensation. The bill, which amends the constitution, sailed through unopposed, approved by all 100 deputies present for the vote in the 150 member chamber, just reaching the two-thirds minimum needed for adoption. All those who voted were members of the ruling ZANU-PF party. ZANU-PF holds all but three seats in the Zimbabwean parliament. All three opposition deputies were absent from the vote. The bill's adoption follows the rejection in February of a proposed constitution that would have allowed the state to seize white-owned land without paying compensation. " Stratfor 3/30/00 ". Romania and Bulgaria agreed on March 27 to construct a new bridge across the Danube, 20 kilometers east of the Serbian border. The project, to be partially funded by the European Union (EU), is one of a series of regional infrastructure projects designed to help knit Eastern Europe into a common economic space. International donors are currently meeting in Brussels at a Regional Funding Conference to hammer out details of the Balkan Stability Pact, an EU-sponsored initiative to promote economic development in the Balkans. If the meetings proceed as expected, donors will provide approximately $1.1 billion for a variety of projects, mostly in infrastructure development. However, there are no plans for including Serbia in these development schemes as long as Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic remains in power. The bridge in question will link Vidin, Romania to Calafat, Romania. When completed, it will be one of only two bridges linking Bulgaria to Romania. Locally, this should have an immediate positive impact on trade between the two countries. " World Tribune.com 4/3/00 Claudio Campuzano ".. It may well be that historians will look at the U.S.

intervention in Haiti as a dress rehearsal for its insertion in Kosovo. U.S. troops were sent to both places to redress political injustices (in Haiti, restoring to power an elected president that had been deposed; stopping the "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo); in both places much was made by the Clinton administration of the creation of a newly-chosen and American-trained police force (in Kosovo, this task was shared with our European allies) which would maintain order after the troops had done their job and see that everybody in each place behaved. Although battered by events, the production in Kosovo is struggling to keep the show going, but the verdict is in for the road company left behind in Haiti: it's a flop. As in Kosovo, the brand new police force is nowhere to be seen and its existence is politely forgotten while Haitians kill each other regularly as part of their political discourse. Haiti's president, Rene Preval, has ruled by decree in the 15 months since he dissolved the opposition-led Parliament and allowed all local officials' terms to lapse. Longdelayed national polls to replace them were scheduled to be held on Sunday three weeks ago, but three days earlier the president postponed them by decree-indefinitely. .." Reuters 4/18/00 Simon Denyer "....... NANAM, Kenya (Reuters) - Apua cradles her baby girl in her arms as she stands in line in the scorching midday sun for a handout of United Nations maize. The infant lets out a continuous pathetic wail, gazing wide-eyed into the distance. Her patchy brown hair and reed-thin arms show signs of severe malnutrition. "We used to feed her with cows' and goats' milk," Apua says. "But she has had no milk since last month. I usually give her water but when I cook a porridge she refuses it." ...... Apua is an elegant woman of Kenya's northwestern Turkana people, necklace after necklace of brightly colored beads gathered tightly around her neck, brass earrings hanging from her ears, ritual scarring marking her forearms and belly, a simple cloth round her waist. Her people are cattle herders who have lived in this harsh arid land for centuries. But there are no cattle today, for most of them have died after three years of drought. Food aid is coming to the Turkana this year, both from the government and more recently from the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) but the children's distended bellies show how they, in particular, struggle to digest their unfamiliar rations. ......" Village Voice 4/18/00 Nat Hentoff ".......Roman catholic bishop Macram Max Gassis is all too well acquainted with the slavery, starvation, and murder of his people in central and southern Sudan-caused by the National Islamic Front government in the north. The killing fields that fall within his jurisdiction include the Nuba Mountains. He is in exile, although he slips back from time to time to report on the atrocities inflicted on black Christians, animists, and Muslims. These horrors are largely ignored by the world, including the president of the United States and such members of the American black establishment as Jesse Jackson, Charlie Rangel, and Al Sharpton. Because of the civil war in Sudan between the government and the resistant forces in the south, the children of the Nuba Mountains have been without schools for a generation. And so the bishop established the Holy Cross School in Kauda. ......" Evelyn Leopold 4/18/00 Reuters "..The U.N. Security Council pledged on Tuesday to consider action in six months against nations violating arms, diamond and fuel sanctions against Angola's UNITA rebels. But its resolution, adopted by a 15-0 vote, does not specifically threaten sanctions against the sanctions-busters and France rejected imposing them on countries in the future. The seven-page document, the subject of heated debate in private meetings, would continue investigations about how the rebels were able to fuel their war machine and consider additional curbs against UNITA. The resolution asks Secretary-General Kofi Annan to establish a "monitoring mechanism" of up to five experts to collect additional information and report to the council by Oct. 18. A month later the council would decide whether to take action against violators. .Last month, a ground-breaking U.N. report by an independent panel revealed how UNITA imported arms from Bulgaria, using South African weapons brokers, Belgian diamond merchants, and African leaders, bribed with diamonds, to circumvent the bans. " Yahoo online 4/18/00 Cris Chinaka Reuters "..A second white farmer was killed by supporters of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's land grab Tuesday, deepening the country's political crisis as it marked two decades of independence. Gloria Olds told Reuters by telephone from the farm Silverstreams, near the second city of Bulawayo, that her 42-year-old son, Martin, was murdered early Tuesday. ``They killed my son. They beat him to a pulp,'' she said about four hours after Olds had phoned a neighbor saying he had been shot and wounded and needed an ambulance. Neighbors said police forced a way through to the burning homestead, named Compensation, where Olds was found dead. It was not clear whether he died of the beating or the bullet wound. At least six people have now been killed -- including a white farmer abducted from his home and shot Saturday -- since veterans of the 1970s war against white settler rule began leading squatters on to more than 600 white-owned farms. " Electronic Telegraph 4/18/00 David Blair "ZIMBABWE'S white farmers came under renewed pressure yesterday as squads of up to 20 police searched at least 200 properties for illegal weapons and a minister accused the farmers of running "military training camps" in preparation for war. Yet President Robert Mugabe, at his first meeting with Tim Henwood, president of the Commercial Farmers' Union, appeared to contradict his belligerent speech on Sunday. Mr Henwood said he had been given an assurance of a swift

return to normality. Chen Chimutengwende, the Information Minister, confirmed that police had orders to scour all 4,000 white-owned farms for unlicensed firearms, ammunition, stockpiles of diesel - of which there is a desperate national shortage - and military training facilities. " Express (UK) 4/17/00 Ian Gallagher Jeremy Martin "BRITAIN launched a diplomatic showdown with Zimbabwe yesterday after a farmer and two opposition members were murdered by President Robert Mugabe's mobs. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook called for the killers to be hunted down and brought to justice after a day of violence that plunged the country deeper into crisis and bloody anarchy. Farmer David Stevens, a father of four, including two-year-old twins, died after trying to defend his black workers. Two opposition party members were killed in separate attacks by Mugabe's activists. Five other farmers were kidnapped, tortured and badly beaten after trying to rescue Mr Stevens. All were abducted from inside a police station, where they had gone seeking refuge, but officers failed to act. "The situation is very grave," said Mr Cook, currently in India. "I fear it will get worse unless there is a return to respect for the rule of law in Zimbabwe." " London Times 4/11/00 Anthony Loyd Richard Beeston "EVEN as the international community struggles to supply millions of pounds' worth of food aid to drought victims in southern Ethiopia, the government in Addis Ababa could be preparing to launch a new offensive in its war against Eritrea. According to diplomats and aid officials, the Ethiopian authorities have overestimated the number of people threatened by starvation and are diverting money and resources to the war effort for a possible new campaign this year. Critics of the famine alert in Ethiopia, who include at least one head of a leading humanitarian agency, say that the figure of eight million threatened with starvation is grossly exaggerated. Its standing army of 400,000 costs Ethiopia well over 631,000 a day to sustain. Most of the Soviet-era weapons come from China, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia and Ukraine and, in some cases, the authorities have hired foreign mercenaries to fly MiG and Sukhoi warplanes. .Across the 620-mile border, where the two sides are entrenched like First World War armies, the Ethiopians are facing a force of some 250,000 Eritreans and little the West says or does will stop them fighting. " News.Excite.com 4/15/00 Jeremy Lovell Reuters " A white farmer was reported to have been shot and killed late on Saturday as Zimbabwe's crisis over a black invasion of white-owned farms threatened to spiral out of control. White farmers told the local television agency Mighty Movies that a neighbour was abducted by black squatters occupying white-owned farmland with President Robert Mugabe's support. They said later that one farmer among five that went looking for their neighbour in the Marondera district east of Harare was shot in the face and killed during a confrontation with squatters after they inquired at a police station. Mighty Movies identified the dead farmer as Dave Stevens. It said the five farmers had found Stevens in the police station and the shooting death occurred after all six men were taken away -- it was not clear by whom or why -- to a house in the area. " Associated Press 4/13/00 John Rice "A procession of the world's poorest nations accused rich countries of imposing heartless or misguided policies that have kept their nations impoverished and technologically backward. Cuban President Fidel Castro opened the three-day summit Wednesday with the fiercest attack, accusing the capitalist system of regularly causing deaths on the scale of World War II by ignoring the needs of the poor. "The images we see of mothers and children in whole regions of Africa under the lash of drought and other catastrophes remind us of the concentration camps of Nazi Germany," he said. Referring to war crimes trials after World War II, the Cuban leader said: "We lack a Nuremberg to judge the economic order imposed upon us, where every three years more men, women and children die of hunger and preventable diseases than died in the Second World War." He called for abolishing the International Monetary Fund, which he said served the interests of the United States and other rich nations rather than those of poor nations forced to implement its free-market austerity policies in exchange for aid. .." UK Daily Telegraph 4/13/00 Boris Johnson ".. There will be no ethical foreign policy on Zimbabwe, simply because it is not convenient for Washington to impose one ET me the atlas, darling, before I have a seizure. Let's send a gunboat to Matabeleland, via the Limpopo. No: here we are. Let's canoe the marines through Lake Kariba and simultaneously deploy the SAS to guard the homesteads in Mashonaland. How long can we sit idly by while our kith and kin - our flesh and blood - are brutally turfed out of their farms by Mugabe and his bunch of panga-wielding thugs? I don't want to sound hysterical, or frivolous, but does anyone agree that it is about time we did something to help these people? Every day we see fresh pictures of innocent white settlers, farmers who have toiled to make a living out of the African earth, with blood pouring down their faces. More than 1,000 farms have so far been invaded by armed "squatters", egged on by Robert Gabriel Mugabe, the country's Marxist leader. Mobs are storming houses, firing automatic weapons and kicking out the occupants. .. A race war seems to be afoot in southern Africa, and for once everyone in this country - from Right to Left - is against the Zimbabwean leader" USA Today 4/13/00 Barbara Slavin "The State Department's chief terrorism fighter says he would like to

see countries meet U.S. requirements to come off a list of terrorist-sponsoring states so that he can concentrate on the "troublemakers." "I have told people on Capitol Hill, 'If you have a problem with Cuba on human rights, get your own sanctions, don't use mine,'" says Michael Sheehan, U.S. coordinator for counterterrorism. In an interview, Sheehan gave a preview of the State Department's annual report on terrorism, due to be made public April 28. No discussions have occurred or are planned with the Cuban government on the terrorist issue, Sheehan cautions, and he stresses that in any case, Cuba would not come off the list this year. The report, covering activity in 1999, will list as terrorist sponsors the same seven countries that have been on the list since its inception in 1979: Iran, Syria, Sudan, North Korea, Cuba, Iraq and Libya." New York Daily News 4/14/00 A M Rosenthal "....Cuba is a totalitarian state controlled by President Fidel Castro, who is chief of state, head of government, First Secretary of the Communist Party and commander in chief of the armed forces. "President Castro exercises control over all aspects of Cuban life through the Communist Party and its affiliated mass organizations, the government bureaucracy and the state security apparatus." "The judiciary is completely subordinate to the government and to the Communist Party." "The government does not allow criticism of the revolution or its leaders. If President Castro or members of the National Assembly or Council of State are the objects of criticism, the sentence can be extended to three years. Charges of disseminating enemy propaganda (which includes merely expressing opinions at odds with those of the government) can bring sentences of up to 14 years. "In the government's view, such material as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international reports of human rights violations and mainstream foreign newspapers and magazines constitute enemy propaganda." Those are verbatim statements from the report on Cuba in 1999 by the State Department's human rights bureau. They are based entirely on Cuban law and regulation. The report is available to every member of the Clinton government and of Congress, which made annual human rights reviews mandatory and generally ignores them. In fact, it is available to every American and foreigner through the State Department Web site. Well, not Cubans, of course. Their computers have been declared the property of the government, and their access to computers and the Internet are naturally controlled by it........ Critically important: The report on Cuba is evidence that the Clinton government has been lying. It has been lying throughout the entire moral and legal crisis about whether Elian Gonzalez should be returned to Cuba or allowed to stay in the United States awaiting hearing and American law......" Newsday 3/15/93 Ron Howell "An FBI investigation that linked exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to a murder in his homeland was a questionable and perhaps even Watergate-like use of the federal agency, according to a U.S. congressman who oversees FBI activities. "We don't like our police agency used for anything even with an odor of politics," said Rep. Don Edwards (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee that has oversight over the FBI. "They are supposed to protect us from terrorism and crime. They are not supposed to do anything that might have a tinge of politics. We ran into that with Watergate," Edwards told Newsday. FBI spokesman Stephen Markardt acknowledged last week that the bureau conducted the investigation in September, but said it did so at the request of the State Department. A spokesman for the State Department conceded officials there made the request. The episode shows that key State Department officials were working to discredit Aristide, even as they publicly declared they were seeking to restore him to power. .." St. Louis Post Dispatch 7/10/94 "..Boston Globe; 07-10-1994 Maybe they do not eat as often at fancy restaurants. Maybe they have fewer parties. And maybe they do not gamble as much at the casino. But life for Haiti's rich goes on much as it always has - a life of comfort and ease that makes it easy to forget that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The harsh international sanctions imposed on Haiti are supposed to hurt Haiti's elite, the vast majority of whom are supportive of the military coup that overthrew President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991. But it remains to be seen if and when the country's wealthy, the 1 percent who control Haiti's finances, will start feeling the pinch. .. Five families - the Bigios, Mevs, Madsdens, Brandts and Acras - have most of the country's wealth. The Madsdens, for example, are making a tidy profit in unloading humanitarian aid supplies at the port in Port-au-Prince. "It's disgusting that these people are getting even richer from the needs of the poor," a relief worker said. "It's like dealing with the devil, but there is no other choice." " The London Telegraph 4/20/00 "...... TWO white Zimbabweans were violently raped by a gang of government supporters on Tuesday, hours after President Mugabe branded white farmers the enemy of the state. The husband of Sarah, the 25-year-old victim, gives his account of the attack. The other victim, Jane, is her 18-year-old sister, who was visiting. The family are not farmers but live in a cottage on a small-holding a few miles outside Harare. The names have been changed. "Sarah went to the verandah at about 9pm to pick up a tea tray. She saw this man run round from the side of the house. ..." Msnbc 4/19/00 "......Zimbabwe's racial crisis moved toward a climax on Wednesday as President Robert Mugabe defied the country's high court and said that the violent evictions of white farmers from their

properties would stand. The Zimbabwe High Court earlier in the day convicted the leader of the land seizure movement of inciting violence, but Mugabe's continuing support for the evictions looked likely to undermine the court's power........" Reuters 4/19/00 Jeremy Lovell ".......President Robert Mugabe, speaking after a second white farmer was murdered by self-styled liberation war veterans, branded white farmers "enemies of Zimbabwe" on Tuesday, the 20th anniversary of the former Rhodesia's independence. "Our present state of mind is that you (white farmers) are now our enemies because you really have behaved as enemies of Zimbabwe," Mugabe told state television. "Our entire community is angry and this is why you have the war veterans now, you know, seizing land," he said in unscripted remarks. In a separate anniversary speech Mugabe said in the native Shona language there should be no action against war veterans who have invaded at least 500 white-owned farms. "I say nobody should move against them until the resettlement programme has actually got off the ground. "The whites that we forgave and allowed to live with us on the understanding that we will get our land back are now refusing to cooperate. They are now working to topple the government and this is what has infuriated the people," he said. ......" Washington Post 4/19/00 Jon Jeter ".....As attacks by black squatters on white farm owners continued to escalate today, President Robert Mugabe characterized the country's minority white farmers as "enemies" and accused them of trying to reassert control over the former British colony 20 years after the inauguration of black-majority rule. Hours after squatters fatally shot white rancher Martin Olds, Mugabe declared in a television interview that the white farmers who own much of Zimbabwe's arable land are "not just political enemies, but definite enemies in wanting to reverse our revolution and our independence." ......." 5/1/00 State Department Freeper Bronco Buster ".. This report represents portions of two different sections of the Annual State Department "1999 Global Terrorism" Report concerning Cuba, cut and pasted together, with other countries clipped out. U.S. Policy Tenets Our policy has four main elements: First, make no concessions to terrorists and strike no deals. Second, bring terrorists to justice for their crimes. Third, isolate and apply pressure on states that sponsor terrorism to force them to change their behavior. Fourth, bolster the counterterrorist capabilities of those countries that work with the United States and require assistance. The U.S. Government uses two primary legislative tools--the designations of state sponsors and of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs)--as well as bilateral and multilateral efforts to implement these tenets.. State Sponsors After extensive research and intelligence analysis, the Department of State designates certain states as sponsors of terrorism in order to enlist a series of sanctions against them for providing support for international terrorism. Through these sanctions, the United States seeks to isolate states from the international community, which condemns and rejects the use of terror as a legitimate political tool. This year the Department of State has redesignated the same seven states that have been on the list since 1993: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. " Stratfor 4/26/00 " What is extraordinary about Fidel Castro is that he is here at all. More than 40 years after coming to power, he survives. He survives in the face of the unremitting hostility of a superpower only 90 miles away. He survives in spite of these facts: his main patron, the Soviet Union, has disappeared, his ideology, Marxist-Leninism, is discredited, and his economy is in shambles. Despite the fact that an extraordinary number of ordinary citizens prefer to chance death at sea rather than remain in his nation, Fidel survives. .. From the beginning, Castro has shown an extraordinary understanding of how to shape public opinion. It is difficult to think of any world leader, let alone the leader of a minor Third World country, who has been more successful not only at drawing attention to himself, but in generating a positive global image. His 1953 attack on the army barracks at Moncada led only to his arrest and trial; but his "History Will Absolve Me" speech at the trial sparked a movement. Even today, in the face of failure, human rights violations and isolation, he continues to generate support and admiration. .." Gaurdian (UK) 4/27/00 Mark Tran ".. Foreign secretary Robin Cook will dangle the prospect of an extra 36m in aid for Zimbabwe's land reform programme in the hope of a breakthrough at today's talks with ministers from the Mugabe government. "If they are willing to be genuine partners in this project, we are willing to help - not only by contributing ourselves but also by taking the lead in the international community," Mr Cook said before the London meeting. He emphasised that Britain would be firm in its demands, saying: "I would like to achieve an agreement, I would like to achieve a basis on which the violence can end, the violence to farmers can stop and the economy of Zimbabwe can start to be reconstructed. "We are ready, we are willing to help, we always have been willing to help with land reform, but we are not going to appease." .."

4/21/2000 The Associated Press ".Six West African nations have signed an agreement to share a common currency within three years. The joint declaration made Thursday at a summit of leaders of the West African economic community ECOWAS also calls for possible monetary union with eight francophone West African countries that already share a French-backed currency, the CFA franc. The aim is to create the new six-nation currency by 2003 and merge it with the CFA franc by 2004. The countries that signed Thursday's agreement are the English-speaking countries of Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Gambia, as well as Guinea, the only French-speaking country in the region not already in the CFA zone. .." CBS NEWS 4/20/00 ".. Meanwhile, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., Mugabe said the country was generally peaceful. "There are many houses broken into in Britain and it doesn't mean there's no law and order," he said from Harare, Zimbabwe's capital. Pressed about the lack of police intervention, Mugabe retorted: "The police want to give time for people to act on their own and that's wisdom, isn't it?" The latest violence comes a day after landowners agreed to hold fresh talks on demands by squatters that farmers sign over land they have claimed on more than 1,000 farms. Thursday, ruling party militants chased reporters away from a gathering of mourners preparing for the funeral of an opposition party official killed in a firebombing on Saturday. Men chanting ruling party slogans slashed the tire of a media car Farm union officials advised white farmers to evacuate their families from the western province of Matabeleland, where farmer Martin Olds was killed Tuesday, and the neighboring province of Midlands, the union said. Another 80 families remained evacuated east of Harare. .." Washington Post, Page A33 4/20/00 Ronald Bayer and Mervyn Susser " Two tragedies are unfolding simultaneously in South Africa. The first is epidemiological, with millions of men, women and children infected with HIV destined to develop AIDS. The second is political, with President Thabo Mbeki seriously entertaining a discredited view that challenges the role of HIV as the cause of AIDS. Together, the tragedies may well exacerbate the epidemic in South Africa, an outcome that will be measured in untold suffering and death. The spread of AIDS in southern Africa, almost entirely the consequence of heterosexual transmission, follows a pattern profoundly affected by apartheid. " Nando Times 4/20/00 Ravi Nessman " http://www.nandotimes.com) - Just one day after a leader of the farm occupations promised to end hostilities, nearly 200 attackers rampaged through a white-owned farm Thursday in northern Zimbabwe, beating dogs to death and burning down workers' homes. The attack was the latest violence by armed squatters who have occupied nearly 1,000 white-owned farms across Zimbabwe over the past two months. In the past week, two farmers have been killed, six others have been abducted and beaten, and several farmhouses set ablaze. Thursday's rampage came after occupation leaders had met with farm leaders and President Robert Mugabe and said they would end the violence, although they said they would not leave the farms. .. Mugabe, who inflamed the situation earlier this week by calling white farmers "enemies" of the state, has been accused by opposition leaders of using the land dispute to drum up political support ahead of nationwide elections expected in May. .." Toronto Sun 4/23/00 Eric Margolis ".The murder of another white farmer in Zimbabwe last week is emblematic of a tragic, but little known story - the relentless ethnic cleansing of the white tribes of Africa. Martin Olds was besieged at his isolated tobacco farm by a gang of 100 thugs. After holding them off for many hours, he was finally wounded, driven from his burning farmhouse, then killed. The attackers were unleashed as a part of a campaign by Zimbabwe's aging strongman, Robert Mugabe, to divert attention from the nation's collapsing economy, and to restore his waning political power by whipping up hatred of the nation's 4,000 white farmers. .. These whites, many third-generation farmers, own a sizable portion of the nation's prime farmland, and produce 80% of Zimbabwe's agricultural exports. Without them, Zimbabwe's economy would collapse. But Mugabe still chose to revive racial hatreds from the 1970-1980 black-white war in former Rhodesia that cost 27,000 lives and forced half the nation's white citizens to flee. " Reuters 4/25/00 Emma Thomasson "South African President Thabo Mbeki and visiting Chinese President Jiang Zemin said Tuesday they would work for a new world order in which no one nation dominates and the developing world's interests are promoted. ``Mr. President, our countries and peoples are united by a common resolve to build a better life for themselves,'' Mbeki told a state banquet in Jiang's honor held in Pretoria. ``We are committed also to contribute what we can to ensure a more equitable international political and economic order which addresses the just aspirations of the billions of people who belong to the developing countries,'' he said. ." The London Telegraph 4/25/00 Anton La Guardia ".The ruins of the crop and the homes lay smouldering yesterday at Dean farm in the Wedza area, about 75 miles south-east of Harare, after the overnight attack. Farmers said the attackers abducted a black foreman, threatening to kill him, and beat up labourers accused of supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. One worker said: "We were sleeping . . . [they] put grass in the house and poured petrol and lit the fire. They said we must die

because we are MDC. They said this is Mugabe's country." Farmers said the squatters have switched their attacks from white farmers to the labour force, and beatings in the region were taking place nightly. Two white farmers, a black farm foreman, a policeman and two members of the MDC have been murdered in recent weeks. The crop at Dean farm would have been worth 100,000 at last year's prices. The burning is the latest blow to Zimbabwe's biggest single foreign currency earner. Annual tobacco auctions start tomorrow. Commenting on the burning of the tobacco, Tim Henwood, president of the Commercial Farmers' Union, said last night: "It is an ongoing part of the economic tragedy in this country. It is threatening the whole nation. Tobacco is our lifeline." Despite the violence, after squatters' promises to "cease hostilities", there is guarded optimism in Harare that President Robert Mugabe may be preparing to defuse the crisis on land invasions. Talks on land reform between British and Zimbabwean ministers are due in London on Thursday, and may be a turning point in the two-month campaign of farm occupations. ..." BBC News 5/9/00 "White-owned farms in Kenya have been invaded by black families, according to a deputy minister in the Kenyan Government. The land invasions, which echo recent events in Zimbabwe, follow calls by two parliamentarians for the seizure of white-owned land. Basil Criticos, the Assistant Minister for Roads and Public Works, said in a statement that about 300 families had moved on to his farm and beaten up his security personnel. Another 200 families had invaded another farm, he said. The squatters had "burned over 2,000 acres of arable sisal, but had also cleared the burned sisal and started cultivating and subdividing the land with impunity," Mr Criticos said" World Net Daily 5/9/00 Charles Smith "....... Oil ministers from OPEC nations have quietly told national security advisors on Capitol Hill that the oil production cutbacks -- and resulting price increases -- are being implemented at the request of the Clinton administration on behalf of Russia, Indonesia, Mexico and Iran.......... Russia, Mexico and Indonesia are reported to be directing their increased oil profits toward paying back overdue Western loans. According to one government defense advisor, the windfall profits are part of a larger scheme to use the American public to pay off failed and corrupt investment schemes in the three countries. to bad countries made by bad bankers," stated the national security advisor.......... According to Vice President Al Gore, the recent hike in gas prices is due not to a shortage of oil, but rather to the Clinton administration's deliberate move to encourage an oil price increase. "I think the reason is because we more or less asked the organization of petroleum producing countries to raise oil prices in helping Russia develop its economy," stated Gore on March 1 in response to a question about rising gas prices......." Fox News 5/4/00 " The U.S government raided the Puerto Rican island of Vieques early Thursday morning, sending masked federal agents [Emphasis added] to the U.S. Navy's bombing range to evict protesters who had been demonstrating against the Navy's use of the range for more than a year. John Riley/AP Dozens of Hispanic and religious leaders leave to join protesters at the Navy's bombing zone on Vieques Four U.S. lawmakers, and more than a dozen nuns and priests, were among about 140 demonstrators arrested in a peaceful dawn invasion during which FBI and U.S. marshals arrived under the cover of hovering helicopters and removed - mostly without resistance or incident - the demonstrators from the front gates of Camp Garcia. .." AP 5/4/00 DILSHIKA JAYAMAHA "The Sri Lankan government declared the nation on war status and on Thursday gave sweeping powers to the military, police and administration to deal with the Tamil rebel threat of splitting the country. In New Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee ruled out helping Sri Lanka with arms in its battle against the Tamil rebels, but offered food and medicine if needed. "There is no question of sending or selling arms to Sri Lanka. Both are ruled out," Vajpayee was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India, contradicting Indian news reports that New Delhi was considering providing arms, ammunition and other logistical support to Sri Lanka. Under the Public Security Act invoked by the government, Sri Lankan authorities can seize aircraft, ships or property without giving any reason, ban the publication of newspapers and leaflets that could harm national security, and prohibit demonstrations and strikes that may hinder the war effort. .." AP 5/4/00 Michael Sniffen ". More than 160 protesters peacefully removed from a U.S. Navy bombing range on Vieques today will escape all charges so long as they don't return and haven't assaulted federal officers, Attorney General Janet Reno said. Reno spoke as the early morning operation, begun at 5:05 a.m. EDT, on the Puerto Rican island neared its end. A federal law enforcement official said later that some 100 deputy U.S. marshals had cleared about 30 demonstrators away from the front gate of Camp Garcia, and another 45 left there voluntarily. .." Stratfor.com 5/5/00 ".. Saudi Arabia is experiencing ominous economic and demographic trends. The economy is not expanding enough to sustain the population growth. While economic reforms are being made, it is unlikely they can be made fast enough to reverse the current trends. Saudi Arabia will eventually have to cut back and redistribute its spending, about 70 percent of which goes to government subsidies and ruling-family allowances. Cutting back the subsidies violates a social contract between the government and

the people, which leads to collective domestic opposition. Moreover, cutting back the allowances will create an atmosphere of dissent within the royal family that could eventually threaten Saudi Arabian stability.." Lew Rockwell.com 5/5/00 Michael Peirce " Lately we've been bombarded with commentary addressing the situation in Zimbabwe; a situation that comes as no surprise whatsoever to those of us who followed the situation or saw it up close. The British in particular are clucking their tongues and wondered how did things get so bad? One of the many problems with the English is that they are such overbearing and effete snobs. I've often heard them mock the "hillbilly" accent of Rhodesians as if that somehow placed them outside the pale of "real" Englishmen. How unfortunate that Rhodesians employed blacks as servants. Unlike the British who for centuries have bred themselves a class of specially trained and highly sycophantic white men for that very task. Of course it is racist to have black servants. Far better to let them die of starvation due to lack of job skills. The Rhodesians further confounded the Brits by actually working hard. It's in such bad form.. But wait - isn't the black African's lack of job skills the white man's fault!? That's what we are supposed to believe. The reverse is true. For some reason that must astonish the environmentalists, tribesmen who've been exposed to western style culture can never return to communing with mother earth in the bush, even if they are there physically US Defense 5/5/00 " A newly released memo showed that Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh both opposed using FBI agents and U.S. Marshals to remove about 150 protesters from a Navy firing range off the coast of Puerto Rico. Though Reno told reporters yesterday that the operation was "straightforward" and went "smoothly," last fall neither she nor Freeh were in favor of Operation Eastern Access, according to ABCNew.com. Last fall, Reno strenuously objected to the proposed participation of U.S. law enforcement agencies in an operation to clear demonstrators from Vieques. ABCNews.com said that Freeh had recently sent a memo to Reno's Justice Department outlining his objections. .." AP-breaking 5/6/00 "Rebel forces using civilians as human shields battled U.N. forces in the interior of this West African country on Saturday and were advancing on the capital, a U.N. official said. The rebels, who had agreed to a U.N.-mediated peace agreement in July, launched the offensive from the town of Lunsar, 45 miles northeast of Freetown, the capital, U.N. spokesman Philip Winslow said. "We tried to stop the rebels using all the resources at our disposal," Winslow said, but declined to characterize the battle any further, except to say that the rebels were not stopped. Winslow said the rebel force numbered between 500 and 1,000 and were carrying "infantry-type" weapons. They were using vehicles they had captured from U.N. peacekeepers, he said. .." Electronic Telegraph (UK) 5/7/00 Christina Lamb ".. NELSON MANDELA last night called on the people of Zimbabwe to take up arms against President Robert Mugabe. The Nobel peace prize-winning former South African president condemned leaders who used power to enrich themselves while their people went hungry. Speaking in Johannesburg at a United Nations conference on children, he said: "The public must bring these tyrants down themselves." To do this, people should "pick up rifles". Asked whether he was referring to Mr Mugabe, he replied: "Everybody here knows who I am talking about. The situation exists in many parts of the world, especially Africa." The leaders he was referring to may have liberated their countries, he said, but "after rubbing shoulders" with the rich and powerful wanted to become like that themselves. " AP 5/6/00 "In a campaign to reduce violence, army and police officers brought thousands of illegal firearms to a park Saturday and crushed them with a steamroller. Most of the 18,462 guns had been seized from criminals, while others were turned in voluntarily by their owners during antigun campaigns, local media quoted police as saying. The murder rate in Brazil's biggest city jumped 9 percent last year, to a record 5,705 homicides, according to government statistics.. Brazilians own an estimated 8 million guns, of which only 2 million are legally registered. Most of the unregistered guns are in the hands of criminals, who buy them on a thriving black market. . A bill to outlaw all privately owned firearms in Brazil is currently stalled in Congress." Associated Press 5/6/00 Andrew Selsky "Taking a controversial stance on the worst catastrophe to hit Africa, President Thabo Mbeki convened a meeting today to debate widely accepted concepts such as whether HIV leads to AIDS. Dozens of scientists were attending the conference along with Mbeki, who astounded the world health community this year by ruling out providing the anti-AIDS drug AZT to HIVpositive pregnant women. He declared the drug too dangerous to use even though it has been proven that AZT drastically cuts the chances of newborns contracting the deadly virus. . "I've asked myself over the past few months whether the matters we've raised are folly or grace," Mbeki admitted today. But, he said, no facts about AIDS should be taken for granted and blindly accepted while millions of people are dying. .." Chicago Tribune 5/7/00 John Diamond ".With less than nine months left in office, President Clinton is coming to grips with the possibility that he could leave office without the breakthrough peace trophy he so energetically has sought. .. From Northern Ireland to India and Pakistan to the Mideast and to the

Balkans, the ethnic tensions, violence and potential for breakdown that existed when Clinton took office in January 1993 remain today. The emerging assessment from academics, foreign policy experts, administration insiders and lawmakers of Clinton as a foreign-policy maker is that he has skillfully managed crises but lacks the persistence, imagination and luck to tally a major historic achievement. The assessment may not be surprising considering Clinton ran for office in 1992 emphasizing the economy over everything else, including foreign policy. " AP-breaking 5/8/00 Susanna Loof "..A white farmer died Monday after squatters occupying his farm fractured his skull and broke his arms. Earlier, a top squatter leader urged his followers to round up Zimbabweans who still hold British passports and kick them out of the country. Alan Dunn was attacked Sunday on a farm near Beatrice, 35 miles south of Harare, and he died early Monday at a hospital, said David Hasluck, head of the Commercial Farmers Union. Representatives of the union planned an emergency meeting later Monday, Hasluck said. The attack - along with the abduction and beating of two game scouts on Saturday - renewed fears among white Zimbabwean farmers. .. Since black squatters led by veterans of Zimbabwe's independence war began taking over white-owned farms in February, three white farmers have been killed and at least a half-dozen severely beaten. President Robert Mugabe has called the land occupations justified in this former British colony, where one-third of the fertile land is still owned by 4,000 whites. " Reuters 5/3/00 Giles Elgood "Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Wednesday dismissed as "absurd" a suggestion that two Libyan agents accused of the Lockerbie bombing were acting under his direct orders. In an interview with Sky television aired just hours before the start of the trial of two Libyans accused of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland 11 years ago, Gaddafi said: "It is an absurd question that should not have been asked."..." Reuters 5/3/00 Cris Chinaka "..Zimbabwe government supporters were reported to have killed another opposition party member on Tuesday as Commonwealth ministers, meeting in London, called for "fair elections, free of intimidation". President Robert Mugabe and his cabinet announced no date for the impending poll and said the violent crisis over ownership of farmland would be discussed by the 25-member politburo of the ruling ZANU-PF on Wednesday ..." News-Observer 5/3/00 ". Several U.S. lawmakers joining protesters Wednesday at the U.S. Navy's prized training ground to show their support as they waited for an expected raid by federal authorities to expel them. "In the final count, we are going to win peace for Vieques," Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois told protesters in the bomb-littered range on Vieques island at dawn Wednesday. Some 50 protesters on several campsites in the range and dozens more in front of its main gate said authorities will have to arrest them to clear the area, which has been idle since stray bombs killed a civilian guard in April 1999. A few have threatened to scatter into the bomb-strewn bush, endangering themselves and any pursuers. ." THE WASHINGTON TIMES 5/3/00 Ross Herbert "..Hundreds of chanting war veterans who are behind the occupations of more than 1,000 white-owned farms marched on Zimbabwe's High Court yesterday in an attempt to disrupt a corruption trial of their leader - Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi. After weeks of political intimidation, farm violence and the murder of more than a dozen opposition party supporters, the case is a crucial contest between the rule of law and the forces of brute political power. As the leader of Zimbabwe's War Veterans Association, Dr. Hunzvi is arguably the second-most-influential man in Zimbabwe, after President Robert Mugabe.." Associated Press Online 5/3/00 Manuel Ernesto Rivera "With opposition growing in the United States including from Hillary Rodham Clinton - federal agents faced the prospect Wednesday of arresting bishops and a congressman who have joined protesters occupying a Navy bombing range. Rep. Luis Gutierrez arrived Wednesday on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, where he planned to remain and face arrest with dozens of others intent on making the Navy end its bombing exercises. A federal raid to clear the range has been expected for days. "In the final count, we are going to win peace for Vieques," the Illinois Democrat told demonstrators in the bomb-littered range at dawn on Wednesday. Groups of Roman Catholic bishops and priests have also joined the fray. .." AP 5/2/00 ".Mexican officials said they are preparing to take action in U.S. courts to stop gangs of vigilantes from rounding up Mexican immigrants, allegedly at gunpoint, on the Arizona border. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Tuesday that officials had yet to determine what legal action Mexico would take, but it would likely be a civil suit against Arizona ranchers who have admitted detaining immigrants and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol. "For the first time, we have contracted a group of U.S lawyers to help us round up evidence, so that we, as the government of Mexico, can bring suit, with proof, against those who have violated the rights and dignity of Mexicans," Foreign Minister Rosario Green said Monday. "We will take this as far as we have to," Green said, calling the detentions "racist" and dangerous. She said Mexico has

also invited a U.N. human rights inspector to visit the border area to gather information on the abuses. Mexico says that in 24 cases over the last year, ranchers allegedly stopped immigrants at gunpoint or by threatening them, held them and turned them over to U.S. immigration police. ." World Tribune 5/3/00 ". The Arab world, ruled by conservative mores, has the lowest rate of Aids in the world. A CIA report on AIDS said the Middle East and North Africa region has the lowest HIV infection rate. "Conservative social mores, climatic factors, and the high level of health spending in the oil-producing states tend to limit some globally prevalent diseases, such as HIV/AIDS and malaria," the report, released on Monday, said. But the CIA said another reason for the low rate of AIDS is "probably due in part to aboveaverage underreporting because of the stigma associated with the disease in Muslim societies." The report, entitled "The Global Infections Disease Threat and Its Implications for the United States," was released as the National Security Council deemed AIDS as a national security issue for the United States. White House Spokesman Joe Lockhart cited what he termed the "staggering" and "destabilizing" numbers of deaths AIDS is causing in some African countries. "They have an impact on us," he said. "We have an interest in Africa, as far as our own national security, and we need to look at this problem -- as the NSC has done, very much so this year, but going back over the last couple of years as a national security issue." The CIA report, completed in January, said "new and reemerging infectious diseases will pose a rising global health threat and will complicate U.S. and global security over the next 20 years. ......The CIA report said that terrorist might seek to spread diseases such as AIDS and malaria in biological attacks" AP via Excite news 5/2/00 Aaron Favila "..Rebels holed up in the hills and surrounded by troops threatened Tuesday to behead two foreign hostages if the military does not back off, but a government spokesman said the encirclement of the area will continue. The rebel threat came as new clashes between government forces and two Muslim rebel groups in the southern Philippines worsened prospects for the release of two groups of hostages totaling 48 people. .." Reuters 5/2/00 Adam Entous "U.S. congressional negotiators are close to final legislation that would extend trade privileges to Africa, the Caribbean and Central America, aides and White House officials said on Tuesday. "This has been a central administration trade priority for several years, and we are very pleased to be near the finish line today," U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky told the Council of the Americas. Negotiations stalled last week over a dispute about textile provisions, but aides said talks had made progress since then. They said they hoped to wrap up negotiations this week, clearing the way for final passage by the House of Representatives and the Senate next week. .." The New York Times 5/2/00 Pedro Sanjuan ".With its hard-line stance against the protesters on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, the Clinton administration has apparently decided that maintaining the Democrats' much-vaunted image as the party of the people is less important than supporting the military establishment, which insists it must keep using Vieques for target practice whether the people who live there like it or not. .. But there are alternatives to forcing Puerto Rican islanders to coexist with the live fire of Navy weapons training. And an earlier administration -- a Republican one at that -- showed itself willing to pursue them. .. In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed an executive order that was read to cheering crowds on Culebra, another Puerto Rican island, ending its use as a Navy weapons range and acknowledging that "the United States owes a great deal to the people of Puerto Rico for their past sacrifices on behalf of our common national security." Joining in the celebrations were Defense Department officials, the governor of Puerto Rico and Democratic Senator Henry M. Jackson. Culebra, which then had about 1,000 inhabitants, is so small that I have walked around it at a leisurely pace in less than an hour." New York Daily News 5/2/00 Juan Gonzalez "For the second time in as many weeks, the Clinton administration prepared late yesterday to send armed federal agents into action against a group of defiant Hispanic-Americans. It was just 10 days ago that Immigration and Naturalization Service agents seized young Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint from the home of his recalcitrant Miami relatives to reunite him with his Cuban father. The shocking early morning raid infuriated this country's Cuban exile community and sparked a weekend of civil unrest in Miami. Now, a small army of FBI agents, federal marshals, Coast Guard, Marines and Puerto Rican police is poised to launch an assault on the tiny island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, to remove protesters who have been occupying a Navy bombing range for more than a year. In both Miami and Vieques, the groups defying federal authorities have had massive support from their ethnic compatriots and even from their local politicians. .." Capitol Hill Blue News and Features 4/30/00 Deborah Orin Maria Alvarez "...... Attorney General Janet Reno yesterday refused to say if she'll order a raid to yank anti-military activists off the Puerto Rican island of Vieques on the heels of the raid to grab Elian Gonzalez. Two U.S. warships with 1,000 Marines on board are en route to the island where protesters have blocked bombing practice on the naval base, and officials say the raid could begin as early as tomorrow. "We are monitoring the situation, and we have no comment on a law enforcement operation," said Justice Department spokesman John Russell. Juan Figueroa,

