Taiwan's president-elect, Chen Shui-bian, on Monday called for a
"peace
summit" with China as stocks plunged over fears his election could
push the
island into a war.
Chen's comments signaled a softening of his pro-independence stance.
Still, Chen insisted the Chinese mainland should treat Taiwan as
an equal.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin responded on Monday by insisting that
Taiwan recognize Beijing and embrace the 'One China' principle,
meaning
Taiwan should acknowledge it is part of China, as a precondition
for any
talks.
Taiwan's key weighted stock index closed down 2.6 percent