president of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense, described the Vieques situation as being "in a holding pattern. " National Review Online 5/3/00 Jonah Goldberg ". Throw a dart at a map of Sub-Saharan Africa. Assuming you don't hit a remote wilderness, you will doubtless hit an area of the world where: AIDS is rampant, extreme hunger prevalent, corruption endemic, animal species endangered, and so on. Africa is a mess. It is a mess by any civilized measure of human progress. It is a mess by most uncivilized measures of human progress. If you do not think so, you are plagued by a paternalistic and racist notion of what progress is. .In Sierra Leone, children have had their arms lopped off by rebels. These mass amputations took place while the United States bombed Kosovo. South Africa is so besieged by rapists that celebrities are cutting public-service ads asking young men to refrain. In Zimbabwe, the government has declared war on white farmers who produce most of the food for the country. In nation after nation, warlords and rebel generals harass and murder by the thousands - motivated by no discernible ideology except clannish ambition, cruelty, and greed. There has been a holocaust rolling across Africa for decades, and nobody cares. . By my rough calculation, AIDS and malaria kill more Africans in one year than handguns have "killed" Americans in the history of the US. Half of all Zambians are expected to eventually die from AIDS. Somewhere between 13% and 50% of Zambian children have been orphaned by the disease.." Reuters 5/4/00 Darren Schuettler "..Relations between Zimbabwe and former colonial power Britain hit a post-independence low after their latest sharp exchanges over the land crisis in the southern African country. President Robert Mugabe described Britain as an enemy on Wednesday and reaffirmed his support for the illegal invasion by liberation war veterans of white-owned farms. Britain responded with an embargo on arms and military equipment deliveries and accused Mugabe of creating a crisis to ensure the ruling ZANU-PF party's victory in parliamentary elections expected in June. ..." Original Sources 4/26/00 Mary Mostert " It's Black-on-Black Conflict, Not Black-on-White Conflict Causing Anarchy in Africa. .. In the last year we have seen anarchy hit various areas - Indonesia, once a thriving nation who had people with the money and desire to pour into the Clinton 1996 Presidential Campaign, Kosovo, a province in the nation of Yugoslavia, the Horn of Africa and now Zimbabwe. At the height of the Elilan controversy I posted a news story about the economic impact of the growing anarchy in Mugabe's Zimbabwe which seemed to irritate a reader who had never seen any mention of the problems in Zimbabwe in the dominant media. "Why don't you tell us what's going on there, Mary?" .. The reader had a good point, but, frankly, I long ago came to the conclusion that the entire continent of Africa could drop into the sea and it wouldn't make the front pages of the Washington Post. For all the liberal left's talk about concern for the "Africans" or the "African Americans," the fact is, they really are not interested in what is going on in Africa, as was illustrated by Clinton's total disinterest in the death of hundreds of thousands of blacks by genocide but created a war because 1400 Albanians died in 1999 in Kosovo. He didn't mention the 600 Serbs who also died. ....... Americans particularly have a romantic notion that the problems of Africa are all caused by conflicts between whites and blacks. Actually, the worst problems are always between various black factions and tribes, not between whites and blacks and that is playing out now in Zimbabwe. " Original Sources 4/26/00 Mary Mostert "Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born on Feb. 21, 1924, in Kutama, Southern Rhodesia. He taught in Southern Rhodesia and then in Ghana where he came under the influence of Kwame Nkruma. In 1960 he returned to Southern Rhodesia. Finding the black nationalist movement of Joshua Nkomo too tame, he helped organize the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). His group advocated deposing by force Rhodesia's white government. In 1964 he was arrested for speaking against the government and imprisoned for ten years. Mugabe was released from prison in 1975 and, with Nkomo, helped organize guerrillas in the Patriotic Front (PF) to oppose Rhodesia's white-ruled government. The war ended in 1979 when whites agreed to a new constitution allowing black rule, and in 1980 Mugabe became prime minister. He formulated a Marxist-socialist government. He has been re-elected every since a perfect example of the saying, among many blacks in South Africa and Zimbabwe - "One Man, One Vote, One Time." The guerrilla warfare in Africa that did away with the white man's rule has generally been only transferrance from one tyranny to another. ." Original Sources 4/26/00 Mary Mostert " Back in 1970 a constitution, dubbed an instrument for retaining white rule, was adopted which allowed for a republic with a president and prime minister; a Senate of 23 members and a House of Assembly elected by separate white and black voter rolls, eventually to have 50 representatives each. In order to vote, one had to have paid income tax, which most blacks, of course, did not then and still do not pay. The 1979 Constitution is the one that Mugabe attempted to change to approve the seizure of white farms. .. Only, his new Marxist based provision to allow him to take the white man's land was not approved by the voters, much to his surprise. So, since then he has encouraged "squatters" to simply move in on white commercial farmers and take their land. About 800 of the 4500 white owned farms have been taken over in that manner. Many blacks, in a country where there is now, after 20 years of

Mugabe's communist government, 50% unemployment realize that most of the jobs in the country revolve around the white commercial farms and other industries, mining and steel, which were built with the white man's know-how and investment. ......" Original Sources 4/26/00 Mary Mostert " "Few blacks were among the mourners, but there were several farmers whose land has been targeted in the wave of illegal farm occupations. Some have had their crops burned, have seen workers beaten and have had homes attacked by arsonists. "'Things can't get much worse,' one friend and farming neighbour of Stevens said. "'It looks like we are going to become refugees, which is a bloody scandal,' he said. 'It is very dark at the moment,' he said. . "The farmer said he was unlikely to invest between Z$10-million and Z$12-million (about R1,7-million to R2,12-million) needed to plant next year's tobacco seedlings. The Zimbabwe dollar, which was worth $1.58 when Mugabe took control today is worth only .26. So much for the value of a Marxist economy. "Mugabe has personally endorsed the occupation of more than 1 000 white-owned farms. He is demanding that Britain and other international donors fund a land distribution programme to give farms to hundreds of thousands of landless black people. ." Wall Street Journal 4/26/00 Geoffrey Wheatcroft "..Over the past few weeks, Zimbabwe has moved from disorder to imminent ethnic cleansing. Invasions of white-owned commercial farms, incited by President Robert Mugabe, have seen two white farmers and at least six black farm workers killed, and two women raped, in attacks British Prime Minister Tony Blair has called "barbaric." Opposition leaders reported two more deaths on Monday, and the Daily News, the nation's only independent newspaper, was hit by an explosion Saturday. Mr. Mugabe has dissolved Parliament, supposedly with a view to holding a general election. The old Parliament's last act was to approve seizure of the farms, though this has been condemned by the courts. Far from yielding to the law, Mr. Mugabe returned from Cuba to tell the white farmers: "Our present state of mind is that you are our enemies.". This latest turmoil gives a new twist to a familiar pattern. Traditionally a tyrant will embark on some foreign adventure to distract his suffering people's attention from his failings. Mr. Mugabe embarked on just such an adventure with his disastrous intervention in the civil war in neighboring Congo. Now he has tried to distract attention from foreign disaster with a domestic adventure in the form of the attack on the farms." Mail and Guardian 4/27/00 "..ZIMBABWEAN police investigating a bomb blast outside a newspaper office in Harare have announced they will charge a South African journalist working for an international news agency. The Associated Press photographer, Obed Zilwa, was picked up at Harare international airport. He is expected to appear in court on Friday. He is being held in connection with the bombing of a gallery near the offices of the independent Daily News newspaper in the capital last Saturday. Police told Zilwa's lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, that Zilwa and his car matched descriptions of a person seen at the time of the bombing. Associated Press headquarters in New York have sent a letter of protest to the Zimbabwe embassy in Washington, demanding Zilwa's immediate release. "We protest in the strongest terms," said Terry Leonard, AP's Southern Africa bureau chief. "We are protesting to the Zimbabwe government and we urge other governments and news organisations to call for an end to the intimidation of the foreign press."." Reuters 5/17/00 Kurt Schork "Foday Sankoh, the rebel leader at the center of the U.N. hostage crisis in Sierra Leone, was in custody on Wednesday after being captured in the capital Freetown, witnesses and officials said. Sankoh, who had been missing for the past 10 days, was captured late on Tuesday, stripped naked and taken to Sierra Leone army headquarters, witnesses and officials said. British army officers emerging from Cockerill Barracks, where Sankoh was initially being held, told reporters that he would be handed over to Sierra Leone police. ``Foday Sankoh is currently in British custody but will later be handed over Sierra Leone police,'' one said. Another said later that Sankoh had been taken to a ``safe location.'' .Sankoh, whose fighters terrorized civilians at the height of the civil war and have been flouting a 1999 peace deal, had not been seen in public since a May 8 shootout at his Freetown residence. .." National Post 5/15/00 Peter Goodspeed "..As the world braces for yet another round of war in Sierra Leone, Olusegun Obasanjo, President of Nigeria, says both the west and the United Nations need to adopt a harsher, more aggressively militant stance to end the conflict. Meeting with the National Post editorial board yesterday, at the end of a five-day Canadian visit, the battle-hardened old soldier, who was elected president of Nigeria last May, also complained that he finds it difficult to understand why western nations such as Canada are so reluctant to contribute combat troops to the floundering UN peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone. "If your neighbour's house is burning and you do not do anything about it, you don't know what can happen," he said. " Buffalo News 5/13/00 "We can't seem to get it right in Africa. From Somalia to Rwanda and now to Sierra Leone, the United States and the rest of the Western world seem incapable of setting a clear and consistent policy. We can't figure out how to react as nations on that suffering continent begin to devour themselves. Part of that has to do with Africa, itself, where violence and inconsistency are rampant. Developing a

predictable, specific policy on when to intervene in Africa's ongoing agony is probably an impossibility, one that is compounded by the sense - right or wrong - that in Africa, the United States lacks a national interest compelling enough to risk young lives. ." abc news 5/16/00 Rebecca Cooper ".The White House has postponed presidential envoy Jesse Jackson's planned peace mission to West Africa due to controversial comments by the civil rights leader that have caused a rift with the government of Sierra Leone. "Reverend Jackson is going to delay his trip by at least a day," a senior Clinton administration official told ABCNEWS. "We thought it was useful to give the situation a day to vent and air out and then see where we are.". As the White House spent today trying to salvage the mission, Jackson spent the day on the phone with reporters, backtracking from comments that infuriated not only the government of Sierra Leone, but human rights activists and others seeking peace in the small, violence-ridden but diamond-rich nation. " AP 5/16/00 Jonathan paye-Layleh ".About 30 to 40 of the U.N. peacekeepers held captive by Sierra Leone's rebels are suffering from illnesses and injuries, including gunshot wounds, Liberia's president said Tuesday. The hostages are among 350 U.N. personnel who have been held for two weeks by the rebels. They are now in the rugged jungles of eastern Sierra Leone, near the border with Liberia, Liberian President Charles Taylor told a news conference. There was no word on the seriousness of their ailments. The rebels' bases are generally crude camps with little medical care and no modern facilities. " Washington Post Foreign Service 5/16/00 Jon Jeter "Unable to sleep, South African President Thabo Mbeki surfed the Internet into the wee hours of the night until he stumbled, quite by chance, onto an obscure but oddly absorbing Web site that challenged conventional notions about the treatment of AIDS. That cyberspace discovery on a solitary evening nearly eight months ago set in motion a chain of events that has put sub-Saharan Africa's most prosperous country at the center of an international dispute about whether the medicines commonly used in the West to combat AIDS can effectively treat Africans as wellIn a country with one of the world's fastest-spreading AIDS epidemics, the restlessly curious Mbeki has repeatedly ignored medical consensus and shrugged off price discounts offered by pharmaceutical companies, steadfastly refusing to distribute antiretroviral medicines, such as AZT, to South Africans infected with the AIDS virus, HIV. In doing so, the protege of South Africa's revered former president, Nelson Mandela, is revisiting a question that most medical experts had considered long closed: Does HIV cause AIDS? In doing so, he has alienated and mystified a broad range of political allies, advisers and even friends who held him in high regard." THE WHITE HOUSE 5/12/00 "STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT ON SIERRA LEONE 05/11/00 .. UN Secretary General Annan and I agreed this morning that the international community must intensify international efforts to restore peace in Sierra Leone and to prevent a return to all-out civil war. The situation there has been grave. But the UN is determined to fulfill its mission; African and other nations are willing to act; and we are ready to help them. .. I have instructed our military to provide needed assistance to accelerate the deployment of troops to UNAMSIL, and informed the UN that the United States will help transport reinforcements. A U.S. military transport aircraft is now in Jordan to move ammunition and supplies that are needed immediately for the Jordanian elements in Sierra Leone. " Reuters 5/10/00 Douwe de Haan "..U.N. special envoy Richard Holbrooke warned Wednesday that Ethiopia and Eritrea were on the verge of fresh fighting which could leave hundreds of thousands dead. After meeting leaders of both countries, which have been involved in a border war for two years, Holbrooke said a diplomatic solution to the conflict was as far away as ever. "We are very close to a resumption of hostilities and the outbreak of a new round of fighting, which, if it does take place, immediately constitutes the largest war on the African continent," Holbrooke told reporters as he left the Eritrean capital. Holbrooke, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., has been heading a seven-member team from the Security Council trying to get the two countries to restart peace talks" Reuters 5/10/00Anthony Goodman " United Nations peacekeepers in Freetown, the Sierra Leone capital, are preparing for a "pitched battle" with rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a U.N. spokesman said Wednesday. "Amid reports of increasing military activity between rebels and government soldiers, ... thousands of people fleeing the renewed fighting were heading toward Freetown," spokesman Fred Eckhard said. The rebels were still holding about 500 U.N. troops, but he declined to give any information about military movements. "As fighting continues, we will not report to you on who is winning what battles, what troops are in what locations. We don't want to have any kind of a negative effect on the activity in the field," he told reporters. .." AP 5/10/00 Nicole Winfield "..Efforts by U.N. peacekeepers to disarm Sierra Leonean rebels and U.N. advances into rebel territory -- including diamond centers that have earned the rebels an estimated $200 million a year -- appear to have sparked the current crisis there. Diplomats, U.N. officials and regional

experts also say the rebels may simply be taking advantage of the power vacuum created with the withdrawal of a Nigerian-led intervention force to challenge the still-deploying U.N. force. Rebels are rebuffing what had been somewhat successful attempts by the United Nations to move across Sierra Leone to implement the country's peace agreement and disarm rebel fighters, they say. .." Zim independent 5/11/00 " GOVERNMENT militias comprising war veterans and Zanu PF supporters who have invaded about 1 000 commercial farms have run out of resources and are now forcing farmers to provide them with basic supplies to enable them to remain on farms, the Zimbabwe Independent established yesterday. The new demands by war veterans came as the campaign of terror by Zanu PF supporters spread from the rural hinterland to urban townships. The spate of violence is manifesting itself in Harare's high-density areas which have so far seen 47 cases of violence, according to statistics provided by the police. ." Reuters 5/11/00 Randall Mikkelsen "President Clinton said on Thursday he was sending civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson to West Africa to help resolve a crisis over renewed violence in Sierra Leone. Clinton also said in a statement he and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan agreed to intensify international efforts to end the crisis, which erupted after rebel forces abducted 500 U.N. peacekeepers in Sierra Leone last week. ``I have asked Rev. Jesse Jackson, my special envoy for Democracy in Africa, to return to the region to work with leaders there for a peaceful resolution of this crisis.'' ." Electronic Telegraph (London) 5/14/00 Christina Lamb Philip Sherwell "..THE head of Sandline, the British mercenary company at centre of the arms to Africa scandal, attacked Tony Blair's Government last night for plunging Sierra Leone into a fresh bloodbath. Lt Col Tim Spicer, whose company helped reinstate President Kabbah in 1998, blamed Britain's insistence that the rebel leader Foday Sankoh be pardoned from a death sentence and given a role in government for the current collapse of order. Col Spicer said: "It was like giving the fox the keys to the chicken coop. It was extraordinary, and anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the cynical workings of [Sankoh's] Revolutionary United Front knew the peace accord was doomed." " Washington Times 5/14/00 ".Former South African President Nelson Mandela has brought a quiet feud with Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe into the open, urging Zimbabwe's people to take up arms against the "tyrants" who rule. Ordinary people, Mr. Mandela said, should depose leaders who enrich themselves at the expense of their countrymen by "picking up rifles and fighting for liberation." Speaking in Johannesburg at the inception of a new UNICEF initiative for impoverished children on Saturday, Mr. Mandela departed from his prepared text to level the unusual broadside. . In the process, he has placed himself at odds with his successor, President Thabo Mbeki, who has publicly embraced Mr. Mugabe in an effort to end a wave of violence in advance of elections for Zimbabwe's parliament. " Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet) 5/20/00 AFP "..An Ethiopian military offensive into the heart of Eritrea pushed hundreds of thousands of civilians westward to displacement camps or further into neighboring Sudan as foreign nationals were told Saturday to get out of the country. As non-essential US staff were poised to leave Eritrea, Asmara accused Washington of "not taking any tangible, concrete or firm measure against the Ethiopian invasion." "The fact that the United States is keeping silent in the face of this invasion is totally incomprehensible," presidential spokesman Yemane Ghebremskel told AFP.." Associated Press via canoe.ca 5/21/00 Clarence Roy-MacAulay ". Pro-government forces were advancing toward a rebel-held town that would position them to make a push against a key rebel stronghold, officials said Sunday. The pro-government forces, including members of the army, former junta soldiers and militiamen composed of traditional hunters known as the Kamajors, were fighting their way toward Lunsar, 50 miles northeast of Sierra Leone's capital Freetown, said two top military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. They declined to give further details, and their account could not be independently confirmed. " London Telegraph 5/20/00 Barbie Dutter "FIJI'S prime minister and most of his cabinet were being held hostage at gunpoint last night after a gang of hooded men marched into parliament, opened fire with assault rifles and claimed power in the name of indigenous Fijians. Coup leader: the ethnic Fijian George Speight As Mahendra Chaudhry, the nation's first Indian prime minister, and his colleagues were locked inside an upstairs chamber, mobs of youths went on the rampage through the capital, Suva, smashing windows and setting fire to Indian-owned shops and businesses. " THE WASHINGTON TIMES 5/19/00 Willis Witter "..Nothing short of a miracle will make for free and fair elections this weekend, said Evans Paul, a former mayor of Port-au-Prince who now leads one of the nation's largest opposition parties. Mr. Paul, also a poet and playwright, spoke just hours after a grenade exploded at the headquarters of Haiti's Provisional Election Council, which is overseeing elections for parliament and hundreds of local offices. Five persons were wounded in the Wednesday night blast, the latest in a string of attacks that appear aimed at frightening voters away from the polls. In the two months leading up to

attacks that appear aimed at frightening voters away from the polls. In the two months leading up to Sunday's vote, assassins have gunned down 15 prominent critics of the governmentMr. Paul, who in 20 years in politics has survived numerous assassination attempts and a public beating in front of television cameras during a 1991 military coup, blames the ruling Fanmi Lavalas Party led by former President JeanBertrand Aristide for the latest violence." Reuters 5/18/00 Stan Ritova ".. A group of armed men took Fiji's Indian prime minister hostage in parliament on Friday and claimed executive power over the tiny South Pacific nation in the name of indigenous Fijians. The coup, which took place as thousands of Fijians demonstrated against the government of Mahendra Chaudhry, appeared to be well organized -- international telephone lines were cut moments before seven gunmen attacked parliament house. But it was not clear whether the coup was backed by Fiji's powerful military, which played a crucial role in 1987 coups against an Indian-dominated government. Local radio reporters said two or three shots were fired during the assault, but no-one appeared to have been hurt. .." Agence France Presse 5/19/00 "..Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front on Friday demanded the release of their rebel leader Foday Sankoh as a condition to restart negotiations, said rebel spokesman Jibril Massaquoi. "Our leader must be released and we must go back to the negotiation table," said Masaquoi by telephone from the RUF stronghold of Makeni. "If they put our leadership on trial, we are not going to sit back and watch that for a second time. We will answer force with force and dialogue with dialogue," said Masaquoi. .." STRATFOR 5/18/00 " Facing the possibility of worsening famine and drought, Ethiopia has launched a new offensive to end its two-year old war with Eritrea. The war is frequently portrayed as a senseless nationalist conflict over a rocky, barren border. But it appears that this offensive has a more shrewd and logical aim. Advancing Ethiopian units are apparently trying to divert their opponents, forcing them to defend their capital and allowing the landlocked Ethiopians the opportunity to seize a vital port on the Red Sea. " Wall Street Journal, p. A-26 5/18/00 ". Yesterday, the bloodthirsty Sierra Leone rebel leader Foday Sankoh was seized by government troops, stripped naked and led through the capital, Freetown, later to be flown to a safe location in a British helicopter. Also came news yesterday that President Clinton's special envoy for Africa, Jesse Jackson, is heading there to help the "peace process." Been there, done that. ..Mercenaries nabbed Sankoh in 1997 and turned him over to the government that had hired them, that of the democratically elected president, Ahmed Kabbah. Sankoh was duly tried and found guilty of treason. Rather than being executed, however, he was unwisely released last year in a peace process godfathered by Rev. Jackson. ." THE WASHINGTON TIMES 5/17/00 Ross Herbert ".Dozens of men armed with clubs and shotguns yesterday invaded the third-largest lumber company in southern Africa and demanded the firm declare its fealty to President Robert Mugabe. Forty men entered the sawmill, Borders Timbers, armed with sticks and two shotguns and seized an employee, who was attacked as police looked on. "One of our men was handcuffed and beaten very badly in the presence of the police, who did nothing," said a witness. "We have no protection at the moment in this country." The invasion represents the largest confrontation yet in two months of political violence in which ruling party supporters have invaded hundreds of white-owned farms and killed at least 20 opposition party supporters and white farmers." Jordan Times 5/30/00 Gwynne Dyer "..Two wars should be ending this month, for the Tamil separatists have all but won in Sri Lanka, and Ethiopia has already won in the Horn of Africa. Neither result is wonderful, but at least in the past outcomes as decisive as these used to end the fighting and let ordinary people get on with their lives. Not any more. The defeat suffered by the Sri Lankan army has been stunning. For seventeen years it has fought the guerrillas of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), initially a ragtag band of fanatics seeking independence for the Tamil-speaking Hindu minority who live in the north of the island. Five years ago, it even drove the LTTE out of Jaffna, the northern city which is the de facto Tamil capital. But now it is on the brink of losing Jaffna again. .." Sunday Times 5/28/00 Nicholas Rufford "A SECRET MI5 dossier has revealed how the IRA was funded by Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, to wage a terrorism campaign in Britain. The documents, seen by The Sunday Times, describe in detail how 6.75m was handed over by Gadaffi's agents to an IRA courier known as "Cassidy" during visits to Tripoli airport. Gadaffi's support for the IRA is known, but the extent of his financial backing and details of the payments have long been a mystery. .." AP 5/30/00 Casimiro Siona "The top United States' official for Africa expressed support on Saturday for Angola's military efforts to end a protracted civil war against the UNITA rebels. But Susan Rice, assistant U.S. secretary of state for African affairs, also said negotiations between the government and UNITA appeared

unlikely at the moment. The fastest way to end the conflict, she said, would be for UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi to abide by a 1994 peace deal, end military actions and disarm. ``But, since he won't do that, the military response is a necessary part of the government's efforts for peace.'' .. " New York Press 5/27/00 Celia Farber "..Over the past several months, the Western AIDS orthodoxy has been rendered increasingly deranged by South African President Thabo Mbeki's call for a reopening of the HIV-AIDS causation question. Before long they began earnestly calling for the criminal prosecution of AIDS dissidents. (This rabid wish was voiced by way of the mainstream AIDS media.) Fantastic, I say. Just make sure it's televised because Americans will recognize the face of at least one man being hauled off in handcuffs for supporting open debate on AIDS, and it won't be his first visit to the slammer: Nelson Mandela. Just last week, Mandela came out in support of Mbeki's "controversial" AIDS initiative, which has "AIDS activists" and "AIDS experts" around the world in fits of apoplexy. And this week, with Mbeki visiting Clinton, the stories all revolve around the disturbed emotional states of "AIDS activists" who don't quite know how to express their horror. Project Inform's Martin Delaney told the Times this weekend that "the fear here is that he'll dig in worse if he gets pressured." ." New York Press 5/27/00 Celia Farber "..The trigger for all this strife was a simple, historic event: After months of deliberations and internal strife, Mbeki and the government of South Africa convened a two-day panel in Pretoria, May 6-7, at which 33 scientists deliberated about the evidence for and against HIV as the single and sufficient cause of AIDS worldwide. They also discussed the drugs used to combat it, and asked themselves whether the drugs have saved lives or ended lives. The AIDS orthodoxy was widely quoted as fuming about Mbeki wasting time on dead scientific questions while they themselves were busy saving lives. But the panel did take place, and I was there. .. New York Press 5/27/00 Celia Farber "..If you've absorbed the situation thus far from the mainstream press, you've been left with the impression that the story is all about President Mbeki betraying his country, if not losing his mind altogether-Mbeki "trawling" the Internet late at night and "stumbling" across a few "obscure" American scientists who say HIV doesn't cause AIDS. What's consistently absent from reports on this subject is a statement not of conjecture but of fact: Mbeki did not fall under the spell of two American scientists who question HIV's role in AIDS (by which is meant Drs. David Rasnick and Peter Duesberg). The scientific opposition to the mainstream view of HIV and AIDS is in fact longstanding, formidable and far more extensive than two scientists. This opposition was first galvanized around retrovirology pioneer Peter Duesberg, who in 1987 wrote his first deconstruction of the hypothesis. Duesberg mapped the genetic structure of retroviruses, and was widely regarded as one of the leading retrovirologists in the world at the time of his first critique. In subsequent years, hundreds of scientists from around the world have joined the ranks of the dissenters, under the auspices of the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis, an opposition group that boasts up to 600 signatories, many of whom hold PhDs and two of whom hold Nobel Prizes. " New York Press 5/27/00 Celia Farber "..It is widely believed by the general public that a retrovirus called HIV causes the group of diseases called AIDS. Many biochemical scientists now question this hypothesis. We propose that a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against this hypothesis be conducted by a suitable independent group. We further propose that critical epidemiological studies be devised and undertaken. ..Seriously, this simple statement is all that lies at the heart of the maligned and despised AIDS dissident movement. That wish for a "thorough reappraisal" was behind the Pretoria conference in early May. Yet judging from media reports, you'd think that Mbeki had called for AIDS quarantines and tattoos for all HIV-positives. ." New York Press 5/27/00 Celia Farber "..People are sick and dying in alarming numbers on the continent of Africa, but what is it that leads us to trace this phenomenon to sexual promiscuity and this particular retrovirus, when other complications abound? Why has AIDS not spread outside the original risk groups in any industrialized nation, yet where poverty is widespread, the virus (and AIDS) spreads like wildfire? The orthodox theory is that this is due to sexual promiscuity among Africans and a penchant for dry sex, rough sex and even sexual rituals involving monkey blood. .. What is in dispute is whether the symptoms of such illnesses are caused by extraordinary patterns of sexual behavior or whether the signs reflect the deterioration of life on the continent over the past 20 years. .The statistics ubiquitously cited to demonstrate a plague of AIDS sweeping Africa are untrustworthy in the extreme, as virtually no statistics are kept on either rates of infection, numbers of deaths or causes of death on the whole continent. In addition, the shoddy test used there can cross-react with microbes endemic to the region, such as malaria. The "Bangui definition" of AIDS was published in Science in 1986; the diagnosis is AIDS if a patient has a persistent cough and two of three other conditions: "prolonged fevers (a month or more), weight loss of 10 percent or greater and prolonged diarrhea." In other words, people were diagnosed with AIDS without being given HIV tests. "According to the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD), which is a WHO-sponsored project," says Geshekter, "Africa maintains the lowest percentage of vital statistics for cause of death of any

continent in the world." The GBD estimates that statistics can be considered accurate on the continent for a microscopic 1.1 percent of all deaths. " Albanian Daily News 5/30/00 "..A Czech far-right group wants NATO to bomb Zimbabwe "as harshly," as when protecting Albanians from Serbs in Kosovo. The Patriotic Front (PF) said in a statement Monday that it would like the Czech Foreign Ministry to use its influence to get NATO to carry out air attacks on Zimbabwe, but the ministry has ruled out any such bombing arguing that Zimbabwe is out of NATO's mandate. Veterans of Zimbabwe's war for independence have been violently occupying white-owned farms with the encouragement of President Robert Mugabe. A statement from the skinhead group by its head David Machacek, who also described NATO, which the Czech Republic joined in March of last year, as a criminal organization. " Sunday Times of London 5/28/00 Marie Colvin "THE manicured lawns and bright red poinsettia shrubs of St Paul's Catholic mission school in Murewa, 50 miles northeast of Harare, made it seem a safe haven in the eyes of Tabitha, a 16-year-old cook. That was before she became the victim of a campaign of systematic rape and violence by the thugs terrorising Zimbabwe's countryside on behalf of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party. A tiny, delicate teenager, too young to vote in next month's elections, Tabitha has no understanding of the brutal politics behind the attack on her as she walked to nearby shops with her friend Florence. She simply sits on a couch, wraps a white woollen shawl tightly around her body and talks in a quiet monotone about the day that ended her hitherto happy life. "I have lost my virginity and I want only death," she said. .." Agence France Presse - via Yahoo 5/30/00 "..The South African government on Tuesday declared Fatou Mbaye Sankoh, the wife of Sierra Leone rebel leader Foday Sankoh, a persona non grata and gave her 24 hours to leave the country, government spokesmen said. Foreign ministry spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said Fatou Sankoh, who has been holed up in a Johannesburg hotel for days, was personally informed by home department officials on Tuesday morning that she should leave. According to foreign affairs director general Sipho Pityana, Fatou Sankoh had since she arrived in South Africa on Saturday compromised peace in Sierra Leone by promoting her husband's rebel Revolutionary United Front movement. .." Washington Post 5/31/00 Jon Jeter "..Soweto has always been poor, but back when South Africa's apartheid government enforced racial separation, this all-black township usually managed to scrape together enough money for new jerseys, socks and cleats. A physician who lived here donated the Italians' last batch of uniforms seven years ago. When the white-minority government collapsed with the first all-races election in 1994, blacks were free to live wherever they could afford. The doctor moved away; the team hasn't been able to buy new uniforms since.."Our best and brightest are all running away from Soweto now," said Cornish Dikgale, who owns a bar here. "And the very people who are leaving are the people with the money and the know-how that Soweto needs. They are cowards, driving their BMWs home to the suburbs while their people suffer."..Six years into its transformation to black-majority rule, the distribution of wealth in South Africa remains the most unequal in the world, with the white minority continuing to reap the bounty generated by sub-Saharan Africa's most prosperous economy. But the '94 election resurrected virtually overnight the black middle class that was wiped out by five decades of apartheid. Today, the soaring incomes and ambitions of the country's emergent black elite rival those of whites even as their friends and family from the old neighborhood grow poorer and more resentful." Nando Times 5/30/00 AP ".. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan arrived in Libya on Tuesday, an Egyptian news Agency reported, praising the suspension of sanctions against the North African nation after it turned over two suspects in the 1988 bombing of an American jet. Farrakhan arrived in the capital of Tripoli for talks with the leaders of Chad, Liberia, Mali and Libya, according to the Middle East News Agency...." Daily Mail and Guardian (SA) 5/26/00 " WAR veterans and their supporters who invaded a national park in the south of Zimbabwe narrowly escaped death when they were attacked by an angry pride of lions. The independent Daily News reports that a group of around 100 war veterans invaded a private game estate within the Gonarezhoue park, the country's second largest, to press the government to resettle them, but fled when attacked by the lions. Police said the veterans intend to invade Gonarezhoue again. Meanwhile a Militant group of suspected war veterans launched an attack on a rural police station in northern Zimbabwe forcing police to fire teargas to disperse them. " Electronic Telegraph 5/27/00 Julius Strauss " AN emotional plea to Tony Blair not to withdraw British troops from Sierra Leone was made by President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah yesterday. Mr Kabbah gave warning that it would be "a catastrophe" if plans to pull out hundreds of Royal Marines went ahead next month. In a rare press conference, he said: "I will ask Tony Blair to keep troops here. The British troops came at the right time. "They came when confidence was very low and there was a vacuum. That has dramatically improved."

..." AP 5/23/00 Michelle Faul ".Charges of fraud and a chaotic vote count that had workers sweeping up ballots on a Port-au-Prince street threaten the credibility of an election billed as the last hope for Haitian democracy. An opposition candidate for a local council, meanwhile, was stoned to death, the third victim of election violence. The disorderly collection and counting of ballots from legislative and local elections held Sunday was "most unfortunate," said Ambassador Orlando Marville of the Organization of American States, who is in charge of 200 international observers, .." THE WASHINGTON TIMES 5/23/00 Ross Herbert "..Conditions for "credible democratic elections" do not exist in Zimbabwe following a three-month campaign of political violence that has bred an atmosphere of anxiety and fear, a multinational election observer mission said in a report yesterday. ".. The NDI, which has observed elections in more than 50 countries over 16 years and is loosely affiliated with the Democratic Party, spent the past 10 days interviewing members of the government, the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party, election-body officials, the opposition and civil society groups. The government of President Robert Mugabe has not worked to create the conditions for free and fair elections, the group said in a report on its findings.At least 23 persons - 18 black opposition members, four white farmers and a black policeman -have been killed and hundreds of black farm workers beaten or raped in a three-month campaign of farm invasions and terror. Since February, more than 1,000 white-owned farms have been invaded by black Zimbabweans seeking to take the land." WASHINGTON TIMES 5/24/00 Jerry Seper "..The State Department, which sent millions of rounds of 50year-old ammunition to Colombia despite warnings it was unsafe for the new machine guns aboard anti-drug helicopters, has now located 50-year-old guns to use with the outdated ammo. A pending decision to send to Colombia the Browning M-2 weapons - single-barrel machine guns used by U.S. infantry troops in World War II and Korea - has angered the House Committee on Government Reform. It wants hearings to investigate the State Department's "inability to prosecute an effective war on drugs in Colombia." "" National Post 5/23/00 Steven Edwards "The United Nations is investigating the discovery of as many as 11 mutilated bodies wearing UN uniforms in Sierra Leone to determine whether they were among the UN peacekeepers taken hostage by rebels. Sierra Leonean troops discovered between nine and 11 mutilated corpses yesterday strewn across grass near Rogberi Junction, a UN position in the central part of the country before it fell to the rebels. The bodies were hacked into so many pieces it was difficult to count them. .." The Nashville Tennessean 5/23/00 Monica Whitaker ".. It is a matter of knowing that some East African tribes forbid the drawing of blood from the body, and in what regions of Africa the people believe that an injection will chase away pain faster than a pill. It could be recognizing that a sick patient's family believes she is wrestling with an evil spirit, or discerning which woman thinks her bacterial infection was willed on her by someone else. In each case, Nigerian-born, American-trained brothers Dr. Boniface Ikejiani and Dr. Afam Ikejiani say cultural familiarity with Middle Tennessee's growing number of African refugees and immigrants must come before medical skills. In a recently relocated obstetrics/gynecology office at the Baptist Medical Plaza on Church Street and at a new facility in Franklin, the brothers are developing a practice that welcomes African immigrants. Their office averages 30 patients a day, most of those American." Electronic Telegraph 5/21/00 Paul Harris "..SIERRA Leone government forces yesterday fought with rebels of the Revolutionary United Front and repulsed an attack on a vital crossroads town. Beri Junction stands on a road linking the capital to Port Loko, an important river port, and controls the road to the rebel stronghold of Makeni deep in the country's interior. Sierra Leone army forces, which are being supplied and advised by the British Army, took the town in the morning. In the early afternoon, however, RUF rebels tried to retake it...." THE WASHINGTON TIMES 5/22/00 Willis Witter "..A gunfight yesterday that killed two near a Port-auPrince polling station and scattered reports of violence and intimidation marred what international observers called a surprisingly peaceful election with an overwhelming voter turnout. ... got it together at the last minute, what else can you say," said one businessman, a harsh critic of the government who asked not to be named. ..." Daily Mail and Guardian (SA) 6/7/00 EMSIE FERREIRA " FORMER president Nelson Mandela has made a deal with Burundian President Pierre Buyoya that all internees will be freed from Burundi's notorious regroupment camps by July 31. "We agreed that by the 31st of July all people inside the regroupment camps should be released," Mandela said after meeting Buyoya in Johannesburg. About 900 000 Burundians who have been displaced by the civil war in the country are living in the camps, which have been condemned by the United Nations and described by Mandela recently as "concentration camps." Mandela, the chief negotiator in the Burundi peace process, said he and Buyoya had also agreed that the Burundian army

negotiator in the Burundi peace process, said he and Buyoya had also agreed that the Burundian army would be restructured so it is made up in equal parts of members of the country's warring Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups. "We agreed that the Tutsis and Hutus should be equally represented in a new army. In other words it should be 50% Hutu and 50% Tutsi," Mandela said. Mandela said he would travel to Burundi from July 12 to 14 to persuade rebel groups, religious leaders, soldiers, politicians and ordinary citizens to support the agreements he had reached with Buyoya" BBC News : Americas 6/7/00 " A Mexican activist who offered a $10,000 reward for killing US border agents has withdrawn the offer after sharp criticism from both sides of the border. Carlos Ibarra Perez, head of the Citizens Defense Committee in Mexico, which defends the rights of Mexican immigrants, offered the bounty after a number of killings of immigrants by US vigilantes and patrols. But he told KFMB radio in San Diego : "I'm saying a different thing now. I'm saying that we avoid violence." " AFP 6/8/00 " President Robert Mugabe warned white farmers in Zimbabwe Thursday that they will die if they try to resist squatters led by independence war veterans who are occupying their farms. "If they try and resist them they will die," he told a campaign rally in Mpanawanda, 220 kilometres (130 miles) southeast of Harare. " Ministry of Defence (UK) 6/6/00 " UK forces have proved their rapid reaction capability by deploying to Sierra Leone. We are now withdrawing as planned. We have achieved our objectives; to evacuate entitled personnel and to secure the airport while UNAMSIL builds up. Evacuation operation will end on 9 June. Any entitled persons who wish to take the opportunity to leave should report by then. Responsibility for security of Lungi airport will be handed over to UNAMSIL on 12 June, and 42 Commando and the Amphibious Ready Group will leave Theatre on 15 June. " Agence France Presse via Bloomberg 6/8/00 "Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, said white farmers will die if they resist armed squatters occupying their farms, Agence France-Presse reported. ``If they try and resist (the squatters) they will die,'' Mugabe said at a rally in the settlement of Mpandawana, 130 miles southeast of Harare. Since the government in mid-February lost a referendum aimed at strengthening its powers, squatters have invaded more than 1,500 of about 4,000 white-owned commercial farms in Zimbabwe, AFP said. " Daily Mail and Guardian (SA) 6/7/00 "SWAZILAND'S small, and largely ineffectual, opposition has frequently bemoaned the lack of international sympathy for its campaign for the re-establishment of plural politics. The former king, Sobhuza II, suspended the constitution and banned political activity in 1973. The suspension of the constitution coincided with the establishment of a national army and the invocation of a state of emergency, which remains in place today. While the country's most active opposition group, the Swaziland Youth Congress (SWAYOCO), claims to have the support of some international Non Governmental Organisations, pro-democracy groups in the country say they have seen little official support from the international community in their quest for a multi-party democracy. However, the United States may, unwittingly, have given Swaziland's banned opposition the impetus it needs to elevate its cause to the international platform. The US has threatened to impose trade sanctions against the tiny kingdom over industrial relations concerns. ." Reuters 6/2/00 "..Fighting erupted in Sierra Leone on Friday as government forces tried to recapture the strategic town of Lunsar, local soldiers said. Lunsar, around 65 miles (105 km) northeast of the capital Freetown on the road to the key rebel-held town of Makeni and the eastern diamond mines, has already changed hands twice this week, with heavy casualties reported on both sides. ..." deutsche presse 6/2/00 "..President Robert Mugabe's government Friday madede official his plan for a mass grab of white-owned land by publishing a list of 804 farms earmarked for confiscation and redistribution among blacks. A copy of the notice, signed by minister of agriculture Joycece Mujuru and listing the farms for ``compulsory acquisition,'' was published in Friday's edition of the government gazette, the official state legal bulletin. The farms cover about 2 million hectares, about a fifth of thehe land owned by white commercial farmers. ..." Catholic News 6/2/00 "..The Diocese of Kaduna, Nigeria, said on Monday that a priest was murdered by Muslim extremists last week and a bounty had been placed on the head of all Catholic priests. The diocesan spokesman, Fr Peter Yakubu, said 26-year-old Father Clement Ozi Bello, who was ordained just last year, was stopped as he drove to his parish and dragged from his car by a mob. Fr Yakubu said the assailants tied up Father Ozi Bello, gouged out his eyes, and then killed him. He added that Father Ozi Bello was from a Muslim family and had converted to Christianity. " Zimbabwe Independent 6/2/00 ".. FORMER freedom fighters in southern Africa are making efforts to form a regional body to push Sadc governments to accelerate land redistribution. This comes as it emerged this week that the United States and the United Nations are taking great interest in developments in Zimbabwe

where former fighters of the country's liberation war have invaded over 1 000 white-owned commercial farms across the country in a reign of terror that has left four white farmers and many farm labourers dead. The United Nations was sending its chief administrator, Mark Malloch-Brown, as a special envoy for UN secretarygeneral Koffi Annan, to meet President Robert Mugabe on Monday next week, sources said "It's now the initiative of the secretary-general and some southern African leaders, including Thabo Mbeki (South African president), and donor countries to defuse tension and take the issue back to the 1998 land conference with a proper action plan for land redistribution. It's being sharpened at the highest level," a United Nations source said over the phone yesterday. ." Zimbabwe Independent 6/2/00 Dumisani Muleya/Brian Hungwe ". IN the midst of the worst economic crisis the country has ever experienced and an acute foreign currency shortage, the government has placed a $3 billion order for military hardware from China, the Zimbabwe Independent has established. Government sources said cabinet decided in March to channel US$65,9 million ($2,6 billion) towards buying arms from a Chinese firm, China North Industries Corporation (CNIC). The Zimbabwean government has made a commitment to the deal by depositing a 5% down-payment or US$6,5 million ($247 million) with the Bank of China through its local corresponding financial institution. " Independent Online 6/4/00 Cris chinaka ".. Harare - Many white Zimbabweans and not a few blacks, plan to spend the June 24 to 25 election weekend out of the country and some are mapping a permanent escape in case political violence erupts into civil war. Travel agents in Harare said at the weekend that hundreds of white families had booked a holiday in one of Zimbabwe's four neighbouring countries for the eight-day election-linked school holiday from June 21. Some black Zimbabweans are also known to be sending their families to Zambia, South Africa, Botswana, flood-ravaged Mozambique and even more distant Namibia until after the election. .. "Many people are just considering their options, and are saying they will only make a move if things get worse. They are waiting to see what happens after the elections," she said. At least 28 people, including opposition supporters and white farmers, have been killed in political violence that has ravaged the country since January. ......... Mobs of government supporters, led by self-styled liberation war veterans, have invaded hundreds of white-owned farms in a campaign of terror against the new opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which is regarded as the first serious threat to President Robert Mugabe's 20-year rule. ." THE WASHINGTON TIMES 6/5/00 Ross Herbert "..Business leaders and commercial farmers predict disaster for an already staggering economy when squatters begin seizing hundreds of white-owned farms on a "first-come, first-served" basis as early as this week The chaotic takeover was authorized on Friday with the listing by President Robert Mugabe of 804 farms to be seized "immediately," including the cattle ranch of former Prime Minister Ian Smith. The properties amount to about 5.2 million acres, or almost 20 percent of all white-owned land..Chenjerai Hunzvi, head of the independence war veterans association whose members already have overrun some 1,500 farms, said the land would be distributed on a "first-come, first-served" basis, setting the stage for a chaotic scramble.......Economists and businessmen are dismayed by the move, warning the effect on Zimbabwe's mainly agricultural economy will compound an already severe foreign currency shortage and hurt agriprocessing industries, banks and merchants who cater to farmers......." Stratfor.com 6/5/00 "..Two recent events have caused us to consider President Clinton's foreign policy legacy. In the waning days of his presidency, Clinton has faced massive challenges in foreign policy. In both China and Russia we have seen substantial political shifts and reversals over the past year; neither has been to the advantage of the United States. There can be little question but that relations with both have deteriorated dramatically since 1995. The president has spent the last two weeks trying to salvage relations with both countries. The summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the desperate struggle to get permanent normalized trade status for China through the House of Representatives have been different strands of a single fabric. Clinton's foreign policy has aimed at containing both Chinese and Russian aspirations within the context of the global trade regime that the United States has presided over since the end of the Cold War. ." USA Today 6/5/00 Don Ringler "I am neither African-American nor a blind supporter of the United Nations. But every time I read a letter such as the one from reader Eric L. Johnson I feel ashamed of my country (''No interest in Africa,'' Letters, May 26). Sadly, reader Johnson may accurately have assessed the American public interest, but he has failed miserably to assess some of the problems in Africa. ......I visited two of the refugee camps in Sierra Leone last year, and the images will be burned into my mind for the rest of my life. I watched hundreds of children struggle through daily life with hands or feet hacked off by rebel soldiers. ...... And I also saw the bloodstained dust under the lifeless bodies of Muslim teenage girls who had -- during the night -- chewed through their wrists because they had discovered they were pregnant as a result of gang rapes by rebel soldiers who had terrorized their villages. ......But as horrific as these sights were, the searing images were of confident refugees, of all ages, coming up to me and asking when America

was coming to protect them......." South African Daily Mail & Guardian 6/13/00 "..REPRESENTATIVES of the United States, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand told the Zimbabwe government on Tuesday of their concern over "violence and intimidation" in the run-up to parliamentary elections. The ambassadors of the United States and Japan, the high commissioners of the three Commonwealth countries and the representative of Switzerland met with Zimbabwe's Deputy Foreign Minister Nicholas Goche, they said. "The purpose of the envoys' call on Deputy Minister Goche was to express the concerns shared by all of their governments over the violence and intimidation accompanying political campaigning in Zimbabwe." "The envoys expressed special concern with attacks on farm workers, teachers, health care workers, officials in rural areas, and political candidates," a statement said. ." Miami Herald 6/12/00 Chris Gaither and Sandra Marquez Garcia "Zimbabwe's government on Monday sought to distance itself from Cuban President Fidel Castro's message barring two dissident Cuban doctors from traveling to the United States, saying that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was responsible for arranging the doctors' transfer to a third country. .. Leonel Crdova Rodrguez, 31, and Noris Pea Martnez, 25, remained jailed for the ninth day at the Goromonzi Remand Center. Diplomats warned that stalled negotiations over the doctors' ``final destination'' could keep them in the country for another two weeks. ``President Mugabe clearly has the power to do anything in this country,'' said a Western diplomat in the Zimbabwe capital of Harare. ``Predicting his actions is a losing proposition.'' .." AP 6/12/00 "..Rwandan troops drove Ugandan forces from Kisangani on Sunday in a fierce seven-hour battle that ended a week of indiscriminate shelling and enabled the United Nations to separate the armies and prepare for their withdrawal. The stench of death was everywhere in this Congo River port city. But a handful of unarmed U.N. observers was in place to monitor the cease-fire, and for Kisangani, the worst appeared to be over. The bullet-riddled bodies of at least 40 Ugandan soldiers lay strewn along the gravel road leading to a bridge where Rwandan troops halted the Ugandan push into the city. At the bridge, U.N. observers raised the blue U.N. flag and declared that any further fighting would be considered an act of aggression against the international community. U.N. observers said at least 6,000 shells had rained on Kisangani since fighting broke out June 5. The Red Cross had put the civilian death toll at 150 with 1,114 injured. It was obvious the number would rise as people were discovered in the rubble of their homes and bodies were collected from the streets. " New York Times 6/9/00 Barbara Crosette ".Two years of war have caused the deaths of more than 1.7 million people in eastern Congo, where people who manage to flee the fighting often die of hunger and malaria while hiding in impenetrable forests, a leading refugee agency said today. This means that about four times as many people have died in the area since August 1998 as would be expected under normal conditions, according to a study released by the agency, the International Rescue Committee in New York. Although the expected death toll in the five-province area of 18 million people would be 600,000, the actual number was 2.3 million. Of the 1.7 million additional deaths reported in the survey, 200,000 were caused by acts of violence, whereas the rest were attributed to the war-related collapse of health services and food supplies. ." Slate 6/9/00 Jeremy Derfner ". On May 19, seven masked gunmen led by businessman George Speight stormed the Fijian parliament, seized about 40 hostages (including the prime minister), and announced they were dissolving the multiracial government and taking control. What's behind the coup attempt? Who's running Fiji now? Speight says he organized the coup on behalf of indigenous Fijians, Melanesians who have been at political odds with the islands' ethnic Indians since the British granted independence to the 100-plus islands that make up Fiji in 1970. The two issues at the heart of the conflict are: Control of the Government. Indigenous Fijians, who make up 51 percent of the country's 800,000 people, have dominated the country's government thanks to constitutions that blatantly favor them. The ethnic Indians are the descendents of indentured servants brought to the islands by the British 130 years ago. They account for 44 percent of the population and dominate the merchant class and most of the country's agriculture. In 1987, a military coup toppled the government when the indigenous islanders grew jealous of rising Indian political power. Speight's supporters want a new constitution that will exclude ethnic Indians from high office. " Source: Electronic Telegraph 6/9/00 ".. Rwandan, Ugandan soldiers resume fighting TROOPS from Rwanda and Uganda battled for a fifth day today over Kisangani in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, despite promises to the United Nations from the two nations' leaders to halt the fighting. The warring troops exchanged artillery fire steadily from 8:00 am local time (0600 GMT), despite pledges by Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni that they had ordered their armies to cease hostilities. ..." WorldNetDaily 6/9/00 Julie Foster ".Today, activists, congregations and community leaders in more than

25 cities across the United States -- as well as Ottawa, Canada and Vienna, Austria -- are hosting rallies to protest government-sponsored slave trading in Sudan on what has been named "National Sudan Day." The rallies cap off an intensive three-week lobbying effort in Washington, D.C., by the Sudan Campaign -- a broad coalition of activists seeking an end to genocidal activities against resisters of the country's Islamic fundamentalist regime. Many of the slaves, especially women and children, are captured during raids conducted by government-armed militias. Most of the victims are members of the Dinka tribe, a group of Christians and animists from the northern part of Bahr El Ghazal region. Testimonies of the enslaved women and children reveal a consistent pattern of beatings, sexual abuse, forced Islamization and Arabization, and denial of sufficient food and shelter. Various organizations, such as Christian Solidarity International and the Congress on Modern Pan-African Slavery, have combined their efforts and resources to create the Sudan Campaign. Christian Solidarity International has been at the forefront of slave "redemption" activities. As reported in WorldNetDaily, the group purchases freedom for captured Sudanese people -- a controversial practice opposed by the United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF. The coalition also includes the African American Women's Clergy Association, the American Anti-Slavery Group and the Washington, D.C., branch of the American Jewish Committee, as well as members of the Congressional Black Caucus. " The Washington Times 6/9/00 Doug Bandow ".. Sierra Leone has struck yet another blow against U.N. peacekeeping. America's U.N. ambassador, Richard Holbrooke, naturally argues that Sierra Leone "is not a metaphor for U.N. peacekeeping." But how could it be otherwise? Even U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan admits that the United Nations can't do the job. His solution is to strengthen U.N. operations. Sierra Leone is one of a long list of African slaughterhouses: Angola, Burundi, Chad, Congo, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan. In none of them has the United Nations stopped the killing, let alone resolved the underlying conflicts. Diplomatic pressure, expressions of international outrage and U.N. missions have all failed. People die, refugees flee, children starve, societies disintegrate. The only strategy that has worked is military force. In 1995, Sierra Leone's government was tottering before an offensive of the Revolutionary United Front. The regime hired the company Executive Outcomes, made up of South African mercenaries, which routed the RUF. .." Washington Post 6/18/00 ".President Robert Mugabe said today that whites may live in Zimbabwe, but they will never have a voice equal to that of blacks in the country. "The whites can be citizens in our country, or residents, but not our cousins. They are the greatest racists in the world," Mugabe said in a campaign speech for next weekend's parliamentary elections.......Mugabe is not up for reelection, but his governing ZANU-PF party is facing its greatest challenge since the country gained independence from Britain 20 years ago." Electronic Telegraph of London 6/17/00 "ZIMBABWE'S main opposition movement will not be allowed to win any seats in this week's elections, according to the campaign manager for President Robert Mugabe's ruling party. Professor Jonathan Moyo told The Telegraph: "We will never accept the MDC [Movement for Democratic Change] in Parliament. They're British-backed racists whose very existence is provocative. For us to accept them would be the same as Jews accepting a Nazi party. "It's a political party with its roots in the donor purse run by Rhodesians who tortured and killed Zimbabweans during our liberation struggle. What do you think we should do - shake hands and congratulate them? You in Europe would not accept Jrg Haider and we will not accept the MDC." " London Telegraph 6/15/00 "THE confiscation of white-owned farms will be followed by the seizure of British and foreign-owned mines and other companies in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe has threatened. He said the confiscation would begin as soon the millions of acres of farmland, which he intends to seize without compensation, have been redistributed. He said: "After land, now we must look at the mining sector." Claiming that there were "too many Britons" in Zimbabwe, he said: "There must be Africans in there as owners, not just as workers." After the "indigenisation" of the mining sector, he would go on to "Africanise" the rest of the economy. He said: "We have trained engineers of all kinds, skilled men, they're working everywhere. But ownership? Working for who? At the end of the day, black people must be able to say, 'Ah, the resources are ours. Our people own the mines. Our people own the industry'. " Fox News Wire 6/14/00 ".Air force planes dropped bombs and helicopters fired rockets Wednesday at a major Muslim rebel camp in the southern Philippines, the military said, forcing 40,000 villagers to flee their homes to escape the fighting. Two army battalions took part in the assault on the Moro Islamic Liberation Front outpost near the boundary of Maguindanao and North Cotabato provinces, said army spokesman Capt. Noel Detoyato. ..." Times of India 6/15/00 "..Total world military expenditure rose 2.1 per cent in real terms in 1999 after a long period of decline, the SIPRI research group said Wednesday. The United States, Russia, China and France accounted for most of the global increase but countries spending relatively the most on guns are the emerging economies, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its yearbook.

Arms spending totalled about $780 billion in 1999. ``While this is almost one third less than ten years earlier, it still represents a significant share of world economic resources: 2.6 per cent of world gross national product,'' the annual report said. .Russia's spending rose 24 per cent in real terms in 1999 but was still 53 per cent lower than in 1992, and most other developed countries have cut military expenditure by about one third over the 1990s. .." Daily Mail and Guardian (SA) 6/5/00 "THE government in racially-divided Zimbabwe has accused whitemanaged companies of closing down part of their businesses to intentially create economic chaos ahead of parliamentary elections later this month. Deputy Industry and Commerce Minister Obert Mpofu told the staterun Ziana news agency his ministry was compiling a list of such companies. He charged that some managers were reportedly sending workers on forced unpaid leave and telling them that if they voted for the opposition they would get their jobs back, but would be fired if they voted for President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front. "We have received a lot of reports," Mpofu said. "We are taking stock and compiling the names. When we come back into power we will not hesitate to help workers to buy those companies." ." Capitol Hill Blue website 6/9/00 Howard Scripps News Service Michael Romano ".. A Colorado teacher whose students have helped to free slaves in the Sudan denounced President Clinton on Thursday for ignoring the group's long-standing request for a face-to-face meeting. Barb Vogel accused the president of disregarding the plight of the Sudanese, who have been enslaved by the thousands during a decades-long civil war that has claimed as many as 2 million lives. "The whole world has given its attention to this issue," Vogel said after a press conference that featured two dozen of her students from Highline Elementary School in Aurora, a Denver suburb. "But not the president. Where has he been?" Meantime, she said, it is children like her fifth-graders who have tried to focus the world's attention on the woeful conditions in the impoverished African nation. ..The Aurora students have raised more than $50,000, beginning three years ago with a single penny in a collection jar. The money has been given to organizations that go to Sudan and ransom slaves to set them free. " Electronic Telegraph 6/11/00 Mark Chipperfield ".. AN Australian warship carrying troops, helicopters and combat vehicles has been secretly dispatched to the embattled Pacific nation of the Solomon Islands, it emerged yesterday. The deployment of Manoora, an amphibious landing vessel, indicates that Australia is preparing a military intervention to end the 18-month ethnic dispute that reached new heights last week. Another Australian ship, Tobruk, left the Solomons yesterday with 480 foreign nationals on board, mostly Australians, New Zealanders and Britons...." The Guardian 6/10/00 Hrvoje Hranjski in Kisangani and Victoria Brittain ".. Inside the crumbling university hospital women and babies cried out for food and medicine; hundreds of wounded, sick and dying Congolese civilians lay on bloodstained mattresses, while Rwandan and Ugandan troops traded gunfire in the fifth day of fighting. Kisangani is the new centre of a dramatically deteriorating situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Much of the country is out of contact with any outsiders and a new survey by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) sheds light on what is happening across this vast country. The New York-based IRC estimates that 1.7m people have died from the war in the northern and eastern provinces alone in the past two years. Of those, 200,000 were direct war deaths; the vast majority were due to the warrelated collapse of the health and food infrastructure. "It's as if the entire population of Houston was wiped off the face of the Earth in a matter of months," the IRC's president, Reynold Levy, said. " Foxnews 6/11/00 Michelle Faul "Caribbean leaders will bombard U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno with their grievances Monday, denouncing U.S. efforts to fight money launderers as a David versus Goliath battle to destroy their burgeoning offshore industry. "It's the law of the jungle - the big countries using their power against little countries," Acting Attorney General Bernard Wiltshire of Dominica said in a telephone interview. Wiltshire said Caribbean officials would press the point at a Trinidad conference Monday to discuss money laundering with officials from Washington, London and Toronto. It comes just days after U.S. legislators signaled willingness to punish banks and countries that make it easy for drug barons and other international criminals to hide clandestine fortunes. .." Daily Mail and Guardian (SA) 6/11/00 ".. PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe and his ruling party are whipping up hatred against white Zimbabweans in the run-up to parliamentary elections, blaming them for economic chaos engulfing the country. One incident has already been reported of a mob chanting "we want our land" beating an unarmed white man senseless in Bulawayo, the country's second city, with one of the attackers calling a friend on a cellphone and boasting "We've killed a mukiwa (white)." The Commercial Farmers Union originally reported the unidentified man had been killed in the May 31 attack, but the man's death could not be verified with police, hospitals or mortuaries, and a CFU official later said that the man "appeared dead" for the 20 minutes he was observed lying on the ground. Mugabe warned white farmers on Thursday that if they try to resist squatters led by independence war veterans who are occupying some 1 500 of their farms "they

will die." The president regularly tells campaign rallies that the 70 000 white Zimbabweans hold the levers of economic power, meaning that the 12,5 million black Zimbabweans are not really free. " Ap 6/11/00 William Foreman "..- A new group of militants gunned down a man Sunday in the Solomon Islands, officials said, a killing that diplomats feared could end a fragile cease-fire and spark another cycle of revenge attacks in the South Pacific nation. The shooting came as a new wave of foreign tourists and workers, many pushing carts piled high with luggage, lined up at the airport in the capital, Honiara to be evacuated...." CWI/CIO 5/00 Elizabeth Clarke "The recapture of the strategic Elephant Pass by the Tamil Tigers inflicted a severe blow to the Sri Lankan army. President Chandrika Kumaratunga has declared a state of emergency, suspending democratic rights and demanding yet more sacrifices from working people. ..After 17 years of an unresolved war in Sri Lanka, the president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, delivered a 'message to the nation' on 23 May. She spoke of a 'grave crisis' and a 'decisive moment' facing the people of the island. Chandrika came to power in November 1994 promising peace between the Sri Lankan state and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The Tigers had launched an armed struggle to achieve a separate homeland for the Tamil people of the North and East of Sri Lanka after bloody pogroms in 1983 which saw thousands dead. ......" Inside China Today 6/6/00 AFP "..South African Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota has mooted the possibility that South Africa and China may buy arms from each other, a press report said here this week. Lekota, who is visiting China to garner support for a UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), said South Africa was prepared to sell arms to China, SABC public television reported late Monday. He said the Chinese had expressed an interest in South African-made arms and there was also a possibility that South Africa could in turn purchase weapons from China. Lekota on Tuesday dismissed criticism from Amnesty International, who objected to the potential arms deals because of China's human rights record, saying he had not expected them to be happy, SABC radio reported. .." Electronic Telegraph 6/8/00 Barbie Dutter ".. SOLOMON Islands rebels yesterday raked coastal settlements with machine-gun fire, with reports of up to 100 people killed. The attacks came after one of the islands' warring militant groups stole a police gunboat. Andrew Nori, the leader of the Malaita Eagle Force, which mounted an attempted coup on Monday, said his fighters had killed between 50 and 100 men from a rival group who had gathered on a beach. The report could not be confirmed, but Amnesty International said there had been "indiscriminate shelling" from the gunboat as it patrolled the coast east of Honiara. A school was among the buildings hit. As fighting worsened between two militant groups in the former British protectorate, Mr Nori gave warning: "This is a war that will continue for some time." .." BBC 6/7/00 " President Robert Mugabe has warned that all white-owned farms in Zimbabwe could be taken over by the government. Authorities have so far earmarked 841 white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks, but during talks with his supporters, Mr Mugabe said the process would go further. None of us who is revolutionary will want their career to end before land is given to the people . For his part, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has criticised South Africa's ruling African National Congress for endorsing Mr Mugabe's land policy. Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change has also set up a telephone helpline for people who have been left off the voters' roll ahead of forthcoming elections. Mr Mugabe said any white ownership of land should not be determined by colonial history but by the charity of black Zimbabweans. " Electronic Telegraph 6/5/00 David Blair in Harare ".. WHITE judges were described as a "foreign cancer" yesterday, in a renewed attack on the Zimbabwe judiciary by the embattled regime of President Robert Mugabe in the run up to the general election. The ruling Zanu-PF party's propaganda machine, angry at the judges' independence and insistence on upholding the law in defiance of Mr Mugabe's wishes, also questioned their loyalty. The outburst, which coincided with increasing intimidation of teachers, causing the closure of 250 schools, was made by Prof Jonathan Moyo, campaign manager for Zanu-PF. He asked in his weekly newspaper column whether the two white Supreme Court justices, including Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay, and four whites among the 19 High Court judges, were secretly holding British citizenship. He said: "No sane Zimbabwean should expect the judiciary to be headed by a foreigner, especially a Briton, 20 years after independence, just like it would be insane to have a foreign or British president or speaker." " Yahoo News 6/5/00 Reuters ".Armed rebels in the Solomon Islands, racked by 18 months of ethnic violence, seized control of the South Pacific nation's capital Honiara on Monday and demanded that Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa'alu resign. Australian and New Zealand officials said the Malaita Eagles militia group detained Ulufa'alu at his Honiara home -- in the second South Pacific coup attempt in two weeks. On May 19, gunmen raided Fiji's parliament and took that island nation's prime minister captive in a hostage drama that is still continuing. New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff warned that the action against

Ulufa'alu's democratically elected government could spark a civil war between Malaitans and rival militants, the Isatabu Freedom Movement from the main Guadalcanal island. ..About 60 people have been killed in fighting in the past 18 months between the rival ethnic groups from Malaita island and Guadalcanal, scene of one of the most famous battles of World War Two. .." Washington Times 6/7/00 "..The degradation of Zimbabwe by the Zanu PF party of dictator Robert Mugabe continues. Within the past week, another opposition leader has been murdered by a band of Zanu PF party thugs, boosting the opposition death count to more than a dozen, while a fifth white farmer has been killed by so-called Zimbabwe war "veterans," those roving hordes of bandits who, since February, have been systematically terrorizing the countryside -killing, beating and raping their way to occupying more than 1,500 commercial farms at Mr. Mugabe's behest. As of Friday, the "director of land acquisition" for the Mugabe government posted a list of more than 800 white-owned farms slated for immediate seizure on a "first-come, first-served" basis, thus unleashing an appalling, state-sanctioned chaos across the nation. Lawlessness rules. . Who benefits? Certainly not the fledgling opposition group, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which, according to the Times of London, is now loathe to nominate candidates for the June 24-25 parliamentary elections for fear they will be assassinated. Certainly not the farmers, whose families and livelihoods are in constant peril. As a result of the land-grabbing campaign of violence and political intimidation, initiated to mask a disastrous economy, shore up support for the faltering Mugabe regime, and retard the growing popularity of the MDC, the entire country teeters at ruin's edge. As this newspaper's Ross Herbert has reported, bread shortages have been predicted within six months, a time when the current wheat crop should be heading for flour mills - but very likely won't, given the havoc wrought on the nation's agriculture. Little wonder that neighboring Botswana now finds itself hosting an influx of Zimbabwean refugees, along with Zambia, South Africa and even flood-ravaged Mozambique" Miami Herald 6/7/00 Chris Gaither and Sandra Marquez Garcia smarquez@herald.com " A U.S. State Department official who monitors Zimbabwe said the abduction of the Cuban doctors -- yanked from their beds during a pre-dawn raid Friday by two machine gun-toting soldiers --was a brazen snub of the refugee agency's mandate to assess their asylum claim. ``This was more forceful of an intervention than you would expect,'' said the official, noting the long-standing bond between Fidel Castro and Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe. ``The government of Zimbabwe has chosen in this case to do Cuba a favor.'' United Nations officials asked authorities in Zimbabwe Wednesday to give them access to two asylum-seeking Cuban doctors believed to be in police custody in that country, but the government continued to deny knowledge of their whereabouts. .In a letter to Zimbabwe's foreign minister, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees in Geneva asked to meet with Leonel Crdova Rodrguez, 31, and Noris Pea Martnez, 25, who have not been seen since Friday when armed security agents tried to force them aboard a flight connecting to Havana. " Wash Post 6/7/00 ".. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- A suicide bomber detonated an explosion in a capital suburb today, killing a Cabinet minister and 20 others, officials said. The bomber's severed head and limbs were scattered around a traffic island, while police officers and army commandos gathered evidence and pushed the crowd back from the site. Minister for Industrial Development C.V. Gooneratne was among the 21 people killed, said the director of Kalubowila Hospital, Dr. W.G. Gunawardena. ..." Reuters via Fox 7/7/00" In a painstaking reconstruction of events before and after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, a new report blames the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, the United Nations, France, the United States and Belgium for failing the country during its greatest crisis. Commissioned by the Organization of African Unity, the 296-page report, titled "The Preventable Genocide,'' called for a "significant level of reparations to be paid by those who failed to prevent or mitigate the genocide.'' . The 90-day genocide was orchestrated by a small group of Hutu extremists against the Tutsi minority, and then many others joined in. Up to 800,000 people were killed in a slaughter that ended when a Tutsi-led army seized power. "It is, of course, true that there would have been no genocide had a small group among the Rwandan governing elite not deliberately incited the country's Hutu majority against the Tutsi minority,'' the report said. "But this terrible conspiracy only succeeded because certain actors external to Rwanda allowed it to go ahead.'' . It is more critical of some leading players, especially France, which it said had "unrivaled influence at the very highest levels'' of the 1994 Rwandan Hutu government and military and "chose never to exert that influence.'' The report said the U.N. Security Council, mainly because of the United States, bore the brunt of the blame for not sending enough peacekeepers before and during the genocide. Washington persistently delayed sending in U.N. forces and played down the crisis in a council generally lacking the will for a tougher response. .. But among foreigners within Rwanda, it said France and the Catholic and Anglican hierarchies all supported the Hutu government, ignoring human rights abuses and thereby unwittingly encouraging radicals to pursue their course. " U.S. News & World Report 7/10/00 Kevin Whitelaw " U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke made an impassioned plea last month to bring the rebel leaders in Sierra Leone's vicious civil war

to justice by extending "the international war crimes umbrella." But even as he was speaking, other U.S. diplomats were threatening to undermine a proposed international war crimes tribunal, designed to handle cases like Sierra Leone, unless negotiators at the U.N. acceded to their demands. .Negotiators reached landmark agreements last week on the rules and procedures for trying war crimes cases at a planned International Criminal Court. But Washington failed to win an exemption from prosecution for U.S. military personnel and government officials. . " Associated Press 6/19/00 Laurie Asseo "The Supreme Court, ruling that states cannot infringe on the foreign policymaking prerogatives of the U.S. government, made it harder for states to refuse to buy from companies that do business in nations known for human-rights abuses. The court on Monday threw out a Massachusetts law that limits state purchases from companies doing business with Myanmar, also known as Burma. The law is pre-empted by the federal government's own sanctions against Myanmar, the justices said...." Philadelphia Inquirer 6/19/00 Mark Fazlollah and Barbara Boyer, Staff Writers "..Crammed into a tiny courthouse on the island's tallest mountain, 12 men stood before a judge, accused of murdering two associates who had betrayed their drug gang. The defendants had little to fear. Witnesses who had incriminated the 12 recanted after Puerto Rican authorities declined to put them in a witness-protection program. So the murder charges were dismissed, and the 12 - identified as members of an organization that has shipped tons of cocaine to Camden, Philadelphia and other cities - left the courtroom smiling. " Baltimore Sun 6/23/00 Trudy Rubin ".. PHILADELPHIA - This has been an awful year for sub-Saharan Africa, as violent conflicts have proliferated and HIV/AIDS has spread. So this weekend's elections in the beautiful southern African nation of Zimbabwe have become an important indicator of whether the downward slide can be halted. The contest involves all the key questions haunting the continent: the prospects for democracy, the chances for economic growth and the ability of African leaders to work together to solve Africa's problems. If Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe continues to stir up violence against supporters of the opposition - and other African leaders remain silent - then the slide will surely accelerate. ...... Beatings, kidnappings, rape and murder are the tactics Mr. Mugabe's supporters are using against the Movement for Democratic Change, which stood to pull a stunning upset in Parliament in a free and fair election. Amnesty International has accused the Mugabe government of instigating or condoning the election violence. Workers from Mr. Mugabe's ruling party ZANU-PF have fanned out through the countryside, threatening MDC supporters. " Wall St. Journal 6/21/00 Michel Aldholz ".. It may seem churlish, but the South African government and some health officials are criticizing Pfizer Inc.'s offer to give the country a powerful and expensive drug for treating a deadly AIDS-related infection. They say the gift is too restrictive to be of much benefit to the many thousands of people who need it..........Ms. Lambert says that although South Africa "greatly appreciates" the donation and is intensely negotiating terms of the gift, the government may decide in the next two weeks to reject Pfizer's offer. That's because the company is promising to provide the costly medicine for only two years. Pfizer is also placing several conditions on who can use the drug, where patients must be treated, how they are diagnosed and how the drug will be distributed and how its use will be monitored.." Wall St. Journal 6/21/00 Michel Aldholz ".. In April, Pfizer sent several officials from its New York headquarters and its local operations to meet with Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang, the health minister, and several of her aides to explain its requirements. The groups met again in May and last week. Although Pfizer officials say they are working with unusual speed to hammer out an accord, Dr. Tshabalala-Msimang has told the company that if no agreement is reached by the end of June, South Africa may end the discussions.. The following week, beginning July 8, global attention will be drawn to South Africa when more than 10,000 people from all around the world will gather at the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban, on the country's east coast. South Africa itself is expected to be criticized at the meeting for responding too slowly to the AIDS crisis. The country's president, Thabo Mbeki, will also be the target of criticism for recent perplexing comments questioning whether HIV is even the cause of AIDS......." Wall St. Journal 6/21/00 Michel Aldholz ".. She also says the government is suspicious because the time limit coincides with the expiration of Pfizer's Diflucan patent. At that time, South Africa could buy generic versions of the drug, but doctors who had been using the free branded version by then might not want to switch. "The government is concerned that what Pfizer is doing amounts to giving away drug samples to get doctors to use the branded drug once the patent expires," says an AIDS physician familiar with the negotiations.......... Finally, Ms. Lambert says, the health minister is upset that Pfizer is offering the drug only to South Africa. "We are very close to our neighbors who wonder why we are getting this offer and they aren't," she says." London Times 6/22/00 " HUNDREDS of thousands of Muslims gathered in the city of Kano yesterday for

the proclamation of Islamic sharia law in northern Nigeria's most populous state - prompting fears of a fresh wave of religious violence. As a vast crowd chanted "God is Great!" in a prayer ground in the city, Kano state officials said implementation would begin later this year. Rabiu Kwankwaso, the state governor, said: "This is a momentous day in the history of Kano state." The declaration sets the north of Nigeria more firmly than ever on a collision course with the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo who has appealed repeatedly for the Islamic code not to be enforced. Moves earlier this year to adopt sharia in the neighbouring state of Kaduna triggered Muslim-Christian clashes in which hundreds of people died. Mr Obasanjo called that crisis the most serious since the Sixties' civil war over breakaway Biafra. Police struggled to control the chanting crowd at yesterday's proclamation ceremony. Two people were crushed to death and at least 11 people collapsed from exhaustion. The state government had declared the day a holiday to reduce tensions. ." New York Times 6/23/00 Joseph Kahn "..The world's leading industrial nations named 15 countries and territories today, including Israel, the Philippines and Russia, as potential havens for ill-gotten wealth. The list is the culmination of a decade-long effort to act against money-laundering centers. It was issued after United States and European officials grew concerned that bank secrecy and weak regulation in some nations contributed to the devastating financial turmoil in Asia and Latin America in the late 1990's. .." Daily Telegraph 6/18/00 ".. ETHIOPIA and Eritrea signed a peace deal today and agreed to respect its terms for ending the two-year long border war. The foreign ministers of the two countries signed the agreement, brokered by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), at the People's Palace in Algiers. The foreign ministers of Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a peace agreement on Sunday and pledged to respect its terms for ending a devastating two-year-long border war. Seyoum Mesfin of Ethiopia and Haile Woldensae of Eritrea both made speeches promising a lasting settlement to the conflict, which has seen tens of thousands killed on both sides. .." USA Today 6/19/00 David Lynch "..ATHENS, Greece -- The U.S. Embassy looks like the diplomatic corps' answer to Fort Apache. The squat building is girded by a 10-foot-high fence of peaked steel. There are security guards and surveillance cameras. Inside, a bronze plaque honors the five embassy employees murdered by Greek terrorists since 1975.This is one of the State Department's few ''critical threat'' posts, meaning Uncle Sam officially regards the birthplace of democracy as on a par with Beirut and Bogota...." The Washington Post 6/29/00 Jared Kotler "..Rebels threatened Thursday to introduce surface-to-air missiles into Colombia's civil war and vowed to battle a planned U.S.-backed offensive against the country's drug crops - a source of wealth for the insurgents. Critics of Washington's $1.3 billion aid package, expected to be passed by Congress by week's end, have said it will intensify the war and pull the United States into a quagmire. ..." THE WASHINGTON TIMES 7/3/00 Nat Hentoff " While the president and the secretary of state have ignored slavery and genocide in Sudan, a group of distinguished black members of the clergy from around the country have issued an urgent plea to the Congressional Black Caucus to help these black victims in Africa. But I have seen hardly any mention of this passionate renewal of the American abolitionist tradition. Dated June 1, the letter, addressed to James Clyburn, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, reads: "This is the year 2000, and there are tens of thousands of black slaves (and) two million people in Sudan have lost their lives in a brutal civil war propelled by a regime in Khartoum (the National Islamic Front), which our government has placed on a short list of terrorist nations. More people have died in Sudan than in Kosovo, Bosnia, Serbia and Rwanda combined. The U.S. Committee on Refugees, the Senate and the House have called events in Africa's largest nation a 'genocide.' Yet world leaders, including President Clinton, remain silent. . . . The West has abandoned these people." The letter then focused on this country's black members of Congress. "We, African-American pastors from around the nation, write to ask the Congressional Black Caucus to come to the front of this battle. As the descendants of African slaves, we must not rest until those now held in bondage are freed - until the African villages in Sudan are protected from murderous slave raids, until the Sudan air force is made to stop bombing African schools, churches and hospitals."." ABCNEWS 7/2/00 Vilma Perez ".U.S. marshals fanned out across Puerto Rico today, arresting dozens of anti-Navy activists at home for refusing to post bail on federal trespassing charges. Marshals had arrested more than 50 of 122 activists by this afternoon, protest organizers said. Those arrested were among 183 people originally detained last week as they scrambled under fences or sneaked onto remote beaches in an attempt to stop military exercises on the outlying Puerto Rican island of Vieques. ..." Source: Electronic Telegraph (London) 7/3/00 David Blair ".. SQUATTERS have shattered the brief respite after Zimbabwe's election by occupying at least 30 more white farms since polling day, raising fears of a new wave of invasions this week. President Robert Mugabe listed 804 farms for "compulsory acquisition" last

month. The deadline for appeals against seizure expires today and ministers have promised that resettlement will begin "immediately". Farmers fear that properties on the list will be flooded with thousands of invaders this week. .The Commercial Farmers' Union said eight landowners had already been ordered by squatters to leave their property by today. A spokesman said: "Groups are going from one farm to the next, telling the farmer to get off. They have definitely stepped up their efforts. We will all be watching what happens during the next week. This will be a critical time. We expect a sharp increase in militancy." " Associated Press 6/27/00 Steven Gutkin "A leader of the gunmen holding Fiji's government hostage, once an officer in an elite British anti-terrorism unit, warned Tuesday that the captives will die if the army tries to rescue them. "We will die with the hostages," Maj. Ilisoni Ligairi told The Associated Press in an interview inside the parliamentary compound where 27 members of the ousted government are being held captive. "Blood will be shed" in any rescue attempt, he said. Many Fijians believe Ligairi is as powerful, or even more so, than George Speight, the former insurance and timber executive who has dominated headlines in recent weeks as the gunmen's loquacious leader. . Ligairi, 62, who served for more than two decades in Britain's elite Special Air Service - a top commando unit in charge of hostage rescues - said his captives will not be released until the gunmen are assured of a presence in the interim government. He said the non-Christian hostages, including deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, a Hindu, were being given lessons in Christianity because "what we are fighting for is a Christian state." Ligairi ruled out allowing any Fijians of Indian descent, who make up about 44 percent of the population, positions in the interim administration. "If you really believe in your teachings," he said, "you can't let any other faiths come in and run your house." . Most of the rebels' demands to disenfranchise Fiji's Indians have already been met, including the firing of Chaudhry and the elimination of the country's 1997 multiracial constitution. The standoff has pitted Fiji's poor indigenous majority against its relatively affluent Indian minority, whose ancestors were brought to Fiji by English colonialists over a century ago to work in the country's rich sugar cane fields. .." THE WASHINGTON TIMES 6/28/00 Ross Herbert " In the improbable atmosphere of an election campaign dominated by racially charged rhetoric, black Zimbabweans have for the first time elected whites to represent them two decades after the end of white-only rule.. President Robert Mugabe's focus on confiscating white-owned land and industry touched a raw nerve across the continent, where economic disparities and the legacy of colonialism remain visible. Yet blacks voted overwhelmingly in four constituencies to send white candidates of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) into parliament..The nation and the world yesterday were still digesting weekend elections that delivered 57 seats in parliament to the MDC and 62 to the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Popular Front (ZANUPF). In Zimbabwe itself, many were remarking on the success of white candidates in four of the five constituencies where they had been nominated by the MDC in spite of Mr. Mugabe's effort to portray the party as a "stooge" for whites. "It is an indication black Zimbabweans will look at the motivation of white people and ask, are they people of good faith seeking the same goals they are," said David Coltart, legal secretary for the MDC who was elected with 84 percent of the vote in Bulawayo South - a district with fewer than 1,000 white residents." The Guardian 7/10/00 Sarah Bosley ".. Statement fuels fears that efforts to combat HIV virus will suffer. The scientific establishment was stunned yesterday by President Thabo Mbeki's public rejection of the conventional wisdom that Aids, which is the leading cause of death in Africa, is caused by the virus HIV. Scientists gathered in Durban for the 13th international Aids conference, held for the first time in a developing country at the heart of the pandemic, had hoped the president would drop his flirtation with the dissident ideas of Peter Duesberg, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Berkeley, California, and back the efforts of doctors, scientists and Aids organisations to prevent and treat infection by HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus. ." Compass 7/5/00 Barbara G. Baker "A Yemen court meted out the death penalty today to a Somali refugee for converting from Islam to Christianity, unless he recants within seven days. Mohammed Omer Haji, 27, was given a one-week ultimatum by Adenrmations Tawahi Court to return to Islam, or face execution under Islamic law for committing apostasy. "His situation is very serious and very dangerous," the convert's defense lawyer, Mohammed Abdul Karim Omarawi, told Compass today." The Times 7/9/00 " ONE of Trudy Stevenson's first jobs as a newly elected MP this week is to decide whether to have a bodyguard. If you think that is melodramatic, then consider what happened to Edwin Mushoriwa, a fellow opposition MP: soldiers clubbed him with rifle butts when they ambushed him and broke up his celebration rally in Harare at the weekend. Ms Stevenson, 55, the only white woman elected since independence 20 years ago, said: "It's a message of what we can expect. Robert Mugabe is a sore loser and I fear this violence is going to get worse." The wreckage of her campaign truck sits in her backyard; it was ambushed by Zimbabwe's notorious secret police, the CIO, days before the election. She describes how two vehicles tried to run the white pick-up truck, which was plastered with her campaign posters, off the road.

" Libya News 7/9/00 Marcello Mega " THE Lockerbie prosecution's star witness is to be kept in a fortified building in the court compound at Camp Zeist in Holland to protect him from terrorist attack. The evidence of Abdul Majid Giaka is crucial to the case against the two Libyans accused of the bombing. Giaka, 40, claims to have worked alongside the two accused for Libyan Arab Airlines at Malta's Luqa Airport. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, 48, and Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, 44, are accused of placing the bomb on the Lockerbie flight while working there. ..The witness has lived in fear of his life since defecting from Libya to the US nearly 10 years ago. Agents from Tripoli were reported to be under orders to track him down and kill him in 1992, when his defection was confirmed. However, he is understood to have prospered in the United States after being given a new identity under the federal witness protection programme. .." Reuters 7/9/00 Patricia Reaney "..The chairman of the 13th International AIDS Conference said he believed the controversy over the disease's cause would be resolved when South African President Thabo Mbeki opened the meeting on Sunday. Much of the runup to the start of the conference has been shrouded in controversy over Mbeki's appointment of scientists who doubt that the HIV virus causes AIDS to a presidential panel looking into the disease. Five thousand leading scientists from around the globe signed the Durban Declaration, published recently in The Lancet medical journal, proclaiming HIV was the cause of the epidemic that has killed nearly 20 million people so far. .. When asked if he thought the move meant Mebki would end the controversy and agree that the HIV virus is the cause of AIDS, Coovadia said, "I anticipate that many of the difficulties we have been fighting will be solved tonight." . The Durban Declaration said the evidence that AIDS is caused by HIV is clear-cut, exhaustive and unambiguous and meets the highest standards of science. "The data fulfil exactly the same criteria as for other viral diseases, such as polio, measles and smallpox," according to the document. It said most people infected with HIV show signs of AIDS within five-10 years. People who receive HIV-contaminated blood or blood products develop AIDS and children who get AIDS are born to HIV-infected mothers. " Reuters 7/9/00 "Fiji rebels and military leaders signed an accord on Sunday aimed at ending the South Pacific nation's seven-week political crisis and paving the way for the release of Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and 26 other political hostages. Fiji's military leader, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, said the accord "will culminate with the release of the hostages on Thursday, July 13". . Speight and his core group of supporters have been granted amnesty from any acts of treason carried out during their coup attempt. .Earlier, Speight's supporters sang hymns and shook hands with people by the side of the road, wishing them peace, as the rebel leader entered the building where he signed the accord. " Dawn 6/30/00 Ben Sandilands "The origins of what is potentially the biggest defence build up in Australia since World War II - 'soft launched' this week by the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, as a public consultation exercise or 'green paper' - does not lie in the troubles in Fiji, the Solomon Islands or antiChinese riots last year on Tonga. It has all to do with Australia's role in leading the UN peace keeping force in East Timor last September. The United States had blinked, refused to endorse strong or immediate action in the aftermath of the independence referendum, and left Australia exposed to the possibility of an armed conflict with Indonesia. It came as a huge shock. " Zimbabwe Independent 7/7/00 ".. THE Libyan embassy has purchased the controversial Gracelands property in Borrowdale Brooke which was built for a staggering $20 million with public funds from the socalled VIP housing scheme, the Zimbabwe Independent has learnt. Government sources told the Independent that the deal was brokered about five months ago and the Libyans would be moving into the posh house anytime now. Although no figures were available on how much the property could have sold for, an independent property consultant familiar with property deals in the area and who requested anonymity confirmed that the Libyans purchased the property and estimated it was valued at between $30 million and $36 million. ." [U.K.] Telegraph 7/8/00 David Blair "TAKING advantage of President Robert Mugabe's vendetta against Zimbabwe's white farmers, army and police officers have occupied a farm after forcing the owner to flee in the face of death threats. Mr Mugabe has repeatedly supported the illegal land invasions, which have affected 1,684 properties, and the government has transported, fed and paid the squatters. But this is the first evidence of direct state involvement, as the army and police scramble for a share of the spoils. Shocked farmers fear it illustrates a complete breakdown of the rule of law, allowing "anyone to invade a white property and say 'this is mine'". ." Reuters 7/9/00 "The World Bank is preparing a new $500 million program for fighting AIDS in Africa, home to two-thirds of all cases of the disease, the bank announced on Saturday. The money will be available to any African country that sets up a national AIDS program. Nearly every country would be eligible for the 40-year loans. More than 13 million Africans have died of AIDS and nearly 24 million people in Africa are

infected with the virus that causes AIDS or suffer from the disease. The immense toll was undermining development on the continent. .Callisto Madavo, World Bank vice president for Africa, was to announce the initiative at the annual AIDS conference, being held this year in Durban, South Africa. The $500 million proposal will be presented soon to the bank's executive directors for approval. .." AP 7/9/00 Barry Schweid "..Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Sunday that an international panel was wrong to blame the United States for failing to prevent the slaughter of more than 500,000 people in Rwanda. She also said she had opposed U.S. inaction against genocide in the African country. ......The report Friday blamed the U.N. Security Council, the United States, France and the Roman Catholic Church for failing to prevent the slaughter. A former Canadian ambassador said the United States did not act because it had lost 18 soldiers in a peacekeeping operation five months earlier. ..``It is an inaccurate observation,'' Albright said in reply to the Canadian, Stephen Lewis, who was on the panel. " AP/CNN 7/11/00 AP ".Rebel supporters seized an upscale resort in Fiji on Tuesday, the military regime said, worsening the Pacific island nation's 54-day government crisis with the first attack on a foreign-owned facility. The 28-room Turtle Island resort is owned by American businessman Richard Eveson, a former cable television station owner. ..." Daily Telegraph 7/11/00 "..TAMIL Tiger guerrillas bombed a village in northeastern Sri Lanka today, killing at least four civilians as ferocious fighting elsewhere killed another 108 people, the government said. Gunmen of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fired mortar bombs at the village of Vilgama in the district of Trincomalee, killing a family of three and a neighbour, local officials said. They said the attackers had also wounded a Buddhist monk and damaged his temple before escaping. Two vehicles were also stolen from the village, officials said...." TBO.com 7/5/00 Glenn McKenzie "Naked except for thong underwear, a teen-ager hefts a rocket launcher to his shoulder and curses loudly as he runs into the street. His fellow fighters, many wearing charms around their necks, swirl into a mob bristling with rifles. Unruly and untrained, these traditional hunters are the ragged line of defense for Sierra Leone's weak elected government against brutal rebels who systematically slaughtered tens of thousands and maimed many more during nine years of civil war. .. The recent scene at the headquarters of the Kamajor hunter militia is a recipe of how the progovernment faction prepares to battle the rebel Revolutionary United Front: First, liberally apply mysticism, then whip into a frenzy. ." WorldNetDaily.com 7/5/00 Anthony C. LoBaido " An Afrikaner named Dr. Wouter Basson is making the task of reconciliation in South Africa considerably more difficult, due to the atrocities he is alleged to have committed in the name of science, medicine and the apartheid ideology.. ..To most Afrikaners, Dr. Wouter Basson appears to be simply a 49-year-old cardiologist and military surgeon. To the ANC, he is a mad doctor run amok, and his medical practices on behalf of Project Coast, conducted from behind the secure walls of the Roodeplaat Research Laboratory, are now a major sideshow at the ongoing Truth and Reconciliation Hearings. . The trial of Basson, a loyal soldier and supporter of apartheid, began in 1997. Since he did not request amnesty from the TRC, he faces life in prison if convicted of the crimes with which he's been charged. Even Eugene de Kock -- a top special forces killer who was nicknamed "Prime Evil" by his peers -- has taken this route. Breaking through legal minutiae, de Kock was sentenced to 262 years in jail for his killings of ANC anti-apartheid activists. The crimes of de Kock are bloody, brutal and legion, involving cold-blooded torture and killings. Dr. Basson's alleged crimes, however, are deemed by many to be more sinister, since they were carried out in the name of science, medicine and keeping European Christian civilization alive in the face of a Marxist ANC onslaught. .Basson has been renamed "Dr. Death" by the South African media. His work in running the apartheid-era germ and chemical warfare campaign against pro-ANC blacks has resulted in a total of 64 charges against him. The charges range from the accusation of having taken part in 200 murders of Marxist guerillas in neighboring Namibia (called South West Africa until 1990) to drug dealing. ..A 250-page indictment against Basson alleges his complicity in secret, government-sanctioned plans to murder top leaders in the ANC government of Thabo Mbeki -- a devout Marxist. .Among other things, Basson has been accused of inventing poisons to kill enemies of the white minority government. The poisons were to be delivered by umbrellas in James Bond-like fashion. Still other poisons were slipped into the underwear of ANC leaders. Strangely, Basson has also been charged with being somewhat of a "brewmeister" who invented a special kind of beer that would kill blacks if they drank it. He is also charged with trying to invent a genetic additive that was to be added to the water supply. The additive allegedly would have made blacks, but not whites, incapable of reproduction. ......" Electronic Telegraph 7/5/00 " EMBOLDENED by his party's new strength in Zimbabwe's parliament, Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, threatened President Robert Mugabe with impeachment yesterday and held him responsible for the wave of violence during the election campaign. .Morgan Tsvangirai: 'The President was responsible for initiating this violence, so there is every reason for impeachment'

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which became the most powerful opposition force in Zimbabwean history by winning 57 seats in last week's parliamentary election, is preparing for a war of attrition against the government in the run-up to presidential polls due in 2002. When parliament reassembles, the MDC will seize every opportunity to weaken Mr Mugabe. Although the ruling Zanu-PF party will have a clear majority in the 150-member house - it won 62 seats in the election and Mr Mugabe appoints another 30 MPs - the opposition has sufficient strength to introduce articles of impeachment and force a setpiece parliamentary debate. ." Washington Post 7/6/00 Jon Jeter "..Tensions surfaced at the inaugural meeting of the AIDS panel, however. Nkosazana Zuma, whom President Nelson Mandela would appoint South Africa's first black health minister, insisted on steering discussion away from economic factors that helped spread AIDS but were also central to the ANC's higher priority of creating jobs and investment. When Helen Schneider and Liz Floyd, two whites who had supported the black majority's long liberation struggle, repeatedly pressed for an AIDS policy that addressed the role of migrant labor, Zuma finally turned to a colleague in exasperation. "White people," she complained, "just don't understand the issues."......... Six years into the ANC's imperfect but breathtaking overhaul of South Africa, the government's failure to cope with AIDS jeopardizes practically everything the country has achieved since the end of oppressive white rule. More people are infected with HIV in South Africa than in any other country--one in five adults in a population of about 41 million. AIDS threatens to slow social change and undo economic development with the staggering costs of caring for the sick, the dying and those they leave behind.." New York Daily News 7/10/00 Kenneth Bazinet "Secretary of State Albright conceded yesterday she "screamed" over the Clinton administration's decision to sit by during genocidal killings in Rwanda that left up to 800,000 dead. But she rejected the conclusions of an international panel that said U.S. inaction - and her own inaction - was partly to blame for the 1994 genocide of Rwandan Tutsis. Albright told ABC's "This Week" that she was just a UN ambassador under orders, and pointed a finger at her superiors at the time, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and President Clinton. .. New York Times.com 7/12/00 ".. Responding to recent battle setbacks, the leader of the Philippines' largest Muslim rebel separatist group has declared a holy war against the government, a rebel spokesman said Wednesday. ``I'm enjoining all able-bodied Muslims to join the jihad and to fight against the aggressors,'' spokesman Eid Kabalu quoted Salamat Hashim as saying. ``All of Mindanao has now been converted into a battleground.'' . " London Telegraph 7/13/00 David Blair "SWARMING with flies, the rotting carcass was barely recognisable as an elephant. For Roger Whittall, it was more grim evidence of the wave of poaching that has engulfed his ranch since hundreds of squatters invaded the Save Valley Conservancy in south-eastern Zimbabwe. Black rhinos and wild dogs, two of Africa's most endangered species, are threatened by the occupiers who have imposed "no-go areas", assaulted dozens of game scouts and laid thousands of wire snares. Save was singled out for occupation because 21 white farmers, who merged their land to form the world's largest private game reserve in 1990, own its 2,200 square miles of rugged bush and scrub. ..Mr Whittall, whose Humani ranch forms part of Save, is appalled by the carnage. Near the dead elephant, groves of acacia and mopane trees that once teemed with antelope are now devoid of game. "This is nothing to do with land, it's a mass slaughter and it goes on every minute of every day," he said. On Humani ranch alone, covering barely 10 per cent of Save, squatters have snared 2,000 impalas, 365 other antelopes, 20 zebras, two cheetahs, two elephants and one wild dog since April. Mr Whittall said: "We just don't know what's happened to the rhino. They might have been snared and we don't know about it. If we can get on top of this now, we can recover quite quickly. But if we let it go on any longer, it will be disastrous." ." The Washington Times via Antiwar.com 7/7/00 Betsy Pisik "The U.N. Security Council, under pressure from the United States, said Thursday that U.N. peacekeepers are spreading the AIDS virus. "Six months ago, countries didn't want to have a discussion on AIDS," said U.S. Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke. "Today, we have been told by every member of the Security Council that they are ready to go with this." Mr. Holbrooke cited cases in which Finnish soldiers had brought the virus home after peacekeeping tours...." Las Vegas Sun 6/19/00 AP "..Militant supporters of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide paralyzed Haiti's capital Monday, setting a fire outside the U.S. Embassy, trying to burn an American flag and blocking streets to demand the release of last month's election results. Protesters stoned vehicles and set tire barricades aflame. They blocked Port-au-Prince's main arteries with hulks of vehicles, junked refrigerators and large rocks. Shops and schools stayed shut. To the west, protesters also reportedly paralyzed Gonaives, Haiti's third-largest city. Outside the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, demonstrators lit a large pile of debris on fire and chanted anti-American slogans...."

Globalism Watch 7/13/00 ".Secretary-General Kofi Annan today announced the appointment of five experts to investigate violations of the sanctions imposed by the Security Council against the Angolan anticommunist rebel National Movement for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). In its resolution 1295 of 18 April, the Council had asked the Secretary-General to appoint five experts to monitor its directives against trade with UNITA in arms, petroleum and diamonds, as well as the UNITA members' financial assets, travel and representation. . Through a letter to the Council released today at UN Headquarters in New York, Mr. Annan said that the new monitoring body will be chaired by Juan Larrain of Chile, and also comprise Christine Gordon of the United Kingdom, James Manzou of Zimbabwe, Ismail Sekh of Senegal and Lena Sundh of Sweden. ." Reuters 7/15/00 "..Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe said Friday his government was about to start redistributing land to war veterans who invaded hundreds of white-owned farms earlier this year in support of his land seizure program. Speaking at the burial of a former liberation war commander, Mugabe said the redistribution program would begin Saturday and he would not brook any domestic opposition to his controversial scheme nor accept any foreign criticism or advice. " Agence France-Presse Via WorldNetDaily.com 7/15/00 "..It would be "premature and hasty" for OPEC to hold an extraordinary meeting of oil ministers to consider new production levels, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar-Zangeneh was quoted by television as saying Saturday.Zangeneh, who spoke after a meeting here with OPEC president Ali Rodriguez, said the two had concluded that "an OPEC meeting would be premature and hasty because we should wait and see" how the market develops.Saudi Arabia reportedly called for an emergency meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna ..." Bahrain Tribune 7/16/00 "DUBAI: Saudi Arabia has started pumping the extra oil it had promised earlier this month, a source from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries said yesterday. Saudi Arabia's national oil company Aramco raised production this week, according to the source, who would speak only on condition of anonymity. He did not say how much more oil the kingdom was pumping, but the Saudis said early this month they would increase oil output imminently by 500,000 barrels a day...." Electroanic Telegraph 7/17/00 David Blair " ZIMBABWE'S white farmers awaited their fate yesterday after President Robert Mugabe embarked on the fastest, cheapest and most chaotic approach to the seizure of their property, condemned by landowners as "official vandalism". Desperate to hand out white farms as rapidly as possible, Vice President Joseph Msika launched the land grab with great fanfare on Saturday and promised that 200 properties would be seized "immediately"" Pan African News Agency 7/20/00 Tervil Okoko "Two secondary schools in Kenya's Central province have been closed and students sent home following alleged invasion by ghosts, the Daily Nation has reported. It indicated that ghosts allegedly invaded Gitogo Mixed Secondary School, about 120 miles north west of Nairobi Thursday night and first targeted boys, who were thoroughly beaten by the ghosts, causing a stampede. The school was closed Friday. ..The area police chief, Michael Muthike, said the mixed school had been closed indefinitely. He could not, however, confirm or deny whether there were ghosts in the school. . The students claimed that a senior member of the staff was linked to the evil spirits. ..On 3 July, students from Wang'uru Girls Secondary School, Kirinyaga district (113 miles north-west of Nairobi), stormed the office of the Central Provincial director of education protesting an alleged invasion of their school by ghosts. The students said they were terrified by the alleged demons, which they claimed appeared in form of white cats and black snakes. They further claimed the creatures, which run around their dormitories, had been introduced by their head-teacher. . Education officials and the government are currently grappling with the problem. However, they are undecided on whether to employ the services of a ghost buster or just dismiss the claims as wild imaginations. "An ominous sub-culture has crept in most secondary schools and this has put our nation's future at stake," Samuel Kariuki, a senior inspector of schools, said. .. He added that the other members of this sub-culture are the touts (known for their rough mannerisms) and school drop-outs. He claimed that the sub-culture is increasingly growing into a cult that would idolise rock musicians and confessed drug abusers. Kenya's education minister, Kalonzo Musyoka, has dismissed claims of ghost invasion as fertile but dangerous imagination. He blamed everything on the rise in drug use among school-going children, saying all the claims about ghost invasion is fantasy by drugged childrenHowever, the minister feels that there are some elements of witchcraft among the people and he cannot rule out the possibility of some wicked people trying to disrupt the normal running of schools. He said the only solution to the problem could be to go to church and believe in God. . But there are also senior members of the society who believe in witchcraft and ghosts. For instance, legislator Jembe Mwakalu, a man who at one time went public to claim that somebody had bewitched him, says the ghost invasions are real and Kenyans have to protect themselves against them by wearing protective charms. " WorldNetDaily 7/19/00 Charles Smith "..Dr. Charles Jacobs from the Boston-based American AntiSlavery group recently noted that slavery is part of the 13-year-old war in Sudan. The Muslim Sudanese

government has launched a holy war against the black Christian and animist south. .. The fact is that humans are being enslaved and sold in the Sudan. Sudan, of course, is a client state of China, the strategic trading partner of President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore. The slavery in Sudan is well documented by independent organizations such as the U.N. and Amnesty International. .The reason for China's interest in the Sudan is pure and simple. There is oil in Sudan. Petrochina, a company wholly owned by the Chinese government cut a deal with the Sudanese Muslim government to pump oil from the remote southern areas. To accomplish this task, China is building an oil pipeline right through the combat zone. Chinese soldiers are stationed on the pipeline to protect it. Chinese soldiers are working with the Sudanese Muslim soldiers to clear whole areas of the Christian population from around the pipeline.." WorldNetDaily 7/19/00 Charles Smith "..Yet, the Chinese assistance does not end with a simple oil pipeline. Sudan recently purchased nearly $100 million in advanced Shenyang jet fighters from Beijing. According to a U.N. report, the Sudanese Air Force regularly bombs and strafes innocent civilians. Airfields constructed for the Petrochina pipeline are being used to fly bombing missions against the fleeing civilian refugees. Chinese soldiers are accused of assisting the Sudanese military and of participating in the atrocities. Chinese soldiers on the ground in Sudan are accused of rape, murder and ethnic cleansing.......America is not innocent in this matter. Petrochina was recently sponsored by Goldman Sachs to raise investment funding in America. The investment offering by Goldman Sachs might have failed if it were not for BP/Amoco, which invested billions of dollars into the Sudan pipeline. Today, neither BP/Amoco nor Goldman Sachs wish to comment on exactly how much American money is being used by Petrochina to murder Sudanese civilians. .." New York Times 8/10/00 AP "Saudi guards and a university student exchanged gunfire at a compound housing American and other military personnel and their families, leaving a Saudi guard dead and three other people wounded. The student was arrested shortly after the shooting, a Defense Ministry statement said. A United States Embassy spokeswoman said all the Americans at the compound were safe." WorldNetdaily 8/10/00 "..... People are often amazed at how bad things are in Haiti. Don't be. It's important that things go wrong in a place like Haiti. In the news business, every story's got to have a hook to get folks interested. ...... Over the years, Haiti has discovered that the best methods are the messiest. Dead bodies are always a sure sell for news, especially when you extinguish the distinguished -- and the more the merrier. Given its history, it should come as no surprise to the outside world that the spicy island paradise has become extremely accomplished in the art of violence. In his 1966 book, "The Haitian People," James G. Leyburn summarizes, Of the twenty-two heads of state between 1843 and 1915, only one served out his prescribed term of office, three died while serving, one was blown up with his palace, one presumably poisoned, one hacked to pieces by a mob, one resigned. The other fourteen were deposed by revolution after incumbencies ranging in length from three months to twelve years. ....." Reuters 8/8/00 Buchizya Mseteka "..Southern African leaders rallied around Zimbabwe's controversial land reform program at a regional summit which also endorsed a free trade pact and broke the silence on the killer disease AIDS. Ending two-day talks on the region's simmering conflicts and tepid economic growth, the leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) also called on rich nations to write off foreign debt and expressed concern over unending civil wars in Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. ``We are disappointed by the partisan and biased manner in which a sector of the international media has misrepresented the land policy of the government of Zimbabwe...,'' a statement issued by the heads of state of the 14-nation regional grouping said. It said the policy ``seeks to effect a just and equitable redistribution of land in a situation where one percent of the population owns over 70 percent of the best arable land.'' .." Telegraph/U.K. 8/7/00 "SEEMINGLY disregarded by the rest of the world, President Mugabe pursues his campaign to make farming in Zimbabwe impossible, to grab land without compensation and to turn it over to less productive hands. At the last count, some 3,041 farms are being seized, which is 65 per cent of the total. The total number of farmers working under handicap is probably nearer 80 per cent. That comes close to the end of productive farming in Zimbabwe and the start of what will become, next year, a food crisis...." Telegraph/U.K. 8/7/00 David Blair ".PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's land grab has entered its final phase with the delivery of 211 "occupation orders" to Zimbabwe's beleaguered white farmers. After months of inflammatory rhetoric, the government has embarked on an "accelerated land resettlement programme". The 804 farms listed for seizure in June have been singled out for "fast track" acquisition and Mr Mugabe has promised: "We will not stop there." .. The Commercial Farmers' Union said 211 farmers had received occupation orders. Under section eight of the Land Acquisition Act of 1992, these declare a farm to be state property and give the owner 90 days to leave. No compensation will be paid for the land itself, only for "improvements" such as roads or buildings. ."

El Tiempo Colombian Newspaper (Bogota) 7/24/00 Sergio Gomez Maseri ".. The United States Congressional Commission for International Relations says that 13 policemen would not have been killed in Tolima, Colombia, since the Black Hawk helicopters were only 20 minutes away from the attack. Washington reacted with indignation upon finding out that the U.S. Embassy in Bogota refused to allow use of the Black Hawk helicopters during the recent attacks by the FARC rebels against several towns in Tolima in which 13 policemen were killed. ..The U.S. Commission of International Relations which is part of the U.S. House of Representatives stated in a communication yesterday "Three of the six helicopters were very close in Neiva, and could have been there in 20 minutes to protect the policemen and take them ammunition when they ran out. But since the U.S. Embassy in Bogota maintains the absurd, fictitious view that the Black Hawks can only be used for specifically antinarcotic purposes, their use was not permitted." .." Stratfor 7/24/00 " The United States is transferring responsibility for Southeast Asia to its regional allies, primarily Australia. The shift in policy follows a gradual reevaluation of U.S. security priorities around the globe - brought to the fore in Southeast Asia by the fall of the Suharto regime in Indonesia and tested through Australian intervention in East Timor. As the United States conducts a measured withdrawal from Southeast Asian security affairs, however, the potential for confrontations in the region rises as emerging regional powers begin competing for influence. ." Electronic Telegraph 7/30/00 Inigo Gilmore "A KNOCKOUT drug produced from burning dried hyenas' tails is the latest weapon employed by criminal gangs in Durban where a recent wave of unusual housebreakings has struck fear into the coastal city's wealthy white suburbs. The criminals use a concoction produced from the animals' tails to smoke out their victims' houses before ransacking them as the occupants lie unconscious. The gangs are obtaining the tails from unscrupulous witchdoctors who demand high prices for the dried out hyena body parts...." London Times 11/99 ".. South Africa's disenchanted professional and managerial classes are among those who are queueing up to leave the country.. Five years after the dawn of majority democracy and the end of international pariah status, South Africa's reservoir of skilled people is still oozing out of the country. But the so-called brain-drain or "chicken run", widely believed to have run its course, now appears to have shifted suddenly from a trickle to a torrent. . Moreover, those who are leaving are being drawn predominantly from key sectors of the economy such as information technology, which South Africa desperately needs to retain. Even more troubling for the African National Congress Government is that the number of highly skilled immigrants, who once compensated for the loss of the country's home-grown talent, has virtually collapsed. And, as if to add insult to injury, a small but significant number of the emerging black professional class has now joined the queue to get out. " South China Morning Post 7/26/00 AP " PHILIPPINES At least 18 people were wounded, one critically, by a grenade tossed early on Wednesday at a busy coffee shop in Jolo, the capital of the island where Muslim extremists are holding about 30 hostages, witnesses said. It was the second grenade attack in two days in the town following an explosion on Tuesday at its Roman Catholic cathedral. Police said they suspect Abu Sayyaf Muslim guerillas were responsible for the attacks. ." AP 7/22/00 "The Pentagon plans to sell Egypt $882 million in military equipment and support services to upgrade its air defenses. The deal includes improvements to 35 of Egypt's Apache attack helicopters, equipment to distinguish friendly and enemy aircraft, radar systems and support and training personnel, Defense Department officials confirmed Saturday. " Reuters 7/21/00 "..Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Friday a planned commercial rocketlaunch site in neighboring Guyana, in an area subject to a long-standing territorial dispute, could be used for military purposes. A U.S. company, Dallas-based Beal Aerospace Technologies Inc, signed a deal with the Guyanese government in May to build the launch facility for commercial satellites in the sparsely populated Essequibo region. Venezuela has long claimed Essequibo, a 61,500-square-mile mineral-rich area of tropical jungle the size of Florida. ..." New York Times 7/17/00 "Few ethnic conflicts in the world are more savage than the war in Sri Lanka, an island nation off the southern tip of India. Since 1983, more than 60,000 people have died, many times the number killed in Northern Ireland. The fighting has so resisted outside efforts to mediate that Michael Ondaatje, in his powerful new novel "Anil's Ghost," refers to it as "a Hundred Years' War with modern weaponry." ..." AP 7/17/00 Jim Gomez " Muslim rebels on Monday freed an ailing German woman who had been held in a Philippine jungle since she and 20 other mostly foreign hostages were abducted 85 days ago. Renate Wallert, 57, is the first European hostage to be freed by the Abu Sayyaf rebels, who earlier released two Malaysians. It was not immediately clear whether any ransom was paid for her release. ''I hope this will really lead us to releases of the other hostages,'' chief government negotiator Robert Aventajado said after

lead us to releases of the other hostages,'' chief government negotiator Robert Aventajado said after welcoming her with an embrace Wallert has suffered from high blood pressure and chronic anxiety during her long jungle captivity, according to doctors who visited her at the Abu Sayyaf's jungle camp on impoverished Jolo island. Her husband, Werner, and son, Marc, remain captive. " Daily Mail and Guardian (SA) 10/18/00 " ZIMBABWE President Robert Mugabe has promised that his cash-strapped government will compensate victims of an army crackdown that killed thousands of civilians and maimed others in an opposition stronghold in the 1980s. In remarks carried on state television, Mugabe said the government regretted the atrocities committed on the ethnic Ndebele tribesmen. "It was painful to our people and saw lots of deaths... We regret that and we would hope it never happens again," Mugabe said, the second apology he has made over the massacres this year. "The government is prepared to compensate victims and relatives of victims of political problems in the Midlands and Matebeleland provinces," state radio reported on Monday. " New York Times 7/19/00 Joseph Kahn "..The United States plans to offer sub-Saharan African nations $1 billion in loans annually to finance the purchase of American AIDS drugs and medical services, a program that greatly increases the money available to combat the disease in a region that has become its epicenter. The program, which will be announced by the United States Export-Import Bank on Wednesday, comes after five multinational drug companies agreed in May to cut the prices they charge African nations for drugs to combat AIDS and the H.I.V. virus. The loans will help poor nations to buy the drugs that fight the complications and transmission of AIDS, and which are expensive even at discounted prices. .." Daily Mail and Guardian (SA) 1/20/97 "FORMER corporal with the once-notorious Fifth Brigade is suing the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) for $200 000 in compensation for mental trauma resulting from the Gukurahundi operations in Matabeleland. In an interview with the Zimbabwe Independent, the former corporal, who asked not to be named, said he was prepared to spill the beans on the Fifth Brigade atrocities in Matabeleland if this was the only way to receive compensation. In his affidavit signed in December 1996, he wrote: "While with the Fifth Brigade, my operations involved tracking down dissidents. There were however incidents where we killed innocent civilians. This was by either cross-fire or mere frustration from forces when we had failed to track dissidents. We would label anyone we met a dissident collaborator." He said there was an operation order that "if you don't get the ball, kick the man. By this we ended up killing villagers if we missed the dissidents." ......Explaining the cause of his ailment the ex-corporal said: "I started= seeing visions of two old men we had buried alive. We met the two old men and took them home. We dug a big hole. We told them to kneel down in the hole and covered them with soil, thereby burying them alive." ........."The other vision that troubled me a lot was of a girl that I had raped and strangled to death." " London Telegraph 7/20/00". THE strike by Zimbabwe's white farmers spread yesterday as producers in a second district promised to withdraw their labour. Declaring that they "have had enough", 46 farmers in Shamva district have rallied behind one of their members, Graham Ray, and decided that if squatters do not allow him a safe return to Hopedale farm today, all work will stop tomorrow at 6am. In neighbouring Glendale, 40 white farmers and 10,000 black labourers have been on strike since Tuesday. The Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) has since advised all of its 4,000 members to "consider this option". .. Armed with axes, whips, chains and clubs, gangs of squatters have accosted scores of farmers in Mashonaland Central province and ordered them to leave their land or face death. Coming after months of harassment from the illegal invaders, who now occupy about 1,200 properties, the new wave of militancy has infuriated landowners. Mr Ray was told on Sunday to leave Hopedale immediately after a mob of 50 massed at his gates. He said: "They were ranting and raving. They shouted for me to leave the house, or they would burn it down. They told me to get off my farm and said when I did, they would sort me out." On the advice of the police, Mr Ray left for the safety of Harare. Squatters have since ordered all of his black workers and their families, some 1,000 people in total, to leave their homes forever and vacate the farm. ." London Telegraph 7/20/00". Paul Metcalfe, who runs Maizeland farm, said: "We're all in this together. If Graham can't get on to his land, I will get my workers to stop everything. We all will. We just want to get on with our lives. We've had enough of this rubbish." At immediate risk are 12,000 tons of maize and 15,000 tons of wheat that are awaiting harvest. The 46 farms, spread across a district about 60 miles north of Harare, employ over 7,000 people. The workers are apprehensive about the consequences of a strike. One said: "We survive by working on the farm. If we stop, we will die of hunger. Everyone is very worried, but this may be the only thing our boss can do." ......" ABC News 8/18/00 Reuters "..A U.S. oil firm is due to drill a controversial test well in September in a disputed corner of northeast Colombia where U"wa Indians have even threatened to commit mass suicide to defend what they claim as ancestral land rights, the country"s oil association chief said on Friday. Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp had been due to sink the Gibraltar-1 well, at an estimated cost of $40 million, in the first half of this year in the so-called Samore block just outside the government-mandated limits of the U"wa reservation. The block has been hailed as the country"s biggest oil prospect, with potential

crude reserves of between 2 billion and 2.5 billion barrels. .." New York Times.com 8/15/00 Celia Dugger "..This war-haunted nation's president, blinded in her right eye by a suicide bomber's attack, still talks of peace. But many ordinary Sri Lankans are more convinced than ever that no end to the country's 17-year conflict with the Tamil rebels is near. President Chandrika Kumaratunga hoped that a new constitution she proposed on Aug. 3 would preserve Sri Lanka as a unified nation while satisfying the demands of the Tamil minority for greater authority to rule themselves in the north and east, which the Tamils regard as their traditional homelands. .." WorldNetDaily 8/16/00 Charles Smith "Lieberman has earned his honor. For example, Lieberman has stood against the slave trade and brutal war in Sudan. All honorable men oppose slavery and war. On May 27, 1999, Sen. Lieberman signed on to Senate Resolution 109 -- Relating to the Activities of the National Islamic Front Government in Sudan. Resolution 109 "strongly condemns" the National Islamic Front government in Sudan for its support for terrorism and its continued human rights violations. Resolution 109 "strongly deplores the slave raids in southern Sudan and calls on the National Islamic Front government to end immediately the practice of slavery in Sudan." Approximately 1,900,000 people have died in Sudan over the past decade due to war and war-related causes and famine. Millions more people in Sudan have been displaced from their homes and separated from their families, making this the deadliest war in the last decade in terms of mortality rates. The brutal Sudanese government has deliberately starved certain areas by denying them food aid and encouraged the selling into slavery of captured citizens. .. " AP 8/15/00 Jill Lawless "With violent crime on the rise and fears that drunken soccer hooligans outnumber bowler-hatted bankers, England appears on verge of an identity crisis -- a confusion that has caused debate on what it means to be English. The conflict between the old empire and new England was highlighted when hundreds of combative soccer enthusiasts battled Belgian police and rival fans at the Euro 2000 tournament. Then CBS news reported that the chance of being robbed or beaten was greater on British streets than in the United States. Many questioned those figures, but statistics reported a 16 percent increase in violent crime over the past year. The arrest of Prime Minister Tony Blair's 16-year-old son, Euan, for being ''drunk and incapable'' in London's Leicester Square last month seemed to further underscore the idea that England is a nation of drunken yobs. Many who remain nostalgic for more genteel days fear that visions of beer-spewing hooligans have replaced Oxford's dreaming spires as the quintessential image of England. ." Daily Telegraph 8/28/00 Chris McCall ".. LIBYA emerged as the unlikely saviour yesterday as five hostages were freed after four months as hostages of Muslim gunmen in the Philippines. The three French, one German and one South African were to fly immediately to Tripoli aboard a Libyan jet for an audience with Col Gaddafi, who secured their release. Sources close to the negotiations said Libya had agreed to pay about 650,000 per hostage, although Libyan and Philippine officials denied this. .." Dawn/AFP 8/25/00 ".The United States moved dozens of cruise missiles to the Pacific island of Guam in August, giving US bombers the capability to "hit any place in the Asia-Pacific region within 12 hours," The Washington Times reported on Friday citing unnamed Pentagon officials. The deployment marks the first time the air-launched weapons are outside the continental United States, the daily said. However, the Pentagon would not confirm the report. " AP 8/25/00" The State Department on Friday condemned continuing Sudanese government attacks on civilian targets in southern Sudan. Spokesman Philip Reeker said the targets of the bombings have included several towns in the Eastern Equator region where international relief organizations are operating. They include organizations linked to the United Nations-led Operation Lifeline Sudan. "These attacks contradict the Sudanese president's April 19 statement that he would .." Associated Press 8/29/00 "An explosion went off Tuesday afternoon near the U.S. Consulate in the center of Cape Town, according to media and police reports. "The U.S. Consulate's operations were not affected," said Brian Penn, spokesman for the consulate. The explosion's exact location and nature were unclear, police said. The target of the blast was also not known. Cape Town has been the target of numerous bomb attacks in the past two years. " Yahoo Reuters News 8/29/00 " CARTAGENA, Colombia (Reuters) - Communist rebels battled troops for control of a major highway Tuesday and set off bombs outside three banks while masked students clashed with riot police in a wave of violence across Colombia timed to protest against a visit by President Clinton. Clinton is due to arrive in the Caribbean port of Cartagena Wednesday, the first U.S. president in a decade to come to this Andean nation ravaged by a long-running guerrilla war that has cost 35,000 lives in the last 10 years. Tuesday's skirmishes were centered in and around the country's three main cities, including the capital Bogota, well away from Cartagena which is being tightly guarded by 5,000 police and soldiers, helicopters and warships during Clinton's day-long trip. In the lead up to the visit, Colombia's main rebel

helicopters and warships during Clinton's day-long trip. In the lead up to the visit, Colombia's main rebel forces and the main labor organizations condemned a recently-approved U.S. package of $1.3 billion in mostly military aid to help Colombia fight drugs and guerrillas. ." Stratfor.com 8/28/00 " The United States appears to be moving toward acknowledging the reality of a divided Somalia, following the visit of a high level delegation to Somalia's breakaway northern republic of Somaliland. Such action from Washington would fly in the face of efforts by the United Nations, which has been supporting a peace initiative from neighboring Djibouti. It would also suggest that the United States accepts the possibility of partitioning Somalia, after years of chaos. In turn, Washington could gain access to coastal facilities of strategic value, between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. A U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) delegation led by the U.S. ambassador to Djibouti, Lange Schermerhorn, arrived in Somalia's northern breakaway republic of Somaliland on Aug. 19. While the purpose of the fourday visit has not been made public, the delegation will hold talks with Somaliland President Muhammad Ibrahim Egal. " BBC 8/20/00 Stephanie Walters "...... Two United States diplomats are reported to have left the Democratic Republic of Congo after being expelled. They were accused of plotting against the government and planning to kill President Laurent Kabila. His administration announced on Friday that it was expelling the two on charges that their behaviour was incompatible with their status as diplomats. The two men, cultural adviser Denis Burgess, and political adviser Roger Moran, were given 48 hours to leave. AFP 9/11/00 "Southern Sudanese rebels fighting the Khartoum government said Monday they had seized three strategic areas in oil-rich Unity state in the south of the country. "The forces of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) repulsed a government offensive in Unity state and took control of the three strategic zones of Boudh, Rier and Mankien on Sunday and Monday," SPLA spokesman Yasser Ermane told AFP in a phone call from Asmara. "These three zones are in the Banjio region, which is rich in oil fields," he said. The Heglig field in Unity state is the source of the oil which made Sudan an oil exporter in August 1999. " EXCITE NEWS.COM/REUTERS VIA DRUDGE 9/11/00 " LONDON, Sept 12 (Reuters) - The British government said on Tuesday that it had taken on extra powers to cope with escalating fuel shortages across the country caused by truckers and farmers protesting against high petrol prices. The measures, and Prime Minister Tony Blair's refusal to bow to protestors' demands, point to a showdown between the government and demonstrators in a rare outbreak of unrest over prices, dubbed the "Great Petrol Revolt 2000" by the Sun tabloid. The extra powers were sanctioned at a Monday meeting of the Privy Council, a panel of judges, church dignitaries and politicians which advises the Queen. "The government has...evoked powers under the Energy Act 1976 as a prudent and precautionary measure," a statement from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said ." WSJ 9/12/00 ".In what could prove a turning point in Africa's efforts to combat the AIDS epidemic, the World Bank will launch a campaign promising virtually unlimited funds and rapid action to fight the deadly virus that infects one out of four adults in some sub-Saharan nations. After more than a decade of haphazard efforts to stem the spread of HIV in Africa, the bank is making good on its pledge to ensure that a lack of money won't keep countries from enacting plausible anti-AIDS plans. The bank's board is expected to create an initial $500 million emergency-credit line, and approve immediate loans for Kenya and Ethiopia. The development lender, an institution owned by the U.S. and 180 other nations, promises to refill the fund when it runs dry.."What I'm trying to do is get money out there as quickly as I can," World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn said. "I honestly don't think in a crisis as grave as this that money is going to be the problem.".." STRATFOR 8/22/00 ".In a bid to develop a market for its arms industry, China has dispatched four military delegations to sub-Saharan Africa in the last few months. South Africa and the United Nations have worked to resolve the region's conflicts. But China's new policy - really intended to get the People's Liberation Army out of the Chinese economy - threatens to create a miniature but destabilizing arms race in southern Africa. A visiting delegation of Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) officials met with senior Namibian military officials on Aug. 14 to discuss Namibia's defense force structure, reported the Namibian news agency, Nampa. The delegation then visited a military vehicles manufacturer owned by the Namibian military. Within the last few months, Beijing has sent four military delegations to Africa. Officially, the trips are designed to strengthen military cooperation between China and its African allies. In reality, the trips signal China's plan to increase weapons sales. If just one regional player begins to modernize its weapons, others in the region will be forced to follow suit. International, as well as South African, efforts to bring peace will be undermined. .The PLA visit to Namibia is part of a pattern stretching back to May, when Chinese officers visited Angola and Botswana. Both missions resulted in bilateral agreements to strengthen military cooperation. In July, a group of Chinese warships made a landmark visit to the continent, calling on ports in South Africa and Tanzania. ."

Yahoo news 8/29/00 Luis Jaime Acosta "..Communist rebels fought troops for control of a highway, bombed banks and attacked an army post and masked students battled riot police in skirmishes across Colombia on Tuesday to protest against President Clinton's imminent visit. Clinton is due to arrive in the Caribbean port of Cartagena Wednesday, the first U.S. president in a decade to come to this Andean nation ravaged by a long-running guerrilla war that has cost 35,000 lives in the last 10 years. Tuesday's clashes were centered in and around the country's three main cities, including the capital Bogota, well away from Cartagena which is being tightly guarded by 5,000 police and soldiers, helicopters and warships during Clinton's day-long trip. " Reuters 8/29/00 " CARTAGENA, Colombia (Reuters) - A day before he sets foot on Colombia's Caribbean shores, this colonial-era port was awash on Tuesday with tales of the miracles of ``Saint Bill.'' Antonia Sarmiento, 73, has even set up a little shrine to President Clinton in her humble home and keeps two white candles constantly burning alongside his photo. ``For me President Clinton is a saint because thanks to his visit, (City Hall) has built me a house that I wasn't able to afford in 52 years,'' she told Reuters. Sarmiento had lived in a one-room wooden shack in a working-class neighborhood of Cartagena from 1948 until just a few days ago. But when City Hall realized the unsightly tumbledown dwelling was just yards (meters) away from a new courtroom that Clinton is due to dedicate during his daylong visit here on Wednesday, workmen went to demolish the building and construct a new brick house in its place" Scientific American 6/00 Jeffrey Boutwell and Michael T. Klare " With a few hundred machine guns and mortars, a small army can take over an entire country, killing and wounding hundreds of thousands Most media accounts of the 1994 Rwandan genocide emphasized the use of traditional weapons--clubs, knives, machetes--by murderous gangs of extremist Hutu. As many as one million Tutsi and moderate Hutu perished, many of them women and children. To outsiders, it appeared as if the people of Rwanda had been caught up in a violent frenzy, with common farm implements as their favored instruments of extermination. But this isn't the whole story. Before the killing began, the Hutu-dominated government had distributed automatic rifles and hand grenades to official militias and paramilitary gangs. It was this firepower that made the genocide possible. Militia members terrorized their victims with guns and grenades as they rounded them up for systematic slaughter with machetes and knives. The murderous use of farm tools may have seemed a medieval aberration, but the weapons and paramilitary gangs that facilitated the genocide were all too modern. ." The Associated Press 8/31/00 Angus Shaw " The government says it has spent $260 million to send troops fighting in the distant Congo civil war even as Zimbabweans face acute fuel and hard currency shortages in the nation's worst economic crisis since independence. President Robert Mugabe deployed 11,000 troops to back Congolese forces against anti-government rebels in August 1998. Finance Minister Simba Makoni said that the deployment has since cost about $260 million, the official Zimbabwe news agency reported. Makoni's disclosure in the Harare parliament late Wednesday is likely to shake the nation. Worsening economic hardships have been blamed mainly on mismanagement and corruption. Makoni is a technocrat appointed to head the Finance Ministry after Mugabe's ruling party won a narrow majority in parliamentary elections in June. He had promised to come clean on the cost of the Congo deployment. The International Monetary Fund froze support to Zimbabwe last year, citing government attempts to cover up the full extent of its military spending as one of its reasons. " Washington Times 9/1/00 Robert Maginnis ". Most of the world's 34 million people living with AIDS/HIV are sub-Saharan Africans. The Clinton administration considers the African AIDS crisis a national security issue that deserves more attention. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart explained, "We have an interest in Africa, as far as our own national security and we need to look at this problem." Mr. Lockhart cited a Central Intelligence Agency report that envisions a worsening AIDS situation for the next 10 years.. At their meetings, Mr. Clinton assured Mr. Mbeki that the United States is sympathetic to South Africa's goal of obtaining cheaper AIDS drugs. "We've got to get them to him. He's got to be able to afford them," Mr. Clinton said. .. South Africa is the richest of all African countries. It has, perhaps, the best chance to beat this deadly virus. Unfortunately, South Africa already has 4 million citizens living with HIV - an infection rate nearly 60 times that of the United States. And the country has problems that hurt its ability to tackle the AIDS crisis. It has one of the world's worst crime rates, partly a result of 30 percent unemployment and partly due to a justice system that is widely reported to be underfunded and corrupt. Political turmoil has followed the end of apartheid and contributed to general social disintegration. The African National Congress (ANC), which dominates the new government, lacks ruling experience and its leaders are Moscow-trained socialists. .Meanwhile, 10 percent of South Africa's adult population is infected with AIDS. Over the next decade these people will likely die, leaving at least 2 million orphans. As the AIDS problem intensifies, the government's ability to cope crumbles." Contra Costa Times 9/3/00 Tod Robberson "The tension and fear were unmistakable among the two dozen National Police agents deployed in this isolated town as they sifted through mounds of rubble left by a

recent guerrilla attack. "We're supposed to be a force that people come to with problems like, 'My child is missing,' or 'I can't find my dog,'" said police agent Alfonso Parra as he rested an arm on his Galil assault rifle. "We shouldn't be the ones they come to with, 'There's a guerrilla in front of my house.'" But the circumstances of Colombia's intensifying internal war have converted ..." AFP 9/1/00 " The northern Sudanese opposition Umma party said here Friday it opposes US proposals for southern self-determination because they would divide Sudan. "We are against such ideas because we want to first give a chance to a solution guaranteeing Sudan's unity," said the Umma party spokesman in Cairo, Hassan Ahmed al-Hassan. "We favor a peace accord giving the southerners the right to selfdetermination after a four-year transitional period in which the northerners and southerners try to rebuild trust between themselves," he said. The US envoy to Sudan, Harry Johnston, proposed that the Sudanese government immediately give the southerners the right to self-determination, Hassan said." http://i-cias.com/m.s/sudan/port_sud.htm " There is not much activity left in Port Sudan. Few boats land on the harbour, few locals carry goods around, few lorries cut their way out on the highway, and few trains run between the Read Sea terminus and the rest of the Sudan. But still Port Sudan is quite a big city, closing up on 300,000 inhabitants. And some feeling of the big world is till to be found, with sailors from different countries of the world, and there seems to be quite a lot of Chinese here. Town centre still has some charm, and nothing looks new anymore, and the place seems to be dying slowly. When something falls apart, nobody seems to have the force to repair it. Diving is a possibility around here, and there are some organizations that can help you with trips and equipment. But nothing is run on a regular basis anymore, so don't feel alarmed if you have to wake somebody up, to get your services. And it's not all to cheap, and the cost feels even more painful as you have been accustomed to the Sudanese price level. Swimming is no problem, you just enter the minibus going for Suakin, and follow it some 20- 30 kilometres out of Port Sudan......" Freeper Fitzcarraldo 9/2/00 EFE News Agency Spain 8/28/00 "At least 3,200 Secret Service agents will guard President Bill Clinton during a visit to Cartagena, Colombia, that will last less than 10 hours, as reported by Colombian weekly news magazine, "Semana". Approximaetely 10,000 guards from both countries will be used, including, policeman, soldiers, naval officers, detectives and antiterrorist agents. The operation will include some 500 Secret Service agents who will be posted strategically along the route that Clinton will travel in the colonial city in northeastern Colombia some 800 km from Bogota. .." reuters 8/22/00 Emelia Sithole ".Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni Tuesday backed criticism of globalization by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, saying it would have to be fought "by struggles" if peaceful efforts against it did not bear fruit. The two leaders are attending a conference organized by the Southern African International Dialogue in the Mozambican capital Maputo. Museveni told the conference Africa had to fight globalization "either by negotiations between those who are marginalized and those favored by this unfair arrangement or by resistance."..." AFP 9/14/00 ".Four opposition officials were arrested Thursday after police in Zimbabwe raided three offices of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in search of weapons, a lawyer said. One of the several lawyers representing the MDC, Brian Kagoro told AFP "they (police) have arrested and detained" four officials at the offices after the early morning raid found nothing. Security director Join Nkhatazo and national youth chairman Nelson Chamisa were among the arrests, according to MDC officials. The search by armed riot police and plainclothes officers came two days after unknown assailants attacked the MDC headquarters in the capital with a hand grenade. The MDC took nearly half of all contested seats in parliamentary elections in June, following months of violence and intimidation directed mainly at opposition supporters. After the search for weapons, the police sought to seize documents, but MDC lawyers resisted the move and went on to apply for a court order barring police from their premises. .."No weapons of any type were found at the various MDC premises and after a fruitless search ... (police) officials attempted to exceed the terms of their search warrant by seizing documents dealing with party business," said a statement from MDC. " salon.com 9/14/00 Jack Boulware ".Frank Sinatra sang about "the voodoo that you do so well." These lyrics were never more appropriate than in the African nation of Zimbabwe, where sex these days has entered the spooky realm of witchcraft. Across the country, women are waking up in the morning, horrified to discover obvious signs of sexual activity on their bodies without remembering a thing. This rash of mysterious copulation can be traced to the use of a sex charm called Mubobobo, and more and more women say they're falling victim to it. . Half a million herbalists and traditional healers operate shops throughout southern Africa, selling all manner of "muti," herb-based potions that can be stirred into tea or food. Some muti help treat everyday ailments; others are purported to cure AIDS. But many of them are intended for sexual use. One of the most popular muti, for instance, is "vuka vuka," an African version of Viagra. Mubobobo was originally intended as a muti to help men overcome their shyness and open up their

heart to their loved one, but according to African news sources, it's now being used in more nefarious ways. The charm can also supposedly render a man invisible, so that he can have sex with a woman without her knowing. "Men still want to have multiple sex partners but are afraid of AIDS," explained social scientist Nigel Maredza. "I think this is why they are turning to things like Mubobobo to satisfy their sexual fantasies. It is believed you don't run the risk of being infected with sexually transmitted diseases when you use Mubobobo, and this is good news to people who want to have sex with multiple partners." ." ABCNEWS 9/16/00 ".J O L O, Philippines, Sept. 16 - Thousands of troops and elite police buffered by helicopter gunships poured onto a remote island in the southern Philippines today before dawn, moving in to rescue 19 foreigners and Filipinos held hostage by Muslim rebels. Navy ships were blockading tiny Jolo island, and the military had no immediate word on the condition of the hostages. Telephone and transportation links to Jolo were cut off. "The war has begun," a government official said of the longanticipated assault Abandoning months of negotiations, President Joseph Estrada said he finally ordered the attack on the Abu Sayyaf after the group seized three new hostages last weekend. The group claims it is fighting for an independent Islamic state in the impoverished south.. "Enough is enough," Estrada said in a nationally broadcast speech. "We will not allow kidnappers or other lawless elements to mock our laws or control our lives."........." Philippine Star 9/14/00 Paolo Romero and Romel Bagares ".. The government may tap elite US forces in conducting covert operations against Abu Sayyaf terrorists in Basilan and Sulu, officials said yesterday. This developed as the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is poised to mobilize an anti-terrorist task force reactivated last Aug. 16. A ranking military official who requested anonymity said US special forces - more popularly known as "Green Berets" and currently participating in ongoing joint military exercises in Pampanga and Nueva Ecija - may be called in to provide support to the Counter-Terrorist Task Force. Philippine troops involved in the war games being held at the former Clark Air Base in Pampanga and Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija are elements of the Army's Special Operations Command (SOCOM) that include Scout Rangers and other special forces, the Navy's Special Warfare Group and the Air Force's Special Operations Battalion. ." Agence France-Presse 9/14/00 ".. Bombings rattle shop, radio station in Philippines Agence FrancePresse PAGADIAN, Philippines (September 14, 2000 12:57 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotime... - Two powerful homemade bombs planted by unidentified suspects tore through a shop and a local radio station here within minutes of each other, the military and police said Thursday. The first blast, which occurred early Wednesday morning, hit the lobby of radio station DXWO, on the fourth floor of a building, partially damaging its interior, police said. Minutes later another bomb exploded at a shop located in a nearby building. No one was reported hurt in the explosions..." Universal Press Syndicate 9/5/00 Georgie Anne Geyer ".. The imposing new Mexican president, Vicente Fox, has left Washington, but many Americans, official and otherwise, are still criticizing the unprecedented immigration policies that he carried here last week. Open borders? The idea was not exactly cheered with hurrahs. But this is the wrong way to look at Fox's idea of eventually creating a "program of convergence" between Mexico, Canada and the United States a la the European Union. In truth, we should thank the new president for making us finally consider some sobering realities.. More and more since the disastrous immigration act of 1965, which gave skewed preferences to the poorest and least qualified of the Third World above those with skills and education, Americans have retreated into their habitual wanton utopianism. Our protective isolation in the world repeatedly has led us to believe that the laws of human nature do not apply to us." Daily Mail and Guardian 9/11/00 ".. SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki has restoked the ongoing controversy over Aids in an interview with US-based news magazine Time, in which he reiterates that he believes HIV is not the only cause of the disease. "No, I am saying that you cannot attribute immune deficiency solely and exclusively to a virus," Mbeki said in response to a question whether he was prepared to acknowledge there was a link between the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (Aids). . Mbeki first incurred the wrath of the world's Aids experts in July during an international conference attended by 12 000 delegates when he failed to acknowledge the link between HIV and Aids. Mbeki said in the interview published on Time's Web site (www.time.com) that factors like poverty, poor nutrition, contaminated water and other diseases including sexually transmitted diseases contributed to immune deficiency. "Now it is perfectly possible that among those things is a particular virus. But the notion that immune deficiency is only acquired from a single virus cannot be sustained," he said. "The problem is that once you say immune deficiency is acquired from that virus your response will be antiretroviral drugs," he added. ." Africa Online 9/28/00 "Government official sources are refusing to give exact figures but Chronicle has learnt that scores of Ghanaians have been roasted and others beaten to death by marauding bands of

Libyans in Tripoli, ironically a country whose leader is perceived as a friend of Ghana and closest ally of President Rawlings. . No clear reason has been fathomed but there has been consistent reports that an increasing crime wave in the country has caused Libyans to look at black Africans in general and Ghanaians in particular as criminal elements because on some occasions, Ghanaian passports have been found at crime scenes. ..Chronicle investigations confirmed officially yesterday indicate that emergency preparations are underway by government to evacuate all Ghanaians in Libya back to Ghana following these. .." CBS 10/1/00 Helen Gelber "...... In Western countries, massive education campaigns and access to expensive new drugs mean fewer people are dying from AIDS and more are living with it. However, in Africa the news is tragically different. Twenty three million Africans have AIDS. In South Africa alone, 1600 people are infected with HIV every day. It is a catastrophe made even more terrible by the refusal of South Africa's President, Thabo Mbeki, to accept that HIV causes AIDS. ......" Daily Telegraph 10/2/00 David Sharrock " IRA leaders have been touring Ulster strongholds to assure their footsoldiers that there will be no more movement on weapons decommissioning until "a united Ireland is a certainty". The uncompromising message was carried by members of the Provisionals' seven-man Army Council, which sets the terrorists' policy and includes prominent Sinn Fein figures. Senior security sources who monitored the visits said they were part of a drive to stem defections to the Real IRA and Continuity IRA splinter groups which bitterly opposed the Good Friday Agreement. .." AP 9/17/00 Andrew Selsky "...BOGOTA, Colombia -- Government troops were engaged in heavy combat Sunday against leftist rebels in the jungles of northwest Colombia, with casualties reported high on both sides. "We know there are a considerable number of guerrillas dead as well as a high number of military wounded and dead," an army spokesman, Col. Paulino Coronado, told The Associated Press. .....' Time Daily Online 9/19/00 Tim McGirk "..Latin America bureau chief Tim McGirk flies into Peru's capital and finds a city fearing the worst Nobody knows who's in charge here any more. In fact, nobody even knows the whereabouts of those who were in charge until last week. You have a president who hasn't made any statement, or even been seen, since his videotaped statement calling for early elections was broadcast on Saturday. He announced that his government would give up the reins - but not when - and then simply disappeared from public view...." Daily Telegraph 10/11/00 " 30 dead in southern Philippines gun battle AT least 17 Muslim separatist guerrillas, eight marines and five government militiamen were killed today in a gunbattle in the southern Philippines. Fighting in the province of Lanao del Sur broke out after about 100 members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front stormed two army detachments in the town of Balabagan yesterday. Reinforcements, backed by five armoured personnel carriers from the marines, later engaged the rebels in two hours of running gunbattles. Fleeing MILF rebels also attacked a separate army unit outside the town. .." Agence France Presse 10/10/00 ".. Full-scale warfare will resume in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) if Ugandan-backed rebels do not halt their advance on a strategic town seen as the gateway to the capital Kinshasa, Namibia warned Monday. Namibian President Sam Nujoma told reporters after a surprise mini-summit here with DRC President Laurent Kabila, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos that their combined military forces were ready to launch a full-scale operation against the rebels, who are moving on the town of Mbandaka. Mbandaka is the regional capital of Equateur Province, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) north of the capital Kinshasa, and is a strategic command position for the Kabila-aligned forces. "We have determined that the Ugandan-backed rebels will be faced with vigorous determination," Nujoma said, adding that "we will not allow Mbandaka to fall." .." Agence France-Presse 10/6/00 ". Turkish Defence Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said Friday that arms contracts with the United States would be affected if Washington adopts a bill recognising as genocide the killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. "If the proposed resolution is adopted by the House of Representatives ... I can already say that arms projects between the two countries will be affected," Cakmakoglu told NTV television, adding that negotiations were already underway on some of them. On Tuesday, a key US congressional committee adopted a resolution recognising the killing of Armenians between 1915 and 1923 as a genocide, despite Turkish warnings of negative repercussions if it did so. .." International Herald Tribune 9/30/00 AP "The anti-terrorist police have warned the British public to be on guard against a possible campaign of violence by dissident Irish republicans following an attack last week on the headquarters of Britain's MI6 intelligence service in central London. ''It is essential that the public remain vigilant at all times and report anything suspicious to police,'' the anti-terrorism chief, David Veness, said this week. ..." Stratfor.com 9/27/00 ". Marxist guerillas battling to control Colombia threaten to escalate the country's

civil war when more than $1 billion in U.S. military aid begins to flow into the country in October. After 36 years, Colombia's civil war is at a turning point, its impacts about to flood across its borders into neighboring nations. Washington is inadvertently gambling with its interests in Colombia and much of the rest of the region. ." AP News via NY Times 10/6/00 " The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia urged the United States and other international donors to provide money and support to help restore peace in the Horn of Africa nation. ``We have to seize the moment in the struggle for peace,'' Randolph Kent told a news conference Friday. ``To those who are saying 'let's wait and see,' I urge them to reconsider.'' At a peace conference in August in neighboring Djibouti, Abdiqasim Salad Hassan was elected president of Somalia along with a 245member parliament. .." Agence France Presse (www.afp.com) 10/5/00 " South Africa's government is starting a huge advertising campaign to ensure condom use does not stop because of confusion over President Mbeki's questioning of the link between HIV and AIDS. The campaign will encourage abstinence and fidelity but will also promote condom use to prevent HIV infection, and it is based on the idea that HIV causes AIDS. The educational effort, which will cost about $275,000, will be promoted in all major newspapers and on public radio stations during the next two weeks." UPI (no url) 10/6/00 "South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki has accused the Central Intelligence Agency of being part of a "conspiracy to promote the view that HIV causes AIDS," The Mail & Guardian reported Friday. Mbeki also thinks that the CIA is working covertly alongside the big U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturers to undermine him because, by questioning the link between HIV and AIDS, he is thought to pose a risk to the profits of drug companies making anti-retroviral treatments, the paper reported. Although more than million South Africans are believed to be infected with HIV and the country has one of the worst outbreaks of the pandemic -- described this week by a leading medical academic as the "greatest genocide of our time" -- Mbeki has maintained a highly controversial belief that AIDS is not caused by the HIV virus. Instead, he bases his increasingly eccentric beliefs on the cause of AIDS on the work of a small group of scientifically discredited so-called AIDS dissidents, who hold that there is no causal link between HIV and AIDS. .." Daily Telegraph 10/5/00 "ISLAMIC extremists killed 12 soldiers and injured six others in separate attacks near Skikda, in the east of the country. Ten soldiers were killed and three wounded on Tuesday at Bissi when an armed gang ambushed their lorry and a light vehicle on a wooded mountain road. The soldiers, returning from a mission to take supplies to a camp, were halted when a bomb exploded on the road. The attackers machine-gunned their vehicles and made off with weapons and uniforms. ..." South African Daily Mail & Guardian 10/2/00 ".. THE (South African) opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) has lashed the government's decision to release another 7 000 prisoners as either a misguided crimeprevention strategy or no strategy at all by government to reduce crime. The DA said the additional release was in effect eroding the independent judicial decision of magistrates and judges. Their reaction follows the Department of Correctional Services' announcement that a further 7 000 prisoners would be released countrywide in "controllable groups" and placed on parole as of October 9. Earlier this month about 11 000 prisoners were set free nationwide in terms of a decision made by the government to alleviate overcrowding in prisons. " WorldNetDaily.com 9/18/00 ".We are now hearing reports of intensive military activity in China, Iraq and North Korea. On Aug. 27 the People's Liberation Army was ordered to deploy crack troops to bases on the Chinese coast, opposite Taiwan. At the same time, Arab journalists have reported that Saddam Hussein is dying of cancer, and that Iraqi reservists have been mobilized. In North Korea, despite recent talk of peace and friendship from the communists, there have been threatening deployments and ongoing troop maneuvers. . It has been suggested by a leading South Korean defense analyst, Jee Man Won, that North Korea's recent "peace offensive" might be treacherous. According to Jee, attempts by the communists to foster greater openness from the South Korean side could prepare the way "for a possible North Korean invasion" of the South. North Korea has been building its armed forces for a number of years. According to a recent U.S. intelligence report on the North Korean threat, 70 percent of North Korea's 1.2 million combat troops are forward deployed to within 100 kilometers of the Demilitarized Zone. . In terms of force balance, South Korea is outnumbered almost two-to-one by the communist armies in the North. America's relatively small troop deployment to the region might not be sufficient to bolster the defense. The North Koreans have been massing heavy artillery and rockets for the past year. The possibility of a sudden and devastating bombardment, followed by an overwhelming assault, cannot be ruled out." Reuters 9/17/00 "Three Rwandan journalists are due to go on trial before a U.N. court on Monday, accused of inciting the genocide of up to 800,000 people in Rwanda in 1994. Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza was

director of public affairs in the Rwandan Foreign Affairs ministry in 1994, Hassan Ngeze was editor of Kangura, a Hutu extremist newspaper while Ferdinand Nahimana was the director of the ``hate-radio,'' Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). The three men face charges of conspiracy and incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity. But their lawyers said at the weekend they were not sure the long-awaited trial would start at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, northern Tanzania. " International Herald Tribune 9/18/00 Thomas Fuller "..Government troops pursued Islamic militants through the jungles of the remote island of Jolo on Sunday as the Philippines mobilized helicopter gunships, bombers and artillery to try to end the country's five-month hostage crisis. Twenty-four hours after President Joseph Estrada launched the assault, declaring that ''enough is enough,'' the country's top military commander said he believed all 19 hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas were still alive. In the first public assessment of the military operation since it began at dawn Saturday, General Angelo Reyes said Philippine troops had engaged in combat six times with the hostage-takers and that six of the rebels had been killed. Four government soldiers were wounded in the fighting. " AP 10/16/00 Manuel Ernesto Rivera "Guns boomed off the coast of a disputed Navy training ground in Puerto Rico on Monday and tens of thousands of troops prepared for a massive amphibious landing as NATO began its biggest exercise there in four years. The monumental show of force by 50 vessels, 31,000 U.S. soldiers and an undisclosed number of other Western troops comes despite fierce protests over the past year against military exercises on the island, called Vieques. .." Yahoo/Reuters 10/16/00 Elif Kaban "..The World Health Organization (news - web sites) said Monday the death toll in Uganda from a disease identified as Ebola fever had risen to 43 according to provisional data and it expected the number of cases to rise. But the U.N. health agency said there was no need for travel restrictions to and from the east African country to contain the disease, which spreads via direct contact with blood or bodily fluids of infected people and kills 50 to 90 percent of victims. ..." BBC.com 11/2/00 ".A gun battle has broken out at the headquarters of the Fijian army in the capital, Suva. Soldiers from the regular army have been exchanging fire with members of the elite Counter-revolutionary Warfare Unit (CRW) - a unit which supported the coup in May in which Fiji's democratically elected government was overthrown. There are reports that the CRW has taken control of the armoury, and that military commander Frank Bainimarama has been taken hostage" The Times of London 11/1/00 Andrew Pierce, Tom Baldwin And Philip Webster ".. TONY BLAIR has cancelled a high-profile trip to Moscow this weekend to try to combat the growing threat of nationwide disruption by fuel protesters. Petrol suppliers predicted that there would be fuel restrictions by the weekend if motorists followed ministers' advice to the health service and started stockpiling. They said there were already signs of a sharp increase in demand. ..The Treasury has made it clear that it will not bow to the protesters' demands for a 15p cut in the price of a litre of petrol by November 13. Gordon Brown is, however, working on a package of measures to help those suffering most from high fuel costs, to be announced on Wednesday. .." CNN 10/31/00 AP "....With U.S. funding assured, the International Monetary Fund expects to meet its goal of providing 20 of the world's poorest countries with debt relief by December 31, a senior IMF official said Tuesday. But IMF spokesman Thomas Dawson said a major effort would be required to be sure that Third World countries that qualify have concrete plans to use the money they save on interest payments to construct schools, vaccinate children, prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and build farm-to-market roads. ....." The Uganda Monitor 11/1/00 Carolyne Nakazibwe "......Tentative results from laboratory tests indicate that a soldier has died of Ebola fever in Mbarara Hospital. Chairman of the National Ebola Task Force, Sam Okware told journalists in Kampala yesterday that the Ministry of Health is waiting for a confirmation of the results. The soldier who was isolated after doctors at the hospital suspected his symptoms, died Oct. 27. "After the tentative results coming out positive, there is still a chance that the final result may be negative but I am highly suspicious of Mbarara," Dr. Sam Okware ..." Electronic Telegraph 10/31/00 Toby Helm ".. GERMANY'S conservative opposition has become embroiled in a dispute with the President, Johannes Rau, after claiming that multi-cultural societies do not work and demanding that immigrants accept Deutsche Leitkultur, the "leading German culture". . Mr Rau, a Social Democrat, was so furious at the opposition's use of the term, which appeared recently in a neo-Nazi publication and has echoes of the Third Reich, that he issued a public rebuke to Christian Democrat leaders. He said such remarks suggested that Germany had the "highest culture", and that it wanted to impose this on people from outside. "We should avoid everything that gives the impression that Germans want to be the number one in Europe," he said. ..The Christian Democrats deny that they they have lurched to the Right or adopted racist, anti-immigrant policies. They insist, however, that problems of integrating foreigners

Right or adopted racist, anti-immigrant policies. They insist, however, that problems of integrating foreigners need to be addressed. They say integration cannot work on the basis of an "equality of cultures". Friedrich Merz, the parliamentary leader of the opposition who first mentioned the phrase Leitkultur, argues that parallel cultures should not exist in Germany. .." Stratfor 10/27/00 ".. Egypt and Libya are working together to bring peace to Sudan. In early October, the two North African giants reached an agreement with Sudan and Uganda to deploy monitors along their shared border. The plan, aimed at resolving the disputes between Sudan and Uganda over state-sponsored rebel movements, illustrates an unusual level of cooperation between the governments of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi. Until recently, Egypt and Libya competed for influence in the region and lambasted each other's foreign and domestic policies. " The Uganda Monitor 10/28/00 Felix Basiime ".Two suspected Ebola patients have died in Mbarara and Bushenyi hospitals after being shortly admitted in critical condition, Sunday Monitor has learnt. A UPDF returnee from the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC) Pte. Samuel Bandese, based at Mbarara's 2nd Division barracks died Oct. 27 at Mbarara University Teaching Hospital (MUTH). The MUTH's medical superintendent, Dr. Amos Twinamatsiko confirmed that Bandese died after he was admitted for two days. The patient had bled through the nose, ears, anus, mouth and had diarrhoea before he died. .." Reuters 10/25/00 Stella Mapanzauswa "...... Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said he would put on trial former white minority leader Ian Smith and other whites for alleged atrocities committed during the 1970s liberation war, state media reported on Wednesday. ...... ``The national reconciliation policy is being gravely threatened by acts of the white settlers. We shall revoke that national reconciliation policy,'' the ZIANA news agency quoted Mugabe as telling supporters of his ruling ZANU-PF party. ``The whites, including Smith, will now stand trial for the genocide in this country. The Americans are still chasing after the Nazis and we will also start looking for the whites who fought with Smith. They must be arrested,'' Mugabe said. ........ His comments came as political tensions continued to run high in the southern African country. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Wednesday launched unprecedented impeachment proceedings against Mugabe against the backdrop of a deepening economic crisis and government plans to confiscate white-owned farms for black resettlement. ....." Insight Magazine 11/13/00 J Michael Waller "...... Clinton and Gore inherited a U.S. foreign policy that had defeated the U.S.S.R., made a friend of Russia and won the gulf war. Consider the legacy they leave. ...... It was a sure sign that U.S. power and prestige have diminished when, at Kosovo peace talks, the Albanian delegation mistook the U.S. secretary of state for a cleaning lady. The incident is a metaphor for what critics call the squandering of U.S. superpower status since Bill Clinton and Al Gore were elected eight years ago. .....To all but the most partisan observers, the Clinton administration has wasted most of the historic opportunities bequeathed to it at the end of the Cold War. Gone are the days when the U.S. president can stride confidently to any podium anywhere in the world and command the respect of ally and adversary alike. Emerging from the hastily prepared October summit with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, President Clinton looked defeated - and it was far from the first time. Veteran White House and State Department officials say that has cheapened the perceived power of the United States as much as any lost battle. ......... " Uganda Monitor 10/22/00 James Tumusiime " Investigators tracing the origins of Ebola fever in northern Uganda are focusing on the mysterious death of a local doctor two months ago, a United States newspaper reported Saturday. The Washington Post said the doctor, only identified as Dr. Stephen, was in his twenties and in good health when he suddenly fell ill with fever. He reportedly died two days later on Aug. 8, at St. Mary's Lacor Hospital in Gulu district. "Routine post-mortem tissue tests failed to reveal the cause of death," said the newspaper. Lacor Hospital administrator, Matthew Lokwiya, the first person to report the outbreak, reportedly described Dr. Stephen's death as "suspicious." "He was a healthy man and just died suddenly, got a fever," Lukwiya told the newspaper in a telephone interview.." Daily Mail and Guardian 10/21/00 ".THE World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the 51 deaths and 139 infections from the Ebola virus in northern Uganda are just a first wave of the disease, with more to come. The warning flies in the face of reassurances by medical experts and officials on the ground who say the outbreak is under control.. WHO official Valary Abramov said it was "much too early in the day" to predict when the outbreak would reach its peak as the epidemic hits "in waves." "We are now only through the first wave," said Abramov, quoting results of laboratory tests done in South AfricaThe mortality rate in the current oubreak is between 50 to 70% while a separate strain of the virus that struck Zaire a few years ago was deadlier, with a mortality rate of 70 to 90%" AP via Yahoo! News 10/19/00 "..The Supreme Court has overturned a recent decree that restricted gun sales as part of the government's fight against rising crime.Ruling on an appeal, the court's 11 justices voted unanimously to overturn a June 21 decree that banned the issuing of gun permits through the end of the year.Chief Justice Carlos Velloso said the decree had no impact on crime in a country where recent statistics

say a killing takes place every 13 minutes.``Criminals don't buy their weapons in gun stores,'' he said...." AP via Newsday 10/20/00 Angus Shaw ".Disruptions in Zimbabwe's agriculture-based economy will slash production of corn, the staple food, by at least one-third, a farmers group said on Friday in the aftermath of three days of food riots. The statement came in a nation facing political upheaval and its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980. . White farmers, who produce about 40 percent of the corn crop here, estimated their harvests will drop by more than half in the first six months next year, the Zimbabwe Grain Producers Association said. The expected overall shortfall of corn harvested from March to June is about 35 percent, the farmers said in a statement. About 4,000 whites own one-third of Zimbabwe's fertile farmland, where 2 million farm workers and their family members live. About 7.5 million people live on the other two-thirds. Beginning last winter, violent squatters and ruling party militants illegally occupied 1,700 white-owned farms. The government declined to force the squatters off and proceeded to put forward a landreform blueprint of its own: It plans to take over 3,000 white-owned farms and divide them into plots for landless blacks. ." 10/20/00 Adam pasick ".U.S. and international health experts broke up into teams Friday to isolate an outbreak of the lethal Ebola virus in northern Uganda that has killed 47 people and possibly infected 75 more. World Health Organization (WHO) officials said six more people had died in Uganda's northern district of Gulu in the last 24 hours and that a total of 122 cases had now been reported. ...... With the epidemic apparently contained in Gulu, a town of 150,000 people some 225 miles north of the capital Kampala, international Ebola experts have concentrated their efforts on treating patients, tracing the outbreak, operating an advanced laboratory and providing health education. Each team combined international, national and local expertise. ." 10/20/00 Adam pasick ".Meanwhile, U.S. health experts who arrived Thursday at the site of the monthold Ebola outbreak made a crucial discovery: the deadly virus that has killed 41 people is a strain that had disappeared for more than 20 years. The six-member team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified the virus as Ebola Sudan, which last hit southern Sudan in 1979. Ebola is a hit-and-run virus. It comes in several strains that disappear for decades at a time, then reappear hundreds of miles away from the last outbreak - no one knows how. .As in previous epidemics, health care workers were among Ebola's first victims; a doctor and two nurses are among the 41 victims. To catch the virus, you have to come into contact with the bodily fluids of someone infected - and nursing a sick person is a perfect way to do just that. " 10/20/00 Adam pasick ".Ten to 15 days after infection, the victim "bleeds out." Eighty to 90 percent of Ebola victims die of the disease within two weeks. Ebola usually kills its victims faster than it can spread, burning out before it can reach too far.. " Miami Herald Online 10/20/00 Jesse Helms " Clinton-Gore policy on Haiti has been a failure U.S. has let Aristide's cohorts literally get away with murder. Constitutional order: suspended. Government institutions: dysfunctional. Political murderers: on the loose. Law and order: disintegrating. Elections: fraudulent. Drug smuggling: rampant. Four years after Vice President Gore proclaimed the Clinton administration's Haiti policy as ``one of the most deft uses of diplomacy and military force in combination that you will find anywhere in the annals of the history of this country,'' it is today little more than smoldering wreckage of a wrongheaded policy. (Responsibility for these disastrous results rests squarely with cynical, inept policymakers in the White House.) .........,, Haiti scarcely would be a priority for the United States had the Clinton-Gore administration not used the full measure of U.S. power and influence to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power five years ago. Prior to invading Haiti, the administration refused to acknowledge the obvious realities: 1) there was no record of democracy upon which to build; and 2) Aristide was neither a democrat nor a friend. Nevertheless, the administration centered its policy on the restoration of Aristide, not democracy. .." The Associated Press 12/1/00 Steve Karnowski "..Sen. Paul Wellstone, steadfast opponent of the Clinton administration's $1.3 billion anti-drug aid package for Colombia, returned from an inspection tour of the country Friday, saying human rights violations were flagrant and the root of the country's turmoil. ``So many of the people there doing the human rights work are under siege,'' the Minnesota Democrat said at a news conference. ``The violence there is so pervasive.'' " The Associated Press 12/1/00 Steve Karnowski "..Sen. Paul Wellstone, steadfast opponent of the Clinton administration's $1.3 billion anti-drug aid package for Colombia, returned from an inspection tour of the

country Friday, saying human rights violations were flagrant and the root of the country's turmoil. ``So many of the people there doing the human rights work are under siege,'' the Minnesota Democrat said at a news conference. ``The violence there is so pervasive.'' " Yahoo News via Reuters 11/23/00 "..An explosion tore through a car carrying three British citizens in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh on Wednesday, injuring two men and one woman, the second such incident involving Britons in one week. Saudi Arabia's Okaz newspaper and the Gulf News Agency (GNA) in neighboring Bahrain reported on Thursday that an explosion believed to have been caused by a bomb ripped through the car as it drove along the King Abdul Aziz street in Riyadh on Wednesday night. . The press reports said the three Britons worked for a company in Riyadh, but they did not name it. " Middle East News Line 11/19/00 ". Saudi authorities have stepped up security in the aftermath of an explosion that killed a Westerner during the opening of an international energy conference. Western diplomats said an assailant hurled a bomb through the window of a vehicle at an intersection in Riyad on Friday afternoon. It was the latest attack on Westerners in the kingdom and came during the arrival of U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. Western diplomats said Richardson was not in the immediate vicinity of the explosion. Saudi authorities said they are investigating whether the explosion was politically-motivated. In previous attacks on Westerners this year, authorities said ..." AP International 11/17/00 Anwar Faruqi "..An explosion in the Saudi capital Friday afternoon killed two people, believed to be Americans, sources said. The Saudi sources said two people were killed when a bomb was tossed into their car window. The sources declined to be identified further. At the U.S. Embassy, spokesman Rick Roberts confirmed that there had been an explosion in the center of the city but said he had no information about what happened and was unsure whether Americans were involved. ." Tampa Bay Online 11/16/00 Chege Mbitiru "....NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Home-brewed alcohol mixed with methanol has killed 68 people in Kenya's slums and sent another 245 to hospital, police said Thursday. Footage on television news programs Wednesday showed the bodies of some of the men who died after drinking the brew lying unattended on the streets of Sinai and Mukuru, two of Nairobi's many sprawling, desolate slums. "It is very serious, and more unconscious people are being picked up," police spokesman Peter Kimanthi said. ..." New York Times 11/16/00 AP "......Even before Clinton got here, Nguyen Thanh Luong told a reporter he was looking forward to the visit. He glimpsed at a workman cleaning a statue of V.I. Lenin at the Lenin park, and said: ``I think if Lenin were alive today, he would be happy to see Clinton coming here with a message of peace among all peoples.'' ...." BBC 11/14/00 Anna Borzello "......The Kenyan authorities have been alerted after it was discovered that seven of their nationals attended the funeral of a woman suffering from the often deadly Ebola virus late last month. Ebola, which can cause its victims to bleed to death, is spread through contact with infected bodily fluids. Traditional burial rites are one of the principal means of transmission. ...." Dawn 11/13/00 Amberin Zaman "..ANKARA (Turkey): Newspapers reported recently that Turkish Interior Minister Saadettin Tantan has been reading up on the Taliban of Afghanistan . Is he trying to figure out how to fight Islamic tendencies in his own nation? No. Tantan has Uzbekistan in mind. He was there last month, offering Turkish expertise to counter Islamic rebels in the former Soviet republic. Since then, Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer has signed military agreements with Uzbekistan and neighbouring Kyrgyzstan during state visits to the Central Asian nations. .." GONZALO SOLANO AP 10/12/00 "Colombian rebels seized a helicopter from an oil field in the Amazon jungle early Thursday, kidnapping six Americans and at least four others and flying them into Colombian territory, military officials said. The hostages, who also included a Chilean, an Argentine and the two Frenchmen, were taken at gunpoint before dawn in the El Coca region, 150 miles southeast of the capital, Quito, military officials said. An Ecuadorean military communique said the gunmen, whose faces were covered, claimed to be members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Colombia's largest guerrilla group. The guerrilla group denied any part in it. " UN 10/11/00 "..In a new report to the Security Council issued today, Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed concern that the situation in Angola may be entering a new phase of political and military impasse which could threaten regional security. "If the present trend continues, the situation in Angola could worsen the security and humanitarian problems especially in the border regions of the neighbouring countries, Namibia and Zambia and threaten further the peace and security of the subregion as a whole," Mr. Annan wrote...." L.A. Times 10/11/00 Esther Schrader ".. The massive U.S.-backed anti-drug offensive in Colombia is

hitting major funding roadblocks, with European countries refusing to ante up more than $2 billion, and the Colombians themselves unsure they have the means to put up an additional $4 billion. The reluctance of international donors, and the seeming inability of the Colombians, to fund the $7.5-billion aid effort "leaves the Americans stepping up to the plate and everybody else walking away from it," said a senior Clinton administration official who requested anonymity for fear of endangering sensitive diplomatic relationships. ." Toronto Sun 11/5/00 Peter Worthington ". Prematurely retired Lt.-Gen. Romeo Dallaire, both the "hero" and victim of the UN's criminal mismanagement of Rwanda, is once again a target for analysis - this time in a soon-to-be published book by Carol Off, The Lion, the Fox and the Eagle. Dallaire, candid, honest and clearly decent, was emotionally shattered and suicidal after serving as UN commander in Rwanda, 1994, where the UN ignored his warnings of impending massacre and genocide. . Saturday Night excerpted the book last week, and the National Post ran a front-page pointer to the article, "General Breakdown," that was callous, cruel, unfair and wrong: "From model soldier to park-bench drunk." Everyone (including Gen. Dallaire himself) seems to attribute his breakdown to horrors he witnessed in Rwanda, where some 800,000 Tutsis were massacred in the name of tribal hatred and revenge. I think this does Dallaire an injustice. " allafrica.com 11/3/00 "......The deadly ebola virus currently sweeping the northern Ugandan district of Gulu has now spread to southern Uganda, with the reported death of a soldier in the town of Mbarara. A spokesman for the World Health Organisation told IRIN on Thursday 11 new cases had been diagnosed, bringing the total to 262 cases, including 81 deaths. The Mbarara case is the first to be recorded outside the Gulu district since the disease was diagnosed last month...." The Associated Press 11/2/00 Michael Hartnack ".Zimbabwe's parliament has solidified President Robert Mugabe's power to seize white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks without paying compensation. The government embarked on plans in June to seize at least 2,000 white-owned farms. Mugabe invoked temporary powers to allow him to seize the farms. The Land Acquisition Amendment Bill, which was passed late Wednesday after its third reading, will give him those powers permanently once he signs the bill into law. It also demands Britain, the former colonial ruler here, compensate the white farmers...." Times of India 11/3/00 Robert Keith-Reid " SUVA, Fiji: The Fijian Army seized back control late on Thursday of its main barracks after a day of gunbattles with mutinous elite troops that left two soldiers dead and 10 injured. In an emotional address to the nation, interim Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase promised to hunt down and prosecute those responsible for taking over the Queen Victoria Barracks and briefly holding five army officers. "Justice will be done, I promise you," Qarase said. The motives of more than 20 rebellious troops from the army's Counter Revolutionary Warfare unit remain unclear, but speculation was that at least eight of them feared they would be kicked out of the army for playing pivotal roles in a May 19 coup in this Pacific nation. ......" The Uganda Monitor 1/5/01 Carolyne Nakazibwe "..The Ministry of Health is beefing up precautionary measures along the Uganda-Congo border after an outbreak of a haemorrhagic fever in the eastern part of the vast Country, The Monitor has learnt. A source told The Monitor that a fever with symptoms very similar to Ebola broke out in areas around Bunia in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), causing fears that it could be the deadly Ebola virus that is being battled in parts of Uganda. .." AFP 1/5/01 " Reports of the redeployment of Russian nuclear arms in the Kaliningrad region along the Baltic Sea has rekindled fears in Poland of a nuclear menace along its borders. As communism collapsed both NATO and the Soviet Union withdrew forward-deployed nuclear weapons, leaving Poland in a comfortable non-nuclear zone in central Europe, but the country which joined NATO in 1999 now finds itself unsettled at the prospect of being on a front line. Polish officials have called for international verification of a report in the Washington Times earlier this week that quoted US intelligence sources as saying that Russia has moved nuclear weapons into the enclave. Russia on Wednesday flatly denied putting nuclear weapons back into the Kaliningrad region." Associated Press 1/5/01 Oliver Teves "Philippine police charged seven Muslim guerrillas with murder Friday, accusing them of masterminding a spate of New Year's holiday bombings that killed 22 people and injured more than 120 in Manila. Police pressed multiple murder charges against six leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in absentee and arrested a seventh. They accused the detainee of acting as a Manila scout for the rebel group, according to a police complaint filed with the Justice Department. .. The document, which state prosecutor Menrado Corpuz showed to reporters, names MILF top leader Hashim Salamat and five of his senior officers. The MILF is one of two major Muslim rebel groups that have fought for years to carve out a separate Islamic state in the southern Philippines. MILF leaders have denied

responsibility for Saturday's attacks. The announcement that charges had been filed further complicated what was already a complex investigation into the bombings. ." British Broadcasting Corp 1/3/01 ".....Clean water from tankers has been provided to stem the epidemic All South Africa's provinces have been placed on alert as the government tries to prevent a cholera epidemic spreading beyond KwaZulu-Natal. The move follows crisis talks on Tuesday between the government and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Since August, the epidemic has claimed more than 50 lives and infected more than 12,000 people in KwaZulu-Natal Province. ....." AP, National Defense Council 12/29/00 "..... Countries placed on the National Defense Council's Foundation list of world conflicts this year. -Albania: Arrest of President Berisha leads to violent civil unrest; drug, human and weapons trafficking. -Bolivia: Narcotics production and trafficking; violent civil unrest. -Cameroon: Government-sponsored mass killings and incursions into Nigeria, and government suppression of protests. -Cote d'Ivoire: Overthrow of Gen. Guei leads to violent civil unrest and mass killings; religious and antiforeigner related violence. -El Salvador: Drug-related violence; kidnapping and extortion. -Fiji: Multiple coups, ethnic and militia violence. -Guinea: Cross-border raids by Liberian rebel and government forces and Sierra Leone rebels. -Kazakstan: Invasion of disputed border region by Uzbekistan leads to civilian killings; militant attacks; and drug-related violence. -Kyrgyz Republic: Unrest surrounding President Akayev's re-election; terrorism -Laos: Fighting between Hmong rebels and government troops -Liberia: Civil war and cross-border raids by government and opposition forces. -Libya: Rioting and violence targeting foreigners; drug trafficking and related violence -Solomon Islands: Coup followed by multiple ethnic-based insurrections. -Spain: Basque separatists renew attacks. -Tanzania: Violent civil unrest surrounding elections; violence against refugees. ...." St. Louis Post-Dispatch 12/29/00 Pauline Jelinek AP ".....George W. Bush and his team of Cold War warriors face a world of increasing conflict, with military experts counting 68 countries suffering civil unrest, drug wars and other skirmishes. The number is up from 65 last year and nearly twice the average at the sunset of superpower rivalry in the late 1980s........ Of the 193 countries it examined, the National Defense Council Foundation found more than a third were in conflict. The think tank, which has retired military officers among its analysts, concluded the most dangerous strife is in Afghanistan........``We're more in danger now -citizens traveling abroad and trade routes are more in jeopardy than ever before,'' retired Army Maj. F. Andy Messing Jr., executive director of the Alexandria, Va.-based foundation, said in an interview......" AP 12/30/00 Adam Brown ".....A string of powerful bombs ripped into the Philippine capital at midday Saturday, killing at least 14 people, injuring as many as 100 others and sending thousands of panicked residents rushing from buildings in fear of more blasts. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but there was no shortage of theories. Police made one arrest and hinted that extremist Muslim rebels could be involved. A presidential spokesman implicated communist rebels. ....." Associated Press 12/31/00 Guy Ellis "......Machete-wielding men stormed a Roman Catholic church Sunday, hacked at worshippers and set them ablaze, killing a nun and injuring at least 13 others in the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia. More than 400 people were attending Mass at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in the capital of Castries, with many lined up to receive Communion, when several attackers entered the church, police said. One of the men doused worshippers with what appeared to be kerosene or gasoline, while another used a blow torch to set them on fire, witnesses said. The men burned the carpet

running down the center aisle. ......The attackers then made their way to the altar, where they set fire to the priest, Father Charles Gaillard. ....." AFP 12/31/00 ".....Sri Lanka's military authorities have found evidence pointing to the use of sophisticated Stinger heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles, a press report here said Sunday. Video footage showing preparations for a rebel suicide bombing against a key navy base in the north-east of the island in October showed a guerrilla carrying a Stinger missile, the Sunday Times newspaper said. The paper said the video tape was captured from a rebel who had been filming the operation that was carried out on October 23 against the Trincomalee naval facility. "....." South African Daily Mail & Guardian 12/23/00 Claire Keeton '..... PLANS by the South African government to assert sovereignty over the country's vast mineral resources are a "wake-up call" for the white-dominated industry, one analyst says. The Chamber of Mines, representing mineowners, has expressed concerns over the draft Minerals Development Bill, published on December 18, but is taking pains not to be confrontational. "This bill is a wake-up call (for white mining companies) to realise minerals and metals are not their sole prerogative," commented Clyde Johnson, of the Johannesburg-based Minerals Energy Policy Centre....." The Washington Times (print edition) 12/24/00 ".....President Clinton could become a special envoy for peace in Northern Ireland under the new regime of President-elect George W. Bush, the Sunday Express reported. Mr. Bush made a suggestion along those lines during a meeting with Mr. Clinton on Tuesday in Washington, the British weekly said, quoting a source close to the Republic of Ireland's government in Dublin. ....."Bush knows his limitations. He knows what he doesn't know and he knows what to stay away from," the source was quoted as saying. ...." Miami Herald 12/25/00 Angus Shaw AP "......Not for 50 years had oxen been used to plow on Owen Connor's farm. Mechanization made it one of the most productive farms in the district. But ox plows are back now, gouging ragged, widely spaced furrows for hand-scattered corn seed. The tillers are ruling party militants and squatters who have camped illegally on Connor's property since February. He can't stop them......." Reuters 12/18/00 "....Algerian rebels machine-gunned to death 15 teenage students and a teacher as they lay in their beds at a boarding school over the weekend, hospital sources said on Sunday.Other pupils dived under their beds as the gunfire erupted in their dormitory, most escaping unhurt although six were wounded.About six rebels in military uniform burst into the dormitory of the Lycee Technique of Medea, 55 miles south of Algiers, on Saturday night and fired with sub-machine guns at the sleeping boys, aged between 17 and 19.`..." Washington Times 12/15/00 "..... President Robert Mugabe urged militant supporters yesterday to "strike fear in the hearts of the white man" in a bid to keep control of the nation he has ruled for two decades. A fistwaving and perspiring Mr. Mugabe made his plea to the cheers of 7,000 delegates of his ruling Zimbabwe Africa National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) at the opening of a crucial four-day party congress. "Our party must continue to strike fear in the heart of the white man, our real enemy," he said. "They think because they are white, they have a divine right to our resources. Not here. Never again." ...." MSNBC 12/14/00 ".....President Robert Mugabe, opening a crucial party congress that could decide his future, on Thursday urged black Zimbabweans to unite against whites and strike fear into their hearts. The former guerrilla leader who lead Zimbabwe to independence vowed to continue commandeering white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks. ....." ABCNews.com/AP 12/13/00 ".....President Clinton's last presidential visit to Northern Ireland ended today with a peace process still stalled and politicians feuding, yet citizens still longing for a violence-free future. He told the people of Belfast to "claim your moment" for peace. Clinton succeeded in recharging the talks to resolve 30 years of sectarian and political violence over Britain's rule of Northern Ireland.... Electronic Telegraph 12/12/00 ".....It is worth recalling Mr Clinton's record over the past eight years. His decision to grant an American visa to Gerry Adams in 1994 actually held up the first IRA ceasefire by taking the heat off the pressurised republican movement. Most memorably, Mr Clinton shook Gerry Adams's hand even as the Provisionals were preparing the Docklands bomb that ended their first ceasefire. And he assured David Trimble that if he took the risk of forming an inclusive Executive with republicans in November 1999, he would then stand by the Ulster Unionists' leader if the Provisionals failed to disarm. But when the republicans broke their word in February 2000, Mr Clinton singularly failed to stand by the Unionists or even Tony Blair when the latter suspended the process's institutions. ........Mr Clinton has been so understanding of the perverted logic of the world of paramilitarism that he has even been very slow to place the Real IRA on the State Department's list of proscribed terrorists organisations (Sinn Fein holds that such stigmatisation would cause further defections to the "dissidents"). It is possible that, at Dundalk today, he will announce that he is finally going to act against the group that perpetrated the Omagh bomb. ......"

The Uganda Monitor 12/11/00 Anywar Godrey "....The medical superintendent of Masindi hospital, Dr. Imam Mutyaba has fled following threats to his security. The District Director of Health Service, Dr. Henry Luwaga revealed this development Dec. 8 during a specially convened District Local Council meetings on Ebola...... Dr. Mutyaba was allegedly threatened by some people protesting the treatment of Ebola patients in Masindi hospital. Dr. Luwaga said Dr. Mutyaba left for Kampala Dec.6 together with his family after reporting the case to the District Police Commander, John Byakumara....." http://www.un.org/News/ 12/6/00 "..The United Nations learned "with regret" that one physician and 12 nurses had died of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in a Ugandan hospital, a UN spokesman said today in New York. Dr. Matthew Lukwiya, a senior doctor at the Locor hospital in Gulu, was "one of the leaders in the fight against the Ebola virus in Gulu," spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters at UN Headquarters. .."The doctor's death, and those of his colleagues, illustrates how vulnerable health care workers in outbreak situations are and also just how contagious this virus is," he added. .." NewsMax.com 12/5/00 Carl Limbacher ".. President Clinton's much heralded Haitian policy is an unmitigated disaster despite his claims that he has brought law and order to that long-troubled island, now classified by the CIA as a "major Caribbean transshipment point for cocaine en route to the US and Europe." ...... After six years of US and UN military presence in Haiti and the expenditure of billions of US taxpayer dollars, the situation is worse than ever and a human rights organization warns that withdrawal of the UN mission next February will have a catastrophic impact on human rights protection. .." Associated Press 12/4/00 ".Islamic insurgents reportedly killed nine people in Algeria over the weekend, one week into the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when violence often peaks in this North African nation. In a continuation of an 8-year Islamic rebellion, attackers wearing Algerian military uniforms ambushed a busload of soldiers at a roadblock Sunday in the Batna region, 280 miles east of the Algerian capital, the daily La Tribune reported Monday. The alleged insurgents slit the throats of four soldiers. ." NATIONAL SECURITY - General NATIONAL SECURITY - General NATIONAL SECURITY - General NATIONAL SECURITY - General NATIONAL SECURITY - General NATIONAL SECURITY - General NATiONAL SECURITY General News Max 10/21/00 ".. Many believe that the Clinton-Gore years will be remembered for scandal and corruption. Unfortunately, Clinton-Gore's true legacy be a far more dangerous world - a world for which they have left us unprepared. You won't hear about this approaching era of international tension from Bill Clinton, Al Gore or the news media. However, the Center for Security Policy, in association with the Blanchard Economic Research Unit, has produced an eye-opening 83-page, 65,000-word special report: Clinton's Legacy: The Dangerous Decade. The Center exposes the failed Clinton-Gore politics of the last eight years that have left America vulnerable to a new age of tension. "Contrary to what the general public believes, the world is more dangerous today than it has been for the last 50 years..." Joseph de Courcy Editor-in-Chief Jane's Intelligence Digest ..Politicians, reporters and investment analysts alike have all been able to completely ignore the foreign dimension since President Reagan won the Cold War and President Bush led us to victory in the Gulf War. But just take a look at some of the potential problems brewing in the world and ask yourself: "How would America - no, how would my life - be affected if: China launches a ballistic missile strike on Taiwan? North Korea launches a surprise attack on South Korea? India and Pakistan have a nuclear exchange? Iran shuts down the Strait of Hormuz with a cruise missile strike? Saddam Hussein re-emerges as a threat? Israel and the Arab world plunge into conflict? South Africa plunges into civil war? Russia becomes dominated by a nationalistic, totalitarian regime? Terrorists conduct a biological warfare attack in a major city? Narco-terrorists disrupt democracy in Mexico and wipe out all the euphoria over NAFTA virtually overnight? Any one of these events could rock the political scene in America, as well as the international financial

markets. ." AP 10/19/00 Dilip Ganguly ".....A suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday, killing two other people and wounding 21 -- including three American women -- shortly before Sri Lanka's president installed her new Cabinet. The bomber triggered explosives wrapped to his body after a police patrol challenged him. He died on the spot, while a policeman and a civilian died later, said Dr. Hector Weerasinghe, director of the National Hospital. The military said the bomber was a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a rebel group that has fought since 1983 for a homeland for minority Tamils ..." CNN Africa 10/18/00 " Gulu district health officer Okat Lokach said they have so far traced the disease to a housewife who died around Sept. 7. .. She was buried according to local tradition, which involves the ritual cleansing of the dead by family and friends. The next two victims were her daughter and mother. . Other mourners returned to their villages, fell ill and infected their friends and family. .. There is no blood test for Ebola, and the only laboratory on the continent that has the equipment to confirm a case of infection is in South Africa. Health workers have begun quarantining anyone complaining of flu-like symptoms, diarrhea or vomiting. Those who are in the advanced stages of the disease begin to "bleed out" through the nose, mouth and other orifices. Blood and other bodily fluids also begin seeping through the skin, producing painful blisters. The virus can take its course in as little as two weeks. Between 80 percent and 90 percent of confirmed Ebola victims die. While cases have been reported in Congo, Sudan, Ivory Coast and Gabon, there has never been a reported case in Uganda before now. . "We are adding about 10 cases every 24 hours. It is still spreading until we can get people into the field and identify all of those infected," said Dr. Nestor Ndayimirije, a World Health Organization epidemiologist who is helping Ugandan authorities trace the source of the Ebola outbreak, the nation's first. .." Kampala Monitor 10/17/00 Oketch Bitek in Gulu & Patrick Elobu Angonu in Soroti ".The deadly Ebola virus has hit displaced persons camps in Gulu district as the death toll and admitted cases continue to rise. Affected camps were identified as Pabbo, Parabongo and Atiak, all in Kilak county west of Gulu town. The death toll has reached 37 and at least 82 patients have been admitted. Reports on the BBC yesterday also reported that cases of Ebola had been reported in Amoru and Atiak refugee camps. .." South African Daily Mail & Guardian 10/22/00 " THOUSANDS of South African Communist Party (SACP) supporters have taken to the streets of South Africa's major cities to demand easier access to bank loans for the country's poor as part of its Red October campaign - and are threatening more action should the banks refuse. In Johannesburg some 5 000 members of the SACP and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) marched on the offices of the South African Banking Council and demanded banks ease loan conditions by December 15. .." The Associated Press 10/19/00 Angus Shaw "..After three days of food riots, police and troops imposed a wary calm Thursday in Harare's poorest neighborhoods as human rights workers began investigating hundreds of reports of brutality by authorities. There were no reports of renewed clashes as authorities monitored the streets of the capital. Most of the barricades set up by the protesters and the husks of cars they trashed were cleared away. But there was far less commuter traffic than usual. Harare was effectively under martial law, said Munyaradzi Bidi, the head of ZimRights, an independent human rights group. .." The Associated Press 10/19/00 Jerome Socolovsky "An international tribunal Thursday upheld a life sentence for genocide against a former Rwandan prime minister for having "instigated, aided and abetted" the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. The ruling by the U.N. appellate court against Jean Kambanda permanently validated the world's first conviction of a head of government for the crime of genocide. The Hague-based appeals chamber is the court of last resort for the Rwandan genocide and its verdict may not be appealed further. " Reuters 10/16/00 ".Philippine opposition lawmakers started impeachment proceedings against President Joseph Estrada Wednesday, listing various charges including that he took millions of dollars in bribes from gambling lords. ..." Associated Press 10/18/00 Chris Tomlinson ".. KABEDE OPONG, Uganda (AP) -- Esther Awete was found dead six weeks ago in her round, gray mud hut by her mother and sisters five days after she fell ill with a fever. In keeping with custom, her body was kept in her hut for two days to allow friends and family to take part in the funeral. Awete's family and closest friends ritually bathed her body, buried her less than 30 feet from where she died and then washed their hands in a communal basin as a sign of unity. ...What they did not know was that Awete's body had become a time bomb carrying the deadly Ebola virus. That was on Sept. 27. Now, her mother, three sisters and three other relatives are dead and the virus has spread across a 15mile radius, killing 39 people and infecting as many as 63 others. Ebola is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids, such as mucus, saliva and blood, and can be passed through a simple handshake. Four days after exposure, flu-like symptoms set in, followed by bloody diarrhea and vomiting. Ten to 15 days later,

days after exposure, flu-like symptoms set in, followed by bloody diarrhea and vomiting. Ten to 15 days later, the victims ''bleed out'' through the nose, mouth and eyes. Blood and other bodily fluids also begin seeping through the skin, producing painful blisters. " BBC 10/13/00 "An explosion has rattled the British embassy in the Yemen. An investigation is now underway, following the incident which happened in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Thursday night. It comes a day after a suspected suicide attack on a US destroyer in the port of Aden, which killed six US sailors and left 11 missing and 35 wounded. Reports from the British consul general in Aden said there were no casualties. "We are not sure what caused it," said consul Bob Hunter. " Swans / SUC 10/20/00 Rick Rozoff "The Middle East is in flames, the Balkans are a devastated NATO occupation zone, Central Africa is a wartorn wasteland with little hope of imminent recovery, and northeastern and norhwestern Africa are in similar straits. Colombia is slated to be the next El Salvador if not the next Vietnam, with the entire Amazon basin at risk of being pulled into the vortex. Japan is being remilitarized, contrary to its U.S.-authored constitution, and its troops are being deployed abroad for the first time since the defeat of its imperial government in 1945. Similarly, a united Germany has been reborn as a military powerhouse, resettling the Balkans and selling weapons to Turkey and others. ..The moribund and superfluous North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been revived, strengthened and expanded, with last year's war against Yugoslavia its official debut - an event that coincided with its fiftieth anniversary retooling and apotheosis in Washington last spring. Three Eastern European former Warsaw Pact members, none of them near the Atlantic Ocean, north or otherwise, have been inducted into NATO with the required increase in military expenditures and upgrading of their equipment, the latter to be purchased from U.S. and Western European arms manufacturers. . Old military blocs are being recreated and redefined, new ones are proliferating, the entire globe is being turned into an armed camp bristling with state-of-the-art weaponry almost exclusively of Western origin. .President Clinton and his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright are now waging war in three continents simultaneously - in or against Yugoslavia, Iraq and Colombia. A new benchmark for global military deployment; no previous regime has ever done so. .The traditional villains, formerly so-called rogue states, now 'states of concern,' aside, the current targets include Iraq, Liberia, Belarus, Malaysia, Peru, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Myanmar and Congo. Until recently, and perhaps soon again, Yugoslavia, too. Erstwhile allies like Indonesia and Austria can at any given time be subjected to blistering denunciations and economic penalties. " USA Today 10/14/00 ".Hijackers seized a Saudi plane carrying more than 200 people Saturday and ordered it to fly to Syria, but the plane was refused permission to land in the Syrian capital, air traffic controllers said. At midafternoon, Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 115 was circling over the eastern Mediterranean, Cypriot air traffic controllers said on condition of anonymity. After being denied permission to land in Damascus, the plane asked to fly through Syrian airspace to Baghdad, Iraq. Again the Syrians refused, the controllers said. They added that when the plane got low on fuel, an airport would be obliged to let it land. The plane is carrying 198 passengers and 9 crew, Cairo air traffic controllers said on condition of anonymity. It had taken off from Jiddah, Saudi Arabia en route to London when the pilot radioed that it had been commandeered and the hijacker was insisting that it fly to Damascus, Egyptian civil aviation officials said. .." INDEPENDENT NEWS 10/11/00 Richard Markland " Bangladesh, beset by famine and disease ever since its fiery birth less than thirty years ago, is confronting its biggest crisis ever: the accidental poisoning of as many as 85 million of its 125 million people with arsenic-contaminated drinking water. "The crisis is the largest mass poisoning of a population in history. The scale of the environmental disaster is greater than any seen before, it is beyond the accident of Bhopal, India, in 1984, and Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986," according to the report by The World Health Organization. Water from wells have never been tested for arsenic, which occurs naturally in ground water, and for many years it was believed to be completely safe. One in ten people who drink the water will ultimately die of liver, bladder and skin cancer " Miami Herald 10/17/00 Glenn Garvin Cataline Calderon "..Colombian humanitarian groups ripped a U.S. plan to send $1.3 billion in military aid to their country as guerrillas and the government sat down here Monday for informal talks on the status of Colombia's 36-year civil war. ``Plan Colombia has endangered the whole peace process,'' said Ana Teresa Bernal, an official from the coalition of humanitarian and human rights groups sponsoring the three days of talks here. ``No good will come of this.'' " GONZALO SOLANO 10/16/00AP ".Two French helicopter pilots who were among 10 people kidnapped last week in Ecuador's Amazon have escaped and are in protective custody in the capital, a government spokesman said Monday. Spokesman Alfredo Negrete revealed no details of the escape and did not comment on the other captives, who include five Americans. But a military official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said both men arrived by foot at the outskirts of Lago Agrio, a jungle town near Ecuador's border with Colombia, at midday Monday. .."

Telegraph (UK) 10/15/00 James Allan ".. TWO members of a lynch mob in Lagos, Nigeria, who attacked a man they believed had turned two children into dogs, were shot dead by police. A rumour had swept through the Lagos suburb of Oko-Oba that the man, a dealer from northern Nigeria, had transformed a missing boy and girl after giving them each 20 naira (10p). Local vigilantes detained the man and gathered up the dogs. Police arrived as they were about to lynch him and arrested 15 people. During the fighting, two of the mob died. The rest, including the dogs, were taken to Lagos state police command in Ikeja. .." WARS AND RUM ORS OF WARS National Journal 4/3/99 "Sudan -- Conflict: 16-year civil war Death Toll: Estimated 1.9 million since 1983 Administration Action: $1 billion in food relief" National Journal 4/3/99 "Tibet -- Conflict: Ever since China seized Tibet in 1949 Death Toll: Estimates range as high as 1.2 million. Administration Action: In 1994, "de-linked" trade matters from Beijing's record on human rights; in 1997, appointed a special coordinator for Tibetan issues" National Journal 4/3/99 "Rwanda -- Conflict: Extremists among Hutu majority in 1994 launched genocide against Tutsi minority. Death Toll: 800,000, perhaps 1 million Administration Action: Pentagon provided massive humanitarian aid " National Journal 4/3/99 "Angola -- Conflict: 25-year civil war. Death Toll: 1 million over 25 years; 300,000 since 1992 Administration Action: U.S. diplomats, along with Portugal and Russia, monitor the ailing 1994 peace agreement " National Journal 4/3/99 "Somalia -- Conflict: Ouster of dictator in 1991 unleashed a civil war that still rages. Death Toll: About 300,000 in the ensuing famine in 1992 and 1993; more since Administration Action: Intervened from late 1992 to late 1994 with 25,000 troops; 30 troops died, including 18 in a bloody Mogadishu firefight " National Journal 4/3/99 "Liberia -- Conflict: Seven-year civil war Death Toll: As many as 250,000; 700,000 displaced Administration Action: Helped finance 10-nation peacekeeping force, spent $7.5 million to help ensure a fair 1997 election " National Journal 4/3/99 "Bosnia and Herzegovina -- Conflict: Move for Bosnian independence in 1991 aroused opposition from Serbs. Death Toll: More than 200,000; hundreds of thousands displaced Administration Action: Economic embargo, bombing, and intervention by 20,000 U.S. troops; 6,000 U.S. troops remain " National Journal 4/3/99 "Indonesia -- Conflict: East Timor annexed in 1975, fights for independence. Death Toll: As many as 200,000 Administration Action: Supports international peacekeeping or observer force and a "peace and stability council" for fractious region " National Journal 4/3/99 "Algeria -- Conflict: Seven-year civil war Death Toll: Between 65,000 and 80,000 Administration Action: Participated in 1998 U.N. fact-finding trip, offered to send observers for a new election " National Journal 4/3/99 "Sri Lanka -- Conflict: Since 1983, secessionist Tamil guerrillas have waged a war against the Sinhalese Sri Lankan majority. Death Toll: 56,000 Administration Action: Regards the Tamil Tigers as terrorists, helps train anti-terrorist squads for the Sri Lankan government " National Journal 4/3/99 "Chechnya -- Conflict: 21-month war between Russian forces and separatist Muslims ended in cease-fire in 1996. Death Toll: 40,000 Administration Action: Clinton letter to Yeltsin saying conflict could not be settled militarily " National Journal 4/3/99 "Turkey -- Conflict: 15-year military and terrorist effort by Kurdish separatists to establish autonomy in southeast Turkey Death Toll: 37,000 Administration Action: Military aid to Turkey, a NATO ally; helped Turkey track and arrest Abdullah Ocalan, leader of Kurdish separatist movement" National Journal 4/3/99 "Nagorno-Karabakh -- Conflict: Muslim Azerbaijan and Christian Armenia fought a five- year.. Death Toll: 35,000; hundreds of thousands of refugees Administration Action: Diplomatic efforts, with France and Russia, to draw up a peace agreement; also $12.5 million in humanitarian aid" " National Journal 4/3/99 "Kashmir -- Conflict: Some Kashmiri rebels want independence from India; some want association with Pakistan. Death Toll: 25,000 in past nine years Administration Action: Offers of mediation if both sides request it "

National Journal 4/3/99 "Democratic Republic of Congo -- Conflict: Two-year civil war, largely a fallout from Rwandan civil war and collapse of 30-year rule of Mobutu Sese Seko, in what was called Zaire" Death Toll: As many as 10,000 in past year Administration Action: Active diplomacy working toward cease- fire, including the appointment of a special envoy to African Great Lakes region " National Journal 4/3/99 "Eritrea -- Conflict: Fierce border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia Death Toll: 10,000 in recent months Administration Action: Active but unnoticed diplomacy, including brokering an agreement by both sides not to use airpower and sending a special envoy to the region" National Journal 4/3/99 "Sierra Leone -- Conflict: Civil war, with rural rebels trying to depose elected urban government Death Toll: 3,000 since January Administration Action: Supports a multinational military force to keep elected government in power " National Journal 4/3/99 "Northern Ireland -- Conflict: 30 years Death Toll: 3,200 over 30 years Administration Action: Extensive multiyear involvement, including special ambassadors, participation in peace talks, and personal intervention by President Clinton " National Journal 4/3/99 "Kosovo -- Conflict: Albanian Kosovars seek independence after 10 years of suppression by Serbian government. Death Toll: 2,000 in past year; 250,000 displaced Administration Action: Diplomatic pressure culminating in NATO air strikes" National Journal 4/3/99 "Haiti -- Conflict: Civil strife and political assassinations began in 1991 when military elite overthrew elected president. Tens of thousands of boat people fled to Florida. Death Toll: Hundreds Administration Action: 20,000 troops intervened in 1994; no U.S. combat deaths; 500 U.S. troops remain." Insight 5/10/99 Aimee Howd "...What is happening in Sudan is not a product of a natural disaster or of tribal insurrections. Rather, such atrocities are part of a systematic and unceasing war Sudan's radical Islamic regime, the National Islamic Front, or NIF, is waging against its non-Muslim and moderate-Muslim citizens in the southern third of the nation. . It is a "zero-sum conflict," says Francis Deng, who served as ambassador from Sudan to the United States under an earlier and more democratic government. "It is genocidal. . . . The bare existence of southern Sudanese with any sense of dignity and self is seen as a threat by the [Arab] north. Either you assimilate them or you eliminate them, unless you partition the country." . Sudan is one of just three officially fundamentalist Muslim states in the world. Since a 1989 coup in which Gen. Omar alBashir overthrew the elected government and installed Sheik Hassan al-Turabi as leader of Sudan, nothing has deterred the government from its determination to Islamize the entire nation according to sharia law. To be a member of a minority group -- whether ethnic, racial, religious or political -- is to be a second-class citizen at best. For the most part, it is to be marked by radicals for extermination....Indeed, according to the 1999 report of the U.S. Committee for Refugees, a Washington-based advocacy group, the mostly Christian and animist people of southern Sudan have suffered more war-related deaths during the last 15 years than any single population in the world -- an estimated 1.9 million people having died there. Sudan's death toll is greater than the number of fatalities suffered in current and recent conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia and Algeria combined. In addition, at least 4 million people now are internally displaced within the country, huddled in refugee camps because government armies and militias have driven them from their homelands -- burning and looting their farms, slaughtering the men and kidnapping, raping and enslaving any women and children who did not escape...." HREF='http://www.smh.com.au/news/9904/24/pageone/'> 4/24/99 MARK DODD in Dili, PETER COLEADAMS, and HAMISH McDONALD - The Sidney Morning Herald Freeper DonMorgan "...Diplomats, church leaders and human rights groups were last night gathering the names of more than 100 people they believe killed in a new onslaught by Indonesian-backed militias in East Timor. Church sources in Suai, 200 kilometres south-west of the East Timor capital, Dili, told the Herald that 10 mostly young men had been killed in the town but they believed many more had been executed by the Ratih militia, which attacked local villagers in February. The sources said several died on Thursday evening, a day-and-a-half after the Indonesian Armed Forces commander, General Wiranto, and Dili's Bishop Belo got the pro-Indonesian militias to pledge peace at a ceremony in Dili. "Day by day the experiences are very bad," the source said, asking that his name not be used. "We hope that the international [community] and the Australian Government will send here the force of the United Nations. The people here are very, very afraid ..."..." Ottawa Sun 4/20/99 R. CORT KIRKWOOD "...Public outrage over mass murder depends on who the murderer is and who is being murdered. At least that is what Insight magazine reports about the difference between events of the last few years in Kosovo and events of the last 15 in Sudan. In the skies over Kosovo and Yugoslavia, American warplanes are pounding away at the positions of the Yugoslav Army to stop its genocidal campaign against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. In the skies over Sudan, American warplanes are

.... Well, they aren't doing anything to stop the genocide of Christians and others who have committed the unpardonable crime of being different from those who run Sudan's National Islamic Front, which in turns runs Sudan..... The numbers are staggering. According to the U.S. Committee on Refugees, "the mostly Christian and animist people of southern Sudan have suffered more war-related deaths during the last 15 years than any single population in the world -- an estimated 1.9 million people have died there. Sudan's recent death toll is greater than the number of fatalities suffered in current and recent conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia and Algeria combined. In addition at least 4 million people are now internally displaced." If that's not bad enough, "Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and other Islamic states fund the government in its $1 million-a-day attacks." ...Actually, it's more than racism. It's a double standard that allows certain groups, meaning those traditionally viewed as "oppressed," literally to get away with murder, especially of those traditionally viewed as "oppressors." ...The double standard explains why liberals condemned oppression in South Africa for years, but ignored it in communist Angola. The difference between the two was that anti-communist whites were murdering blacks in South Africa, but communist blacks were murdering blacks in Angola. However the hierarchy is established, one thing is for sure: Christians aren't part of it. Especially the black Christians under siege from black Muslims...." NY Times 4/30/99 AP "...Army officers seized power in the Comoros Republic today, saying the military could not allow the Indian Ocean nation to descend into chaos following failed peace talks. Radio Comoros broadcast a statement by Army Chief of General staff Assoumani Azzali that said President Tadjiddine Ben Said Massonde had been removed from power. He and other government officials had been asked to remain in their homes...." London Evening Standard 5/19/99 Max Hastings "...One of the biggest hits in America this year is a book entitled Black Hawk Down. It tells the story of the disastrous American special forces operation in Somalia on 3 October 1993. A bungled attempt to hit the headquarters of the Habr Gidr clan cost the lives of 18 Americans, the destruction of two Black Hawk helicopters, and precipitated President Clinton's hasty decision to pull out of the country altogether. The author of the book, Mark Bowden, describes how the Americans who took part in the bitter 15-hour battle came home "to a country that didn't care or remember. Their fight was neither triumph nor defeat; it just didn't matter". He quotes a State Department official's comment on such countries as Somalia and Bosnia, where Americans have been profoundly dismayed to discover a mismatch between their own desire to bring peace and the inhabitants' yearning instead for triumph over their enemies: "People in these countries ... don't want peace. They want victory. They want power... Somalia was the experience that taught us that people in these places bear much of the responsibility for things being the way they are. The hatred and the killing continue because they want it to. Or because they don't want peace enough to stop it."..." 6/12/99 AP Calvin Woodward "...Only as Kosovo comes under international control will officials get any firm sense of how many ethnic Albanians were killed by Serb forces during the conflict. Only with time may the world find out how many Serbs were killed by NATO bombs...Death tolls or estimates in a sampling of conflicts fought in the 1990s: AFGHANISTAN: 2 million, 1979-1992... ALGERIA: 75,000, 1992-1998... ANGOLA: 500,000, 1975-1999... BOSNIA: 250,000, 1991-1995... BURUNDI: 200,000-250,000, 1993-1999.... CHECHNYA: 18,000 to 100,000, 1994-1996... COLOMBIA: 30,000, 1960s-1999.... ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: unknown, 1998-1999... GUATEMALA: 200,000, 1960-1996... ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS: 125,000, 1948-1997... KOSOVO: Western officials believe as many as 5,000 Serb soldiers or police died; Serb sources have cited a civilian death toll of about 2,000 and at least 500 deaths among their security forces. An estimated 2,000 people died under a crackdown on Kosovo's ethnic Albanian rebels before NATO started bombing. Among NATO forces, two Americans died in a helicopter training mission in northern Albania. LIBERIA: 150,000, 1989-1997..... NORTHERN IRELAND: 3,250, 1968-1998.... PERSIAN GULF WAR: 4,500 to 45,000, 1991.... RWANDA: 500,000 to 800,000, 1994.... SIERRA LEONE: 14,000, 1991-1999... SPAIN: 800, 1961-1999... SRI LANKA: 58,000, 1983-1999... SUDAN: 1.5 million-1.9 million, 1983-1999.... TURKEY: 37,000, 1984-1999.... ------ Sources: The Associated Press, State Department, Center for Defense Information, World Almanac..."

Associated Press 6/14/99 "....Ethnic violence has flared in the Pacific nation of the Solomon Islands, with clashes leaving two people dead and forcing more than 1,000 others to flee their homes, authorities said Tuesday. Militants from the self-styled Guadalcanal Liberation Army set up roadblocks outside the capital Honiara over the weekend and were forcing out ethnic rivals from the neighboring island of Malaita, police said. One person died from wounds inflicted during a clash at one of the illegal roadblocks, Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio reported Monday. Details on the other death were not immediately known. Solomons Islands Police Commissioner Frank Short said that as many as 1,000 people had been forced out of the village of Kakibona, ABC reported. Other villages were also being cleared and up to 10,000 refugees were expected to arrive in Honiara in the next few days, New Zealand Press Association reported...." Russia Today 6/15/1999 AFP "...Azerbaijani and Armenian forces clashed for more than four hours Monday in the biggest fight between the two neighbors since they signed a cease-fire five years ago, the Azeri Defense Ministry said. Ministry spokesman Ramiz Melikov said that some 300 Armenian troops attacked Azerbaijani positions in the Terter region, around 300 kilometers (186 miles) west of the capital, but were repulsed with heavy losses. He said that Armenian units near the village of Oratag tried three times tried to take Azerbaijani positions in the town of Gyzyloba. "This is the first time in the history of the cease-fire that Armenia has used a force of 300 men," Melikov continued, adding that two died and four were injured on the Azerbaijani side...." http://www.independent.co.uk/stories/B1806909.html 6/18/99 Lloyd Parry "AT LEAST three people have been killed and a state of emergency declared in the Solomon Islands after an explosion of ethnic fighting. The Red Cross said that 10,000 people were trying to flee the main island, Guadalcanal, where native people have attacked immigrants from the outlying islands. The government of the South Pacific nation has appealed to the self-styled Guadalcanal Liberation Army (GLA) to lay down its arms and has asked for police support from Australia and New Zealand. The Commonwealth Secretariat in London said it had been asked for assistance by Bartholomew Ulufa'alu, the Prime Minister, and was sending Sitiveni Rabuka, former prime minister of Fiji, to visit the islands. The trouble centres on people from the island of Malaita, many of whom have migrated to the capital, Honiara, which is on Guadalcanal. Malaitans, who include the prime minister, dominate the government, civil service and business.." UPI Spotlight 6/18/99 "Four Russian border guards have been killed by Chechen rebels, and a fifth man has been kidnapped in an overnight attack on a checkpoint on the border between Russia's southern Stavropol ("STAHV-roh-pol") region and the rebellious republic of Chechnya, Interior Ministry officials say (Friday). ." National Post Online 6/30/99 Peter Goodspeed "...While the west wrung its hands over the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, up to 50,000 people have been killed or wounded in a border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. International relief agencies are warning that hundreds of thousands of refugees are in desperate need of food and water. Driven from their homes, they have been forced to seek shelter in caves or are living out in the open. "Ethiopia's civilian victims of war have been relegated to the shadows," said relief agency Refugees International. Right now, half a million soldiers are involved in battles that look like something out of the First World War, with tens of thousands of troops engaged in trench warfare and hand-to-hand combat along the bitterly disputed border...." BANGKOK POST 6/30/99 Alan Dupont "...But look more closely and other, less familiar sources of conflict are discernible. One of these is the worrying depletion of the world's stock of natural resources. Continuing high levels of population growth, rising consumer demand and environmental degradation are increasing competition for resources that were once considered inexhaustible or renewable. Fish is a prime example. After increasing five-fold between 1950 and 1990, the world's annual fish catch has stabilised at around 122 million tonnes despite a huge expansion in the size and capacity of fishing fleets. Per capita fish availability has actually declined because of rising populations and overfishing, and the price of seafood has steadily increased since 1990 - a classic indicator of pending scarcity. Reversing this trend will be difficult, notwithstanding advances in aquaculture. The World Bank has warned that "the current harvesting capacity of the world's fleet far exceeds the estimated biological sustainability of most commercial species". In 1998, there were around 1.2 million vessels in the global fishing fleet, an increase of over 15% since 1989. The bulk of these ships operate in Asian waters. ..." MENL worldtribune 7/1/99 "...Twelve Kurdish insurgents were killed in a clash with Turkish military forces near the Iraqi border, the Anatolia news agency reported on Wednesday. The agency did not say when the clash took place. It said the fighting was in southeastern Turkey near the Iraqi border, a hotbed of insurgency. But the report came one day after the death sentence handed down on Kurdish Workers Party leader Abdullah Ocalan. Ocalan's PKK party has threatened revenge attacks on Turkish cities...." The Associated Press 6/19/99 "...Citing death threats from militant supporters of former President Jean-

Bertrand Aristide, the U.S. Republican Party has shut down its democracy-building program in Haiti, its president said Saturday. ``In other countries, we've been worried about our staff getting caught in the cross fire. In Haiti, we're afraid they'll get caught in the cross hairs,'' Lorne Craner of the International Republican Institute told The Associated Press. ``The gunmen who threatened our staff said they were in Mr. Aristide's camp,'' said Craner. ``They said it's time for us to stop our activities or they'll kill us. They said only Aristide has the right to represent the people.''...." Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau 6/20/99 Jodi Enda "...Last month, the president directed his top foreignpolicy advisers to study the genocide that took hundreds of thousands of lives in Rwanda to see if the United States could have intervened effectively. Now, as American forces settle in to the job of policing part of Kosovo, Clinton is re-examining the massacres in central Africa, as well as ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo, in an effort to create a ``Clinton Doctrine'' to govern when and how America should intervene in foreign conflicts. Adopting such a doctrine, even a flexible one, could have far-reaching effects on U.S. foreign policy and military posture. It would have to grapple, for example, with commitments to such hot spots as Taiwan and Korea, with how Washington would respond to violence in breakaway regions of Russia or China, and with the proper response to tragedies in places such as Rwanda that have never been central to America's interests. An ambitious Clinton Doctrine also could force the administration, the Pentagon and Congress to rethink the size and especially the shape of America's military, increasing the demand for light, mobile forces, air power and naval and air transportation. According to the doctrine that is taking shape, the United States is prepared to use its military might or economic and political power not merely to protect its own interests, but also to prevent genocide, according to administration officials. But this will not apply everywhere. ``Where we have a compelling national interest and where there is a moral imperative and where we have a capacity to act, then we have an obligation to act,'' national security adviser Samuel Berger said in an interview. ``One has to be careful about committing American forces where there's not a national interest.'' ...." UK Independent 6/22/99 Alex Duval Smith "...The plight of a million displaced ethnic Albanians has diverted attention away from 5.3 million Africans who have fled their homes to escape wars, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata. Speaking yesterday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, at the start of a 10-day tour of the Great Lakes region, Mrs Ogata said the need for aid to refugees in Kosovo should not overshadow the requirements of victims of other conflicts. "Kosovo as an emergency appeal is getting a quicker response because of its proximity to important aid agencies, the media and world powers. Some of the [African] programmes do not get money, especially dragged-on refugee situations that do not lead to solutions. "The Europeans are very much interested in Kosovo refugees. Maybe they are less interested in Africa," she said. According to UN figures, 15 times more money - $1.60 (1) - is spent each day on each refugee from Kosovo, than on each African in a similar situation (11 cents or 7 pence). The UNHCR devotes 50 per cent of its resources to African refugees. Mrs Ogata's tour is to include Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Tens of thousands of people have fled eastern Congo for Tanzania since rebels began a campaign 11 months ago against President Laurent Kabila. Both Burundi and Rwanda have seen decades of political unrest which has forced hundreds of thousands of people to seek refuge abroad, mostly in Tanzania. Mrs Ogata's trip will also take her to a camp in Congo which is home to about 145,000 refugees from Angola's 24-year civil war. Mrs Ogata said there were currently 700,000 refugees in the Great Lakes region but that the crisis was more than one of statistics.... According to UN figures from the beginning of this year, Africa has 3.3 million refugees and 2.1 million people who are displaced within their own countries. The total represents about one-third of the world's 16.8 million refugees and displaced people...." The Toronto Sun 6/26/97 Eric Margolis ".Mass-murderer Pol Pot was run to ground this week in the remote jungle of northern Cambodia. Leader of the notorious Khmer Rouge, Pot ordered the killing of at least one million `class enemies' in Cambodia's Killing Fields This marxist madman reminds us of an amazing, but little-know fact: more people have been killed in the 20th Century by their own governments than by all wars combined. About 25 million soldiers died in World Wars I and II. Another 12 million were killed in this century's other wars and revolutions, a total of 37 million dead. * Under Lenin and Stalin, the Soviet government became the greatest mass-murderer in history. Lenin's collectivization and purges of 1921-1922 caused 4 million deaths. In 1932, Stalin ordered Ukraine starved to enforce collectivization and crush Ukrainian nationalism. At least 8 million Ukrainians were murdered. Others resorted to cannibalism. The Toronto Sun 6/26/97 Eric Margolis ".From 1917 to Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviet Union, worshipped by leftists around the world as the acme of human political accomplishment, shot, tortured, beat, froze or starved to death at least 40 million of its people.. * In China. Great Helmsman Mao Zedong had 2 million `class enemies' shot when the communists took power. Another million Tibetans and Turkestani Muslims were `liquidated.' from 1950-1975. During Mao's crazy Great Leap Forward, in which China's farmers were collectivized en masse, an estimated 30 million or more people starved to death. Another two million are said to have been died in Mao's Cultural Revolution. Total: 35 million dead. * Hitler was

responsible for the deaths of 12 million civilians, half of them Jews. The Nazis exterminated people because of race; the communists because of class or nationality. Hitler killed with gas; Stalin with bullets, cold, and hunger. .. Compare: 100 million people murdered by governments this century; 75% by communist regimes - to about 38 million killed in all wars and conflicts..In fact, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge killed five times more civilians than did atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.." Atlanta Journal-Constitution 11/17/99 Thomas Sowell ". W.E.B. Du Bois once said that the problem of the 20th century world was going to be the problem of the color line. Like many ringing predictions, it missed the mark by a wide margin. The biggest atrocity of this century against any people --- the Holocaust --- involved people of the same color as those who killed them. So do the current atrocities in the Balkans and in Africa. In one sense, however, Du Bois was right. The biggest political problem of this century for black Americans has been the fight to abolish the color line, epitomized by Jim Crow laws in the South. With a new century approaching, it is by no means clear that the biggest problem facing black Americans is still the problem of the color line. Indeed, that problem has already been superseded by another: self-destruction, both cultural and physical. ." COM M ERCE DRIVEN 7/21/98 White House Affairs Reuters "A Senate committee said Tuesday it would hold back U.S. funding for the World Bank until Congressional experts review allegations of corruption in bank lending operations. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved legislation by Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell that included $800 million for the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) credit program for poor nations. But under the measure, funds for the World Bank would not be released until the General Accounting Office (GAO) completes an audit of the bank. ``The committee is concerned by recent reports of corruption,'' a statement from the panel said. The World Bank said last week it had hired outside auditors to investigate possible embezzlement and kickbacks involving its own officials.The GAO has already launched a review of the World Bank's sister institution, the International Monetary Fund. The Clinton administration wants Congress to provide $18 billion to the IMF to replenish reserves drained by multibillion-dollar rescue deals for Indonesia, Russia, South Korea and Thailand http://www.house.gov/jec/press/1998/11-12-8.htm 11/12/98 Joint Economic Committee (House Majority) ".The International Monetary Fund's movement to normalize its relations with Iraq was greeted today with dismay and concern by Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Chairman Jim Saxton (R- N.J.). The IMF is planning to send a mission to Iraq to lay the foundations for normalizing relations, and to consider Iraqi requests for technical assistance. In an interview with an Arab newspaper based in London, a high-level IMF official first disclosed the IMF plans. According to IMF official Paul Chabrier, "Despite the existence of tension and friction between Iraq and the United Nations, I think we are moving towards a form of normalization with it (Iraq).". "The use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to assist Iraq, Libya, or other such nations through the IMF is unacceptable. The Treasury Department should be attempting to stop such missions and expel members who sponsor terrorism. This episode also underlines the rather low membership standards of the IMF ( standards which need to be significantly tightened for a number of reasons.." Aviation Wek and Space Technology Joseph C Anselmo 8/3/98 ".''AMERICAN CORPORATIONS should not serve as mini-State Departments,'' Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, told Armstrong at a July 29 hearing of the panel's subcommittee on proliferation." Aviation Wek and Space Technology Joseph C Anselmo 8/3/98 ".Defense Secretary William Cohen, in a July 16 letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), and House National Security Committee Chairman Floyd Spence (R-S.C.), said he would recommend that Clinton veto the defense authorization bill if Congress retained, among other things, language ''relating to export prohibitions or controls of missile and satellite components and technology.'' ." Jane's Defence Weekly 11/4/98 Bryan Bender ".US moves to "Commercialize" Foreign Military Sales.4 Nov 1998 /** disarm.armstra: 337.0 **/** Topic: (United States) US Rethinks FMS Program **** Written 10:33 AM Nov 3, 1998 by rstohl@cdi.org in cdp:disarm.armstra **Jane's Abstracts For personal, noncommercial use only For full text of article, please see Jane's Defence Weekly, October 14, 1998, pp. 4 For further information see http://www.janes/com "USA rethinks foreign military sales" By Bryan Bender Many foreign nations and domestic defence firms criticize the foreign military sales (FMS) program run by the Department of Defense (DoD) as too restrictive and prefer direct commercial sales. The Pentagon is planning to revamp the program. One proposed restructuring plan includes updating the FMS program's industrial security restrictions.." UPI S 2/22/99 "...The Commerce Department says it found more than 60 cases of bribery in major international contracts with a value of $30 billion. At a gathering in Washington of high-level government and private-sector leaders, Commerce Secretary William M. Daley said (Monday) that corruption in a global

private-sector leaders, Commerce Secretary William M. Daley said (Monday) that corruption in a global problem...." AP via Florida Times-Union 3/14/99 Laura Myers "Saddam Hussein's Iraq keeps taunting U.S. pilots. China is accused of stealing American nuclear secrets. A Kosovo peace agreement remains elusive. Across the globe, President Clinton's foreign policy is under siege. Foreign policy experts say the administration is pursuing short-term gains at the cost of lasting solutions. ``The Clinton administration kicks the can down the road and hopes for the best,'' said Ted Galen Carpenter of the conservative-leaning Cato Institute. ``The problem with American diplomacy is we want results now. Long-term goals get little attention.'' ``Albright's performance was weak at Rambouillet,'' said Thomas Keaney, head of the foreign policy institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. ``If the State Department was surprised by the Kosovars, that's a real indictment on their conduct of foreign policy.``America needs to quickly change directions and leave behind this chilling comedy of errors that has defined our foreign policy,'' said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Tex. Meanwhile, the U.N. weapons inspectors have been off the job since mid December, opening the way for Saddam to possibly rebuild his chemical and biological weapons. China, a growing power, is perhaps the most complicated challenge. The world's most populous nation with 1.3 billion people, it offers a huge market for U.S. products while at the same time has the potential of becoming a military threat, analysts say.U.S. and Chinese officials have been negotiating to seal a deal in time for the meeting for China to join the World Trade Organization. A WTO agreement would lower Chinese tariffs on goods. That could help reduce the $57 billion trade deficit with the United States, but also would protect Beijing from bilateral trade sanctions." AP 4/1/99 "...A magistrate cleared the way today for digging to begin at a site in northern Sri Lanka where government soldiers allegedly killed and buried hundreds of ethnic Tamils. Excavation at the site in the northern Jaffna peninsula will be carried out June 6, nearly one year after a soldier first made the allegation, said senior state counsel Yasantha Kodagoda. Magistrate N. Arulsaharam set the date after examining a report by the Criminal Investigation Department on soil tests conducted last month. Kodagoda refused to discuss the report. The soldier, whose name has not been released, said he knew at least 400 bodies of Tamils were buried in mass graves near Jaffna city. He has been convicted of raping and murdering a Tamil teen-ager...." M ISCELLANEOUS AFRICA AND M IDDLE EAST Nelson Mandela first presented a medal to Omar Gaddafi and then to Bill Clinton when he was in South Africa. Mandela has concluded a arms-for-oil deal with Gaddafi and is soon to receive the Congressional Gold Medal. AMF (Arkansas) Kabila (Zaire) - mineral and diamond mining rights Syria, which has not signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, now has an active chemical weapons programs and has armed missiles, warplanes and artillery shells with sarin. After two years, the investigation into who blew up the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia killing 19 US airmen came to a dead end. Only one of the dozens of investigators remain in Saudi Arabia. There is no prospect for justice. November 1997 - Top executives of five major U.S. arms makers wrote to the president, pleading for permission to bid on a contract to sell $4 billion worth of attack helicopters to Turkey. The State Department had blocked such permission because of Turkey's sorry record on human rights. But the five signatories represented firms that had contributed a total of $1.7 million to the Democratic Party and its candidates in the 1996 elections. In five weeks, just before the year-end deadline that Turkey had set for bids for its helicopter contract, the State Department reversed course and gave the companies the green light. Pan Am Flight 103 tragedy in Lockerbie, Scotland v the foreign minister of Libya, Omar Mustafa Muntasser getting a visa by our embassy in Tunis. Khadafy and Muntasser have steadfastly refused extradition demands for Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah - the two thugs we know were behind the monstrosity of Lockerbie. 7/3/98 New York Times James Risen: "A yearlong internal investigation by the CIA of unauthorized contacts between a Democratic Party leader eager to help a wealthy party donor and the CIA has found that no laws were broken by officials at the spy agency, government officials say. " In late 1995, Donald Fowler, the DNC national chairman tried to enlist the CIA's help ("Bob") to open White House doors for Roger Tamraz. A supervising attorney in the CIA's general counsel's office did not notify senior officials (John Deutch) of the political contacts. "Investigators were not able to explain the disappearance of internal memorandums sent to top CIA officials notifying them of Fowler's efforts to get the CIA to help Tamraz meet with President Clinton, despite objections from the National Security Council. .The highest- ranking official to receive 'Bob's' memo

was William Lofgren, chief of the division in which 'Bob' worked. He told investigators that he had placed it in his outbox for delivery to senior officials. Investigators say it disappeared, however, and senior CIA officials never received it. But the inspector general's report found no evidence of wrongdoing by Lofgren, who later retired and worked briefly as a business consultant for Tamraz. " On Mubarak visiting Gadhafi "The air embargo was imposed in 1992 after Gadhafi refused to hand over two Libyans suspected in the 1988 bombing of an American airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. "We (Arabs) are one nation and these borders are illusionary. Libyans come to visit us and Egyptians visit Libya,'' Mubarak told reporters with Gadhafi sitting beside him." AP 7/10/98 Barry Schweid "The mother of a young woman killed in the terrorist attack on a Pan Am jetliner in 1988 accused the Clinton administration today of betrayal for not trying to block a visit to Libya by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak."They have absolutely betrayed us, and they don't care about the American victims of terrorism,'' said Susan Cohen in a telephone call to The Associated Press from her home in Cape May Courthouse, N.J. "" 8/6/98 AP Wall Street Journal " Simultaneous bombings killed at least 50 people and injured dozens on Friday near the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, seriously damaging both buildings, witnesses said. ." 7/30/98 Miami New Times JimDeFede ".Just about everything associated with Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko can be described as amazing. He first came to the attention of law enforcement agencies here in Miami during the summer of 1996, when two of his employees purchased a pair of Vietnam-era helicopters and sought to have them shipped to the West African nation of Gambia, where Sissoko owned a hotel and a casino. Those particular helicopters needed a special export license. Rather than apply for the necessary permits, the pair tried to smuggle them out of the country and were caught by Customs agents at Miami International Airport. The two Sissoko lackeys then attempted to bribe a Customs agent. The agent reported the bribe to his superiors, who then set up a sting operation that ensnared Sissoko. In secretly recorded telephone conversations, Sissoko promised additional payments to the Customs agent if he allowed the helicopters to be shipped without the permits. As a result, and unbeknown to Sissoko, an international warrant was issued for his arrest on charges of attempting to bribe a U.S. Customs agent.In the meantime, Sissoko concentrated on his chief priority -- starting up his own airline, Air Dabia. For more than a year he had been buying passenger jets and other aircraft in the United States -- apparently with money provided by the Dubai Islamic Bank. One of the individuals Sissoko did business with was John Catsimatidis, CEO of a New York supermarket chain, who sold Sissoko a pair of jetliners for three million dollars. Catsimatidis also happened to be a major Democratic Party fundraiser. Last year he told the New York Times he had initially approached Sissoko in 1996 about donating to the Democratic Party. Indeed, two months before the 1996 presidential election, Sissoko was invited to attend a dinner party with President Clinton in Washington. He accepted. Unfortunately Sissoko was unable to go. Just days before the September 6, 1996, White House gala, he was arrested by Interpol in Geneva, Switzerland, on warrants issued in Florida. In October he arrived in Miami in handcuffs and was subsequently released after posting a $20 million bond -- the largest bond ever issued in a criminal case in the federal Southern District of Florida. .In addition, the Herald never reported Sissoko's heavy-handed attempts to have the bribery charges against him dropped. In addition to a team of powerful local attorneys, he also employed former U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh to pressure Justice Department officials. During the process, Bayh and others sought to destroy the reputations of the prosecutors in Miami who were handling the criminal case. Sissoko even enlisted the support of several current members of Congress, most notably Jacksonville's Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), who personally spoke to Attorney General Janet Reno on Sissoko's behalf. Brown's actions have come under intense scrutiny in recent months, after the St. Petersburg Times reported that, following Brown's contact with Reno, her daughter received a $60,000 Lexus from Pouye, Sissoko's chief financial officer. Ellison says it appears the money used to purchase that car came from the Dubai Islamic Bank. In Ellison's opinion, Representative Brown's conduct in the Sissoko case has been "highly immoral and a breach of her duty to her constituents." Brown has denied she did anything wrong. .." 8/7/98 BBC/AP "The "Islamic Jihad Group", led by Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri - who is currently residing in Taleban-controlled areas in Afghanistan - has vowed to take revenge against the United States, which it is accusing of involvement in the arrest of a number of Egyptian Islamists - among them the leading figure in the organization, Ahmad Ibrahim al-Najjar, who was sentenced in absentia to death by the High Military Court in Cairo in connection with the Khan al-Khalili case - while they were in the Albanian capital Tirana, and in their extradition to Egypt. The "Information Office of the Jihad Group in Egypt" yesterday issued a statement - a copy of which has been received by Al-Hayat - entitled "About the extradition of three of our brothers," in which it says that "the US government, in coordination with the Egyptian government, arrested three of our

brothers in some East European states, where the first brother, known as 'Tariq,' was arrested while he was with his Albanian wife in an East European state known for its hostility towards Muslims.." BBC 8/11/98 "The United States says several of its embassies around the world have received new threats since the bomb attacks in Kenya and Tanzania on Friday.." Conservative Current 8/14/98 Pat Buchanan "As the talking heads of the cable channels chatter on about what Bill Clinton should tell the grand jury -- the truth is among the options being discussed -- an event of epochal significance is taking place beyond our shores. The Global Economy is careening toward disaster, and the Clintonites seem clueless about how to stop it.." The Village Voice Nat Hentoff 8/18/98 "When the president and his spiritual adviser, Jesse Jackson, were in Africa earlier this year, a group of fifth-graders in Denver intently followed the coverage of the journey on television. They desperately hoped Clinton and Jackson would say something about the thousands upon thousands of black Christians and animists who have been enslaved in the Sudan with the encouragement and support of the totalitarian fundamentalist National Islamic Front--the government based in the North. These fifth-graders have become very knowledgeable about the horrifying chattel slavery in the Sudan. And when Clinton acted as if it didn't exist, they were furious, and one of the students wrote him, ''Why aren't you doing anything about this?'' There was, of course, no answer. As for Jesse Jackson's continued silence, he knows about the slavery in the Sudan. I have left him several messages, as have others. It may be that he doesn't have the courage to speak out because he doesn't want to offend Minister Farrakhan, who has been honored in Khartoum, the capital of the Sudan. Jackson has been careful in the past not to directly antagonize the commander in chief of the Nation of Islam.." 8/16/98 AP "Maintaining an unusually high level of alert, the State Department on Sunday issued an updated "worldwide caution'' to U.S. travelers because of the recent bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa and threats to U.S. interests abroad. An accompanying statement specifically warned "against all travel to Pakistan'' and announced that it has ordered the departure of all non-emergency personnel and families of employees from the embassy at Islamabad. It also ordered U.S. personnel in those categories out of consulates in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar.." Washington Times Adam Entous 8/20/98 Reuters "Corrupt Indonesian officials may have pocketed or diverted more than 20 percent of World Bank development funds to the world's fourth most populous country, according to an internal World Bank document from 1997. The World Bank, which is investigating separate reports of corruption among its own staff, confirmed the contents of the year-old Indonesian memorandum yesterday. USA Today 8/24/98 "The Clinton administration has agreed to allow two Libyans charged in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland to be tried by a Scottish court in the Netherlands, an administration official said Monday. .''It's appalling,'' said Susan Cohen, whose daughter, Theodora, died in the attack. ''It's a desecration. It's the one thing that the U.S. government said it would never do. ''What does it say about the integrity of the American legal system when a terrorist takes the line that he can't get a fair trial in America and wants it in a neutral country - and we agree to hold a trial somewhere else? Why should a terrorist have a right to decide where he is tried?'' ." Weekly Standard Tucker Carlson 8/24/98 "The day after terrorists blew up two U.S. embassies in East Africa, Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser, held a meeting at the White House to discuss the American response to the bombings. The secretaries of state and defense, along with the attorney general and the heads of the CIA and the FBI, were there. Absent from the table, however, was Bill Clinton. After a morning engagement with his personal lawyer, the president took the rest of the day off and played golf.." Hindustan Times 8/26/98 "In a significant development, Pakistan has confirmed that the US deputy chief of joint staff visited Islamabad on the night of the US missile attacks on Afghanistan and hinted at the impending action, and that the matter was brought to the notice of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif immediately. The InterServices Public Relations (ISPR) said Gen. Joseph Ralston had stopped over at Islamabad from 0730 hrs to 1030 hrs (local time) on Aug. 20 and was received at the airport by army chief and chairman of joint chiefs of staff committee Gen. Jehangir Karamat. The same night around 1030 hrs the US launched Cruise attacks on suspected terrorist camps run by Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden inside Afghanistan leading to widespread protests in Pakistan and the government was blamed of being in the know of the attack. The Sharif Government had, however, vehemently denied this charge.." Reuters 8/25/98 "As U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin enjoys a last week of summer vacation, a nightmare scenario is threatening to unfold for the global economy that could be beyond the reach of U.S. policymakers. The financial crisis that started in Asia last year once looked manageable, but analysts warned

Monday it may turn into a global epidemic. Billions of dollars in international emergency aid have failed to contain the turmoil. There is hardly an emerging market left that has been spared. Russia's economy is crumbling fast, and now Latin America threatens to become the next victim.." Electronic Mail and Guardian Johannesburg 8/25/98 "A RADICAL group calling itself Muslims Against Global Oppression have claimed responsibility for a bomb blast at the Plant Hollywood restaurant in Cape Town on Tuesday evening which killed a woman and wounded 24 other people. Police say the casualties might rise. A member of the organisation telephoned a local radio station, Cape Talk, to say that the "jihad" (holy war) had begun. He did not elaborate..." Hong Kong Standard 9/3/98 "The Saudi Arabian government is secretly funding the Afghan Taleban militia, according to a report. The Independent newspaper quoted an ex-senior Pakistani official as saying: ``The US provided the weapons and the know-how, the Saudis provided the funds and we provided the training camps . . . for the Islamic legions in the early 1980s and then for the Taleban.'' .Had US intelligence operatives ``had a deeper understanding of the religious situation in Saudi Arabia'', says Obaid, they might have been able to prevent the 1996 bombing at Dharan." The Times (London) 10/25/98 Hugh McManners ".Britain's nuclear missiles may soon be retargeted for strikes at new enemies including Iraq, Libya and North Korea. The biggest threat is now from biological and chemical weapons held by small nations with extremist governments, rather than nuclear powers. The change is proposed in a confidential Ministry of Defence study that reviews the strategy in which missiles have been pointed at the former Soviet Union ever since Britain acquired nuclear weapons.." NY Post 12/12/98 Andy Geller ".Abu Abbas, cruel mastermind of the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, has been invited to hear President Clinton address the Palestinian National Council on Monday. But an aide to the former Palestinian guerrila leader said he probably won't show. The United States had sought Abbas for years in the killing of New York tourist Leon Klinghoffer, who was murdered when the Italian liner was hijacked by members of Abbas' guerrilla band in 1985. The 69-year-old wheelchairbound Klinghoffer was shot dead and then dumped overboard. Abbas is a member of the council, the top Palestinian decisionmaking body. His aide said Abbas was in Iraq on business.." Freeper mass55th adds ".And they bitch because Bob Barr accepted an invitation from a fellow Congressman and addressed an ALLEGED white supremacy group? After drug dealers and arms traffickers visiting the first felon in the White House, and his being received in Tiananmen Square in Communist China, why would it surprise us that Bill Clinton may be rubbing elbows with a wanted terrorist?." newsmax 1/8/99 ".A Letter To The President Oliver North January 8, 1999 Dear Mr. Impeached President, First, a belated Happy New Year to you and Mrs. Clinton. Hopefully your holiday was pleasant. I know how trying the season can be, facing the prospect of a trial. I well remember what it was like for me and my family back in the 1980s when the Democrats who controlled Congress probed every aspect of our personal lives and then dispatched a vicious prosecutor to tear into what was left. .But you have said numerous times recently that you are not going to let any of this interfere with your "doing the job" you were "elected to do." That's why I'm writing to you now. I don't mean to complain, but I have a legal problem of my own that seems to be part of your "job." During the Christmas holidays, while you were walking on the beach at Hilton Head, Muammar Qaddafi, the despotic nut-case that rules Libya, filed an indictment, an arrest warrant and an extradition request against me and eight other Americans. The Libyans say that all nine of us have to be turned over for trial in Tripoli because we were involved in the 1986 bombing raid on Libya after their brutal terrorist attack in Berlin that killed two U.S. servicemen..." Wall Street Journal 1/13/99 Mark Mitchell ".KINSHASA, Congo--Burly Zimbabwean commanders boast of battlefield victories. Angolan soldiers, automatic weapons slung over their shoulders, quaff Primus beer. A pilot from Sudan confides to me his grim stories of massacres committed by troops from Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. There are cackles and the clink of glasses from a dark corner, where a European ambassador entertains a newly acquired lady friend. Such is a recent scene in the lobby bar of Kinshasa's Intercontinental Hotel, home to some of the characters involved with the biggest war in Africa since World War II. Seven regional powers, all with wildly diverging and nefarious aims, have armies battling in Congo, formerly Zaire. At least another eight African states--from Libya to South Africa--are working behind the scenes in the five-month-old conflict. The Congolese forces in the middle of this mess-- President Laurent Kabila's army and a fractured rebel movement--seem resigned to mutual destruction.People throughout the world often believe that America either is the source of their problems or has the answers to them. The U.S. didn't cause the war here, but a case could be made that the fighting has worsened partly because of President Clinton's incoherent foreign policy.." PBS 1/26/99 PBS Frontline Freeper arturo ".Starting the episode with the President posturing at the dedication of the Holocaust Center, and ending with clinton posturing at the Rwanda airport, where, as the

narrator stated, the engines of Air Force One were never even turned off, Frontline was scathing in its treatment of the clinton administration's role in the massacre of 800,000 Rwandans.." Atlantic City Press 7/25/98 "Greece said Friday its foreign minister was justified in calling President Clinton a liar because his administration has backed away from promises to resolve the Cyprus Dispute. "Mr (Theodoros) Pangalos said a truth. He didn't make up or imagine things in order to make a statement," said government spokesman Dimitris Reppas. On Thursday, Pangalos described pre-election promises made by Clinton to help resolve the 24-year division of Cyprus as "gross lies." ." Daily Republican 3/4/99 Freeper hope Tatsudo Akyama "Meanwhile, a Clinton administration spokesperson said nothing about the death of the Americans in a prepared statement, "...the rebels who kidnapped the tourists on Monday and killed their Ugandan guides, will be brought to justice." " Associated Press 3/15/99 Anwar Faruqi "The United Arab Emirates says it may pull out of an $8 billion deal to buy 80 F-16s from Lockheed Martin Corp. because it wants the jet fighters equipped with technology that is restricted by Washington. The UAE wants software codes for the F-16 Fighting Falcons' electronic warfare systems that would enable the planes to discern whether other aircraft are friendly or hostile. The United States does not allow release of the full codes. "We are still studying the deal with our friends. We have asked for certain requirements. If they are not met, then the UAE has other options in the international market,'' Sheik Mohammed said at the International Defense Exhibition, the Middle East's largest arms show." Global Intelligence Update 3/15/99 Freeper Brian Mosely "Saudi Arabia has signed a protocol with Afghanistan's Taleban militia, allowing only Taleban-certified Afghans to participate in the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Saudi Arabia's de facto recognition of the Taleban government suggests that the rumored split between the Taleban and Osama bin Laden may have some basis in fact." AP BREAKING NEWS 2/27/99 "President Robert Mugabe lashed out at whites and declared the government would relaunch efforts to seize 520 white-owned farms in Zimbabwe and give the land to blacks, state media reported Saturday. A court ruled in January that the government had been late in filing paperwork to seize the farms, which comprise 2 million acres. Mugabe said the correct procedural steps would be taken to continue the process, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation reported. In comments to his party's central committee Friday, he criticized whites ``who have sworn to resist, at each and every stage, the land acquisition and resettlement process we are pursuing." http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpin1x.htm 3/30/99 Freeper thanatos "Rebel forces in the Congo have massacred civilians and enforced a reign of terror that overshadows the widespread human rights abuses committed by the government, a U.N. expert said Tuesday. In his report, Chilean lawyer Roberto Garreton accused both the government and the rebels of violent abuses while fighting a war since August in the Central African nation. ``Both parties to the armed conflict have disregarded the rules of international humanitarian law, particularly the rebels, who display unusual cruelty,'' he said. " AFP 3/31/99 Yahoo! News "A report on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda says Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) troops committed atrocities against civilians after ending the massacres of Tutsis and moderate Hutus, its joint authors said here Wednesday. However, investigators inside Rwanda focused mainly on the butchery by Hutu extremists. They found that the "genocide grew by stages and makes clear that the slaughter could have been interrupted at any one of several points if the international community had been willing to act," the report says. The inquiry, which runs to more than 900 pages, is called "No Witnesses Must Survive: The Genocide in Rwanda". The authors said it contains thousands of previously unpublished reports from, and concerning, the genocidal government. Independent investigators from the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and US-based Human Rights Watch (HWR) found that at least 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred in 1994, confirming previous accounts that the overall toll could be as high as 800,000 "The organisers of the genocide were originally a small group, but they struck so swiftly and ruthlessly on April 6, 1994, that they gave the impression of a far larger force," according to the FIDH and HWR/Africa. "Within days, they took control of the military and adminstrative hierarchy and won the support of important political leaders,A it said But investigators also lashed out "various international actors in the genocide". The FIDH and HWR stated that in addition to the "generally acknowledged warnings of the catastrophe, (the report) adds dozens of other indicators that were known at least to the chief players in Paris, Brussels, Washington and at the UN. Various international leaders understood the importance of these warnings, but they cared too little to respond effectively to them." The report made sharp and detailed attacks on Belgium, the United States and Britain for their various roles. UN troops were in Rwanda when the atrocities began, but Washington and London saw that they were pulled out." Los Angeles Times 4/14/99 Ann Simmons Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...EXCERPTS "Aid: Human rights officials say Yugoslavia mission contrasts sharply with the lack of such efforts in places like Rwanda.

officials say Yugoslavia mission contrasts sharply with the lack of such efforts in places like Rwanda. NAIROBI, Kenya--NATO's decision to use military force in Kosovo has reinforced the view among many Africans that the world community is less inclined to intervene to halt conflicts here than it is in many other regions. ...."We continue seeing double standards applied, and that is not good for the global village as a whole," said Ngande Mwanajiti, executive director of the International Inter-African Network for Human Rights, or AFRONET, which is based in the Zambian capital Lusaka. "The question to be asked is [whether] Africa is considered part of the international community." ..." Associated Press 4/15/99 Hrvoje Hranjski Rwanda "...A Roman Catholic bishop was arrested yesterday for allegedly participating in the country's 1994 genocide. Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo said Bishop Augustin Misago was being held in ''preventive detention'' until authorities decide whether to try him in Kigali or in his diocese of Gikongoro, in southern Rwanda. Mucyo declined to elaborate on the charges but said they were serious and related to allegations of a Misago role in the genocide of more than 500,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. President Pasteur Bizimungu and Tutsi survivors of the massacres in Gikongoro Prefecture said the bishop had refused shelter to Tutsis trying to escape death from Hutu mobs and, in one case, was responsible for sending to their death 19 schoolgirls he had ordered expelled from the Kibeho high school, 60 miles south of Kigali....Relations between the government and the Roman Catholic church have been tense. Groups of genocide survivors have demanded a public apology from the clergy for the killings in churches and missionary-run schools, where thousands of Tutsis were hacked and burned to death by Hutu soldiers and militiamen, often with the complicity of the priests...." AP Headlines 4/13/99 "...Hundreds of people fleeing Sierra Leone's civil war perish each week from disease in crowded state-run refugee camps and in communities behind rebel lines, the country's health minister said Tuesday. At least 25 children recently died in an epidemic of chicken pox at a camp in the government-held eastern town of Kenema, while other casualties were reported in camps in the capital, Freetown, Ibrahim Tejan-Jalloh said. Doctors had been airlifted to Kenema to contain the outbreak, he said. Epidemics of measles, dysentery, scabies and influenza were also killing refugees already weakened by hunger and exhaustion in both government and rebel-controlled regions of the densely-forested West African country, Tejan-Jalloh...." Houston Chronicle 4/9/99 Roger Winter "...A year ago, President Clinton traveled to Rwanda, where he acknowledged what I believe is the greatest moral failure of his administration. In a brief stopover at Kigali airport, during which the engines of Air Force One were never shut down, Clinton bit his lip in the mask of contrition that Americans have grown so familiar with during the last year. "We come here today partly in recognition of the fact that we in the United States and the world community did not do as much as we could have and should have done to try to limit what occurred in Rwanda," he said. Later he added: "We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We did not immediately call these crimes by their right name: genocide." In fact, the Clinton administration studiously avoided dealing with the highly organized campaign by fanatical killers who were determined to exterminate a huge portion of Rwanda's population in 1994. These killers achieved almost 80 percent of their goal. Between 800,000 and 1 million men, women and children were butchered, most by machete, many in the churches into which they had fled. I was in Rwanda during the height of the genocide, traveling from village to village trying to document murder and mutilation on an unfathomable scale....The first body I saw was an older man who looked as if he had been murdered as he tried to escape by leaping through an open window. He was hacked to death. I could see through the windows the rooms were full of others. I entered each room, struggling to breathe, while photographing the bodies. They had clearly been dead for more than a week. All had been mutilated -- genitals or breasts hacked off, limbs severed, skulls split. Of all the dead, there was a little boy perhaps a year old who caught my attention. He apparently had been held by one arm while his other arm and a leg had been hacked off, then his crotch cut out. He had swollen and baked since death. It appeared rats had nibbled his torso. Across Rwanda, nearly 1 million civilians were massacred like this in just 100 days. The human-rights community, including my organization, was in Rwanda during the early days of the genocide. What we saw horrified us, and we rushed to Washington to report our findings to government officials at as many agencies and as many levels as we could. In what I view as a willful act of negligence, the Clinton administration was afraid to label this wholesale massacre as "genocide." By calling it genocide, then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher would have had to acknowledge that the United States had a moral obligation to intervene. As the Clinton administration feigned ignorance, thousands died horrific deaths every day. It insults their memory to pretend our government did not comprehend what was going on. One year after the president's apology and five years after the beginning of genocide in Rwanda, I still weep for that little boy, so near in age to my own grandson. And despite my usual pride in our country and its people, I am deeply, deeply ashamed of how we failed him...." The Wall Street Journal Europe 4/30/99 "...With everyone's attention glued to Kosovo, it is easy to forget that bullets are flying and refugees are taking cover in a lot of other places as well. Indeed, no fewer than 20 wars, all of them bad and most of them unnoticed in the West, are being waged in various parts of the world.

Some of the bloodiest battles--bloodier even than those in Kosovo--are taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where President Laurent Kabila's troops and a hodgepodge of rebel groups and armies of at least seven nations have been fighting each other since August. Thousands of soldiers have died and reports of mass slaughters of civilians come out of the country on what seems like a weekly basis. The tented camps in Macedonia and Albania, as squalid as they are, seem almost luxurious in comparison to the malaria- and cholera-infested refugee settlements that have cropped up along the Congolese borders with Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. America and Europe cannot, of course, send their military to attend to all of the world's human tragedies. But the lack of even sustained diplomatic gestures from the West has created a void in Congo that has been filled by some unlikely peace-makers. The most prominent of these is Libya's dictator, Moammar Gadhafi, who has declared himself to be the "leading peace coordinator" for Central Africa...." NY Times 5/8/99 AP "...Fear and death stalk the people living near Congo's border in western Uganda. Rebels raid villages, slaughter the residents, steal their meager belongings and chase the survivors into the dense tropical forests. Sarile Mukoko knows firsthand the brutality inflicted by the insurgents. ``They first cut her throat,'' Mukoko said, describing an attack he and other relatives watched last month from a hiding spot in the bushes. ``She was pregnant and they used a long sharp knife to rip open her abdomen,'' he said. ``There were twins and they threw them into the bushes.'' ....Mary Mwindu remembers when rebels came to her village in April and shot dead six of her relatives -- including two brothers. Now she and her husband and six children wear rags for clothes and use papyrus mats for beds. They live in a small thatched hut. ``This is the end of the world for us,'' Mwindu said. ``We do not hope to go back to our home because of the rebels. They are very powerful and I do not think the army can manage them.''..." BBC Online 6/7/99 "...Ethnic violence in the oil-rich Niger delta is reportedly raging out of control, with hundreds of people fleeing the fighting. Despite the deployment of government troops on Friday, many buildings in the regional capital, Warri, have been set alight and eyewitnesses say there has been constant gunfire. One resident contacted by telephone said the situation was more violent than it had ever been...... The clashes are part of a long-running and complex feud over land and local government involving two main ethnic groups - the Itsekiris and the Ijaws. A third group, the Urhobos, also appears to have joined in the confrontation, reportedly on the side of the Ijaws...." The Electronic Telegraph 6/14/99 Anton La Guardia "...IN his closing act of foreign policy, President Mandela lent his prestige yesterday to hasten Libya's international rehabilitation. He gave an open-armed welcome to Col Gaddafi, who arrived in Cape Town for a three-day official visit as part of his first tour abroad since sanctions against Libya were lifted in April. As Mr Mandela prepares to hand over power to his successor, Thabo Mbeki, at a lavish ceremony on Wednesday, Col Gaddafi's visit is a sign that he is being given pride of place among the dozens of presidents, royalty and prime ministers due at the festivities. "I have said that I would never desert my friends who were with us when we were all alone," said Mr Mandela. Those who disapproved could "go jump in a pool". Col Gaddafi replied that he felt honoured. "It is a dream to be here, when the country is free, with my brother freedom fighter Nelson Mandela," he said..." The Associated Press Jasper Mortimer 6/20/99 "...On the surface, Egypt's Christians appear to be doing well. They have no qualms about wearing crucifixes in public. They socialize freely with members of the Islamic majority. Their entrepreneurs are among the barons of the private sector. Still, members of Egypt's Coptic Christian Church say they are victimized by discrimination born of favoritism toward Muslims and resentment over Copts' prominence during the days of the monarchy. The law severely restricts the right of Copts to build churches. Schools ignore Coptic history. Local media give minimal coverage to issues affecting the Coptic community. Copts are underrepresented in politics and the public sector, which employs a third of Egypt's workforce. Responding to complaints, the government has made it easier to repair, if not build, churches. And the most recent Christmas Mass at Cairo's cathedral was televised live for the first time. ``There is no discrimination against any Egyptian whatsoever on the basis of religion,'' said Nabil Osman, chief government spokesman. But citing their community's absence from government posts, Copts challenge that denial. Just over 1 percent of parliament's members are Copts, far below their overall share of Egypt's population - 10 percent, according to the U.S. State Department...." FOX NEWS___AP 7/11/99 "Some 150,000 people have been trapped without food after heavy fighting resumed in southern Sudan, the U.N. World Food Program said Saturday. Thousands of people have fled their homes because of the fighting and had penetrated deeper into the Western Upper Nile region, the agency said in a statement. "It's a desperate situation and the turmoil just carries on,'' said David Fletcher of WFP. "If we don't get access to them soon, we could be faced with a very serious situation in a matter of weeks.'' " 7/16/99 Reuters Evelyn Leopold " Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommended on Friday a "large and expensive" peacekeeping mission for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and said up to 90 military

observers should be deployed immediately. Annan told the Security Council in a report that in order to be effective, "thousands of international troops and civilian personnel" as well as 500 military observers would eventually be needed to help maintain a ceasefire in the vast central African country. But he gave no numbers for a potential U.N. force that other officials have estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 troops." AP 7/16/99 "UNITA rebels allegedly rounded up about 50 women and children at a market, shot the women point-blank and threw the children into a nearby river, state-run media reported Friday. The alleged massacre occurred Tuesday at Sachitembo, a village 330 miles southeast of the capital, Luanda, according to Angop news agency and the state-owned daily Jornal de Noticias, which cited witnesses." AP Wire 7/22/99 George Mwangi "...AIDS killed 1.4 million people in eastern and southern Africa last year, overtaking armed conflicts as the No. 1 killer in the region, the U.N. Children's Fund said today. The epidemic, which has hit this portion of the African continent harder than anywhere else in the world, has left 6 million children orphaned in eastern and southern Africa, amounting to 70 percent of the world's AIDS orphans, said UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Stephen Lewis. ..." Universal Press Syndicate 7/28/99 Joseph Sobran "...The African country of Mauritania has a problem: slavery. This is compounded by a second problem: Most Mauritanians don't think of slavery as a problem. Boubacar Ould Messaoud, a Mauritanian abolitionist and former slave, held a press conference in Washington the other day to inform the West about the question. As quoted by Laura Vanderkam of The Washington Times, Mr. Messaoud said: "Today in Mauritania they've arrived at the 'perfect slave,' one who's completely assimilated to the master's family. They don't need physical chains because people are mentally enslaved. Slavery is so embedded, people don't know anything else. ... "Mauritania is not like the Sudan, where slaves are captured and sold. Slavery in Mauritania has existed since long before American slavery. It can't just be abolished overnight. The social climate has to change so we no longer have the mentality of slavery."..." AP 8/11/99 "...The United Nations' chief prosecutor is pressing for joint trials of suspects in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a move she says would help shrink a large backlog of cases. Louise Arbour, who also oversees the tribunal for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, has openly criticized the pace of the Rwandan court. The court began work in 1995 and has completed only four trials. It has 38 jailed suspects awaiting trial for participating in the Hutu-dominated army's slaughter of more than half a million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Arbour said Monday that joint trials of four to five suspects at once would be cheaper and more efficient. It would mean key witnesses would only have to appear once in the court, located in remote northern Tanzania...." 8/8/99 Caracas "...A powerful Constitutional Assembly dominated by supporters of President Hugo Chavez will declare Venezuela "in emergency'' Thursday, giving it the power to take action in virtually all areas of public life to root out corruption. "It's a declaration of competence,'' Constitutional Assembly First Vice President Isaias Rodriguez told reporters Tuesday. "The assembly will declare Thursday its competence to deal with national problems.'' ..." Reuters 8/11/99 "...More than 1,000 mainly white South African gun owners marched through the city to the gates of parliament Wednesday in protest at planned draconian curbs on firearm ownership. Chanting "crime control not gun control'' and carrying banners echoing the U.S. gun lobby with slogans such as "don't disarm law abiding citizens,'' the marchers handed a petition to a representative of the Safety and Security Ministry. There are four million registered firearms in South Africa - or one for every 10 men, women and children and Reverend Peter Hammond told the crowd he calculated there were up to nine million illegal guns including two million AK47 assault rifles. The march was organized by Hammond's United Christian Action and the South African Gunowners Association (SAGA). Leading opposition politicians said they also supported it. The proposed new law would limit handgun ownership to one per person as well as restricting magazine capacity to nine rounds. A license would cost 500 rand ($80) and have to be renewed every five years....." Family Research Council 9/24/99 ".On Sunday, September 26, CBS will use the season premiere of its hit show, "Touched By an Angel," as a platform to expose the ongoing human rights atrocities in the African country of Sudan. "Its encouraging to see Hollywood do its part to spread the truth about Sudan," Family Research Council Chief Spokesman Janet Parshall said Friday. "I applaud CBS and Executive Producer Martha Williamson for their courage in telling this alarming, but important, story: that the suffering people of Sudan need our help." Several members of Congress are likewise hailing Sundays episode of "Touched By an Angel." A preview screening was hosted on Capitol Hill this week by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and nine congressmen, with Executive Producer Martha Williamson and two stars of the show in attendance. At the screening, speakers vowed support of Senate Resolution 1453, known as the "Sudan Peace Act," which would facilitate relief efforts and a comprehensive solution to the war in Sudan.. ."

The Indian Express, via News Plus 11/2/99 ".... "CAIRO: Security sources said yesterday that 32 Egyptian army officers, including senior ranking personnel, had been aboard the Egyptair flight 990 which crashed off the U.S east coast on Sunday, reports PTI. [Press Trust of India] The sources that refused to be identified said the officers had been receiving military training in the United States as part of cooperation agreements between Cairo and Washington. They were from different branches of the egyptian armed forces and included army pilots and anti-aircraft defence officers, the sources added...." Fox News 11/1/99 AP "..About 30 Egyptian military officers were aboard EgyptAir Flight 990 when it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off Nantucket with 217 people on board, U.S. defense officials said Monday. The officials, who asked not to be identified, said the Egyptians from different branches of that country's military had been in the United States for training and were heading home when the airliner crashed Sunday, apparently killing all aboard. One security source in Cairo said the group represented various branches of the armed forces and included four Air Force officers, two brigadiers-general, a colonel and a major. "Three of the officers went on board the plane without being checked in,'' one of the aviation sources said, without explaining why. " UPI wire 11/1/99 "..About 600 FBI agents are investigating the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, U.S. officials said Monday. The cause of the air crash that killed 217 people Sunday remains unknown, but agents are gathering as much information as they can about the passengers and the cargo on the flight." ." newsmax.com 11/1/99 "..Already the tragic flight of an EgyptAir jet is making news on the conspiracy mill. Perhaps even more so because of the seeming snap judgment of federal authorities who have downplayed any idea of a terrorist attack -- or worse. There is "no indication that any criminal act took place," Coast Guard Rear Adm. Richard Larabee was quoted yesterday as saying. How about holding an investigation before federal officials like Larabee make any presumptive judgment? EgyptAir's Boeing 767 fell from the sky sometime early Sunday morning -- at about 2 a.m. Later Sunday morning, NewsMax.com editor Christopher Ruddy was on United flight #976, which departed JFK at 9:15 a.m. headed for London. At about 10 a.m., Ruddy put on his headset. He clicked through the music channels and tuned in to transmissions between his United plane and air traffic control in the United States. "Air traffic control was advising planes to change their flight paths, giving out new coordinates and altitudes for planes on the flight paths over the Atlantic," Ruddy recalled the conversation he overheard. "At one point, a crew member of one of the planes radioed air traffic control to ask why the change. Air traffic control responded that 'there are rockets being fired in the area.'" .." New York Post (via newsmax) 11/1/99 Bill Sanderson Niles Lathem "..An explosion caused by a bomb or mechanical failure is the most likely cause of yesterday's EgyptAir crash, a former top federal transportation official says. "Statistically, at this altitude and with this kind of catastrophic destruction, you are usually talking about an explosion," said Mary Schiavo, an ex-inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Less than 6 percent of air crashes involve planes at cruising altitude, Schiavo said. And while explosions sometimes have mechanical causes, Schiavo said planes rarely develop catastrophic mechanical problems at high altitude - so in her view, the EgyptAir probers have to seriously consider a bomb. ..But experts note that several other high-altitude disasters have been caused by explosions - including the crashes of three trans-Atlantic Boeing 747s: TWA Flight 800 in 1996, Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 and Air India Flight 182 in 1985. Investigators concluded that the Pan Am and Air India jets were felled by bombs. They suspect the TWA crash was caused by an accidental explosion in the fuel tank.." Electronic Telegraph 11/2/99 Paul Marston Tony Harnden ".AVIATION experts say sabotage is the likeliest cause of the EgyptAir disaster off the Atlantic coast of America, although mechanical failure is not being ruled out. The facts that the Boeing 767-300ER was cruising at 33,000ft when the disaster occurred, and that the flight crew could not issue a distress call, persuaded most airline engineers that some form of terrorist action was to blame. Cruising is regarded as the safest phase of flight: stresses on the aircraft's frame and mechanical equipment are lower than during take-off or landing. If a massive technical failure had occurred at such an altitude, the pilots, unless incapacitated, would have had time to alert air traffic control.." Independent 10/13/99 Robert Fisk ".....AS SAUDI Arabia continues a frenzy of head-chopping executions, the United States has extradited to the kingdom a man wanted for the 1996 Dhahran bombing which killed 26 people - and who therefore faces almost certain death within a few weeks. The country's "justice" - regularly criticised by the US State Department for its routine denial of access to lawyers and trials which fail to meet any international standards - is likely to send Hani el-Sayegh to death whether or not he protests his innocence...." London Telegraph 10/27/99 Christopher Munnion ".... LEGISLATION to outlaw discriminatory terms from "coolie" to "kaffir" and establish "equality courts" where an offender will have to prove his innocence was

tabled by the South African government yesterday. The Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Bill promises to be the most controversial law yet introduced by the African National Congress government since the fall of the apartheid regime. Opposition MPs, business leaders, lawyers and even some human rights groups have described the legislation as "unworkable, unenforceable and totally counter-productive to the cause of racial harmony"...." M ISCELLANEOUS EUROPE AND NORTH/SOUTH AM ERICA Statements that Cuba is no longer a threat to the U.S. Barrelo/Intriago - Llanes COSCO/Long Beach - China O'Leary won a policy battle against stiff opposition from Pentagon and national security lobby for technology to use supercomputer models to halt further U.S. nuclear testing and persuade the other leading nuclear powers to sign a test ban treaty. Two mothballed U.S. military transport planes (Lockheed Hercules C-130s) fell into the hands of notorious Mexican drug runners, Arellano Felix brothers Benjamin and Ramon (Tijuana drug cartel) air- frieght connection: Aero Postal . The planes were sold to T&G Aviation who received permission from State to ship them to Guadalajara. DEA revealed that Luis Carlos Herrera-Lizcano, a top Cali and Medelln cartel operative, had tried years before to buy mothballed C-130s from the Australian government through an attorney and corporate secretary for T&G - but no connection with the T&G was detected by the Clinton Administration. Because time is running out and talks have stalled, there is a strong possibility that the American presence in Panama will disappear as of the Dec. 31, 1999, canal transfer date. Sen. James M. Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who heads the subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that President Clinton leaned on military commanders to cover up serious shortcomings in the armed forces, including the effects of the Bosnian deployment on preparedness and the extent of the missile threat to the United States. 7/26/98 Robert Novak Chicago Sun Times "House Republican investigators say they have been told by South Florida sources that they were solicited for Democratic campaign contributions by convicted fundraiser Howard Glicken with the promise that, in return, the 2000 Democratic National Convention would be held in Miami.Burton committee investigators for many months have been preparing the way for ``Southern Front'' hearings. They would show that clandestine funds were coming into the Clinton-Gore campaign from Latin America at the same time as illegal money flowed from Asia. .." WorldNetDaily Charles Smith 8/4/98 ".In 1994, Silicon Graphics, along with Tandem and several other major computer companies, hired Tony Podesta to lobby for them. Tony Podesta is the brother of John Podesta, Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary for Bill Clinton. In 1994, John Podesta was also in charge of Clinton computer technology export policies such as high speed systems and encryption. In 1994, Tandem, Silicon Graphics and even Cray Super-Computers were all suddenly authorized to travel with Ron Brown to Russia, India, China and other points on the globe. In 1995, during John Podesta's employ at the White House, a lobbyist from Tony Podesta's company attended a secret meeting at the White House on supercomputer exports. The group of computer companies then represented by Podesta have already admitted in writing they attended "classified" briefings held by the Clinton administration. Today, John Podesta is rumored to be seeking the job of Erskine Bowles as Chief of Staff. In 1997 the GAO wrote a report on what Silicon Graphics exported. "Silicon Graphics sold four computers to Chelyabinsk-70 in the fall of 1996 for $650,000," states the 1997 GAO report on super-computer exports. Chelyabinsk-70 is well known as a major Russian nuclear weapons lab.." BBC World News 8/15/98 "At least 25 people, including an 18-month-old infant, have been killed in the worst paramilitary bombing since the start of the Northern Ireland conflict 30 years ago. Political leaders have been joined by the Queen in expressing their sympathy for the bereaved and those injured in the explosion, who could number as high as 100. Martin McGuinness, the chief negotiator for Sinn Fein, said: "This appalling act was carried out by those opposed to the peace process. "." Reuters 8/25/98 "As U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin enjoys a last week of summer vacation, a nightmare scenario is threatening to unfold for the global economy that could be beyond the reach of U.S. policymakers. The financial crisis that started in Asia last year once looked manageable, but analysts warned Monday it may turn into a global epidemic. Billions of dollars in international emergency aid have failed to

contain the turmoil. There is hardly an emerging market left that has been spared. Russia's economy is crumbling fast, and now Latin America threatens to become the next victim.." Reuters 9/2/98 "Finance officials from Latin America's nine main economies will meet at the IMF Thursday to discuss the fallout from global markets turmoil amid worries that Colombia's devaluation could hurt other currencies in the region. The International Monetary Fund invited finance ministers and central bank governors to a two-day ``regional surveillance'' meeting to exchange views on how best to cope with the emerging markets rout sparked by the rouble crisis." The Times (London) 10/25/98 Hugh McManners ".Britain's nuclear missiles may soon be retargeted for strikes at new enemies including Iraq, Libya and North Korea. The biggest threat is now from biological and chemical weapons held by small nations with extremist governments, rather than nuclear powers. The change is proposed in a confidential Ministry of Defence study that reviews the strategy in which missiles have been pointed at the former Soviet Union ever since Britain acquired nuclear weapons.." Irish news 12/14/98 Freeper Big Dog summary ".The Irish News is reporting tonight that the IRA are ready to resume a violent campaign of Bombing and shooting as we approach Christmas. The move comes in spite of North south Elected governments, a withdrawel of British troops, 400 terrorists released, and a United Ireland in it's embyonic stage. The IRA has had all of it's demands met and now it is time to see what happens when a president and a Prime Minister decide to grant terrorists all of their wishes. According to the Good Friday agreement, in exchange for all of the above concessions, the IRA would give up their weapons of Mass destruction. I visited N.Irealnd less than a month ago and I witnessed the most unbelievable turn of events. The Orange order, an organization founded on Christianity requiring it's members to be Christians was not allowed to March home from Church. ." Washington Times 1/15/99 Tom Carter ".Haiti stands again on the edge of chaos, with its parliament dissolved, its president threatening to rule by decree and its police still unable to rein in the gunmen who wreak political terror on the streets of the capital. A 17-month constitutional crisis came to head on Monday when President Rene Preval, a protege of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide, shut down the hostile legislature, claiming its legal standing had expired. Edgard Leblanc, president of the General Assembly, denounced the decision in a telephone interview with The Washington Times, calling it "a coup d'etat against the democratic institutions, the parliament, the mayors and the local officials." The decision was also a slap in the face of senior Clinton administration officials, who have streamed to the capital, Port-au-Prince, in recent months, trying to shore up the shaky experiment in democratic government imposed with a U.S. invasion in 1994.." The Marshfield Mail 1/27/99 Jack Anderson Jan Moller ".Renee Preval, Haiti's elected president since 1996, has tired of democracy. He's disbanded his country's parliament and will rule by decree-at least until next year, when he's expected to turn things over to former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Shortly after his announcement, Preval's sister was shot and her driver killed in Haiti's capital of Port Au Prince, prompting foreign organizations to pull out their workers from fear of violence. Revolution in a tiny, impoverished country like Haiti normally wouldn't be big news in self-obsessed Washington. Except the coup comes barely four years after Bill Clinton sent 20,000 American troops there to restore Aristide to power after a 1991 military coup.." The Progressive 2/15/99 Sam Smith ".Twenty scientists from around the world have come to the defense of a British researcher forced out of his government funded post for reporting that lab rats suffered a reduction in brain size, liver damage, and a weakening of their immune system after being fed genetically modified potatoes for only 10 days. The development of the animals' kidney, thymus, spleen and gut were also affected.. And the BBC quoted another scientist as saying "We simply do not have sufficient understanding of the principles of physiological regulation to enable us to categorize these genetic modifications that will pose a risk and those that do not." ..Prime Minister Tony Blair has rejected altered food protests from consumers, scientists and environmental groups. The London Independent reports that "Bill Clinton has personally intervened with Tony Blair to stop Britain from halting the controversial production of genetically engineered foods. The US President telephoned the Prime Minister during the summer to try to persuade him that genetically modified crops--worth millions of pounds ($$$$) to the U.S. economy --would not be bad for Britain... The Clinton Administration has close links with Monsanto, (note: Tippers brother is head of Monsanto) --the powerful biotechnology conglomerate which develops the seeds for GM crops.. " Political Review 2/19/99 D. K. Zimmerman ". President Clinton flew off to Mexico to flaunt his personal failure to faithfully execute another legally mandated presidential duty. Annually, thirty countries must be certified by the administration as continuing to do their share in stopping drug traffic. Loss of this certification requires severe trade restrictions. Every responsible agency, the State Department, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the CIA and even the FBI, confidentially reported Mexico's failure to play ball. American agencies have

repeatedly supplied Mexican authorities with Mexican nationals' names, requesting their extradition or apprehension. The Mexicans simply refuse. One agency went so far as to supply Mexicans the names, phone numbers, and addresses of two particular drug chieftains. They haven't even been picked-up for questioning..Clinton's response on Monday? Mexico's cooperation with our drug interdiction efforts "has clearly improved under President Zedillo's leadership." He will not only re-certified them, he has proposed extending billions of dollars in special trade loans to Mexico.." Miami Herald 3/4/99 Andres Oppenheimer and Juan Tamayo "A spate of construction at the Russian spy base in Cuba that included three new satellite dishes, a parking lot and even a swimming pool has sparked a debate in Washington over whether Moscow is upgrading or merely maintaining the facility. Many in the U.S. intelligence community and conservatives in Congress argue that the construction amounts to a dangerous expansion of the Lourdes base near Havana that could endanger U.S. military interventions in foreign trouble spots like Kosovo. In a classified briefing to several members of Congress and aides Feb. 24, CIA and other U.S. intelligence officials said the Russians had ``intensified their activities in Lourdes, according to three people with access to the briefing. The number of satellite dishes has doubled from three to six and workers built new buildings, new parking lots and a swimming pool for the Russian military technicians who run the base, the sources said" Associated Press 3/16/99 "Stunned by allegations of cronyism and fraud in their ranks, the European Unions chief executive and 19 other senior officials resigned early today, throwing the powerful trading bloc into turmoil. Jacques Santer, president of the European Commission, and his fellow commissioners took the unprecedented action after an investigative panel issued a report accusing some of them of maintaining lax control over aid programs and putting friends and relatives on the payroll." Washington Post 3/17/99 David Broder Freeper Stand Watch Listen "Neither Aristide nor his successor, Rene Preval, has been able to bring peace or democracy to Haiti. Factional fighting has immobilized the government and stymied efforts at economic recovery. And now that the factionalism has provoked assassinations and bombings reminiscent of the bad old days, the 500 U.S. troops still in Haiti spend much of their energy just trying to protect themselves against those they came to help. It would be difficult for the Clinton administration to accept the general's call for a pullout" Washington Times 3/23/99 Shelley Emling "...In the fall of 1994, President Clinton confounded his critics by successfully using 20,000 U.S.-led forces to overthrow a brutal military regime here and give democracy a second chance. Almost no blood was shed. A triumph in foreign policy was declared. But today, after nearly five years of pouring more than $2.2 billion of U.S. taxpayers' money into Haiti, there is little to feel triumphant about....A foreboding came in January when Haitian President Rene Preval dissolved the parliament, effectively implementing one-man rule. Government gridlock over economic reforms had already frozen nearly $1 billion in aid pledged by international financial institutions - partly underwritten by the United States - that might have aided development....An analysis of the Clinton administration's aid program here by Cox Newspapers shows instead that despite U.S. efforts, roads are crumbling, electricity and clean water are scarce, and many children still go hungry as per-capita annual income has fallen from $260 in 1994 to $225 today...He said the World Bank, which recently suspended about half of a $50 million loan to Haiti for road construction because officials failed to report how they used the money, has determined that it is no longer "responsible" to negotiate new projects with Haiti..." 3/26/99 Miami Herald Michael Norton "President Rene Preval appointed a new government by decree Thursday in an attempt to end nearly two years of crisis and regain the confidence of the international community. Haiti's new government, packed with Preval allies, was immediately criticized by his political opponents. But it is likely to be welcomed by Haiti's business sector and an international community frustrated by the country's long political stalemate. ``We've taken a big step forward,'' Premier JacquesEdouard Alexis said on the radio. The new government is expected to organize elections -- a difficult prospect in a country where allegations of fraudulent vote-counting and rigged ballots have prompted most parties to boycott the electoral process. ``This government didn't get parliamentary approval. It will pursue Preval's anti-democratic project'' to concentrate power in the president's hands, said." Atlanta Journal and Constitution 5/2/99 Shelley Emling Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...In Haiti, there is mounting opposition to the U.S. presence --- the Parliament has passed a law ordering foreign troops off Haitian soil, although it has not been enforced. And in Washington, key Republicans, who portray the mission as a failure, also have called on Clinton to remove the troops. "Our soldiers are down there with giant bull's-eyes on their backs, and they need to be pulled out, and right now," said Rep. Porter Goss (RFla.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. "This is supposed to be a peacekeeping mission yet these folks are at risk in an increasingly dangerous situation." Even so, the Clinton administration has yet to present a clear exit strategy in Haiti or immediate plans for the withdrawal of troops...."

Reuters 5/5/99 "...In a short ceremony, U.S. troops rolled up the flag of the drug busters unit that had been stationed at Howard Air Force Base, located at the Pacific mouth of the Panama Canal. Two years of talks between the United States and Panama to turn Howard Air Force Base into a multilateral counter-narcotics center failed last September. Without a new agreement, the United States must abide by a 1977 treaty which dictates the pullout of U.S. troops and the handover of control of the Panama Canal from the United States to the Panamanian government by Dec. 31. The United States has already transferred the headquarters of its anti-drug trafficking operations to Key West, Florida and will operate surveillance flights from stations in Ecuador, Aruba and Curacao, Air Force officials said. At its peak, the task force in Panama consisted of about 2,000 soldiers who were involved in anti-drug intelligence gathering activities in Latin America's Caribbean, Andean, and Central American regions. ..." Palm Beach Post 5/6/99 Shelley Emling Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...The latest sign that U.S. troops are increasingly in danger from the very people they're here to help came abruptly at dawn on April 23. Dozens of soldiers had assembled near the front gate of the American military compound known as Camp Fairwinds for an early run in the steamy Haitian heat. Suddenly, gunshots rang out. ...the Clinton administration has yet to present a clear exit strategy in Haiti or immediate plans for withdrawal of troops. ..." AFP 5/14/99 "... The menace of China's nuclear war machine returned to haunt leading British and US media outlets on Friday, as highly placed US defence sources warned against serious breaches of national security. Britain's nuclear submarine fleet may be in danger following the theft of secret information that has been passed to China, according to the BBC. The story hit the airwaves on the same day that the New York Times quoted US intelligence officials as saying that China is preparing to deploy missiles with a nuclear warhead designed from stolen US secrets..... A senior member of the US Senate Intelligence Committee told the British state broadcaster that a "significant breach of security" may have "compromised" British and US nuclear submarines....." Orlando Sentinel 5/6/88 Charlie Reese "... While the United States is committing a crime against Yugoslavia, where we have no legitimate strategic or national interests, President Clinton's Chinese friends have been busy little bees, 90 miles from our shores. Chi Haotian, minister of national defense, got together with Raul Castro, big brother Fidel's minister of defense, and decided that working together was a very good idea. Right next door to the still-active Russian electronic spy base, the Chinese will help Fidel build a brand-new electronic spy facility of his own and train his people. In return, the Chinese will have permanent presence and will share the intelligence data collected by the Cubans....." Reuters 6/4/99 "...The United States on Friday welcomed the European Union's decision to give itself defence powers for the first time in a drive to gain geopolitical clout but noted some conditions for independent action. ``We welcome the commitment of our European friends and allies to enhance their military capabilities, both as a contribution to the alliance and for autonomous European military actions when NATO is not engaged,'' said U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin. In Cologne on Thursday, European Union leaders agreed to give the 15-nation bloc defence powers and reduce military dependence on the United States. A declaration issued at an EU summit said: ``The Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises without prejudice to actions by NATO.'' ...." AP 6/24/99 "...Two anti-Castro groups filed a lawsuit Thursday against two dozen U.S. and foreign companies doing business with Cuba's government, saying the companies are aiding the oppression of island residents. The Cuban Committee for Human Rights and the Independent Federation of Electric, Gas and Water Plants of Cuba filed the suit, which seeks $1.35 billion for Cuban workers and an order banning the companies from doing business with Cuba. ``These companies are nothing but collaborators,'' said Eduardo J. Navarro, attorney for the plaintiffs...." Yahoo AFP 6/28/99 "...Cuban President Fidel Castro Monday warned his Latin American counterparts that NATO could one day bomb their countries as it did Yugoslavia, a participant at the Rio summit reported.Brazilian Senator Eduardo Suplicy said Castro made the remarks in a speech during the summit of European, Latin American and Caribbean leaders...." AP 6/27/99 "...The New York Stock Exchange chairman delivered an unusual sales pitch to the leftist guerrilla commander: Make peace and expect economic benefits from global investors. "We are very aggressive in trying to pursue international markets and opportunities," NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso said in an interview Saturday night at his Bogota hotel. Grasso met earlier in the day with Raul Reyes, head of the international commission of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, to discuss the promise of capitalism...." Stratfor.com 7/22/99 ".... On July 20 Colombian President Andres Pastrana blamed the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) leadership for the postponement of the peace talks that were to have

Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) leadership for the postponement of the peace talks that were to have started earlier this week. He also stated, in no uncertain terms, that the Colombian government and people have limits to their patience. Pastrana warned that if the peace talks fail or don't happen, the Colombian military is ready for war. Until recently, Pastrana has been very devoted to reaching a peace accord with the FARC. ...A recent poll in Colombia found that 66 percent of Colombians favored direct U.S. military intervention in Colombia. In Miami approximately 3,000 people gathered on July 20 in front of the Claude Pepper Federal Building to call attention to the situation in Colombia..." Washington Post 7/28/99 Karen DeYoung "... But all that changed in May, said [Peter] Nathan. This time, he said, U.S. officials from the several departments that manage the trade embargo against Cuba "can't do enough for me. They've been incredibly helpful." Officials have even suggested that he expand his list of U.S. companies hoping to do business with the Cuban government. Last week, invitations for the event, scheduled for next January, went out from Nathan to 5,000 American providers of everything from medicine and dental equipment to ambulances and pacemakers -- all vaguely classified as "drugs," the only products exempt from the embargo...." Washington Post - AP Breaking News 8/6/99 "...More than 600 cases of dengue -- including 10 cases of potentially deadly hemorrhagic dengue -- have been reported to Costa Rican health authorities in the last two weeks. The epidemic has been concentrated on the Atlantic Coast near the port city of Limon, 100 miles east of San Jose, officials said...." Fresno Bee 8/2/99 "...Five American soldiers were killed in a plane crash the other day in a mountainous region of Colombia.... The deaths call attention to a U.S. aid program that has grown rapidly, partly because Washington has more confidence in Colombia's new president, Andres Pastrana, than in his corrupt predecessor, and partly because of a perception that the threat to this country posed by Colombian traffickers is increasing. ....A larger problem is that U.S. aid is meant to target only Colombia's narcotics traffickers, not a 35-year-old leftist insurgency. Yet the two have become virtually indistinguishable as guerrillas extort tribute from coca growers and traffic in drugs as well..... The Pentagon insists that U.S. combat troops will not be used in Colombia. Good. But Americans have heard that before, about Vietnam, and rebels say they regard U.S. advisers as targets...." Washington Post 8/7/99 Thomas Lippman "...The economic distress of the nation's farmers trumped 30 years of foreign policy ideology this week as the Senate voted to lift the U.S. embargo on the sale of food and medicine to Cuba. Farm-state senators from both parties rallied to support an amendment to the $68 billion agriculture spending bill that would lift most unilateral U.S. embargoes on the export of food and medicine to Cuba and other countries. It also would prohibit the president from imposing such bans in the future without the consent of Congress. If enacted, the measure would sharply curtail use of a standard weapon in the foreign policy arsenal, the denial of access to U.S. agricultural bounty, medicine and medical technology. The House version of the spending bill contains no similar provision, so the outcome will be determined by a House-Senate conference...." Fox News Wire 8/8/99 AP "...The Honduran government has found a grave site containing human remains, proving that the military covered up clandestine graves at a former training base for Nicaraguan contras, justice officials said Sunday. "We have sufficient evidence that there was torture and human sacrifice'' on the site, the Attorney General's office said in a statement...." Stratfor.com 10/25/99 "..... The government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) will inaugurate long-awaited peace talks Oct. 24. Since President Andres Pastrana took office in August 1998, he has been working towards this moment. At the same time, it appears the government is also attempting to bring the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) to the bargaining table. Part of Pastrana's plan involves the financial support of the international community. The next few weeks are likely to determine whether or not Pastrana gets the financial assistance he requested......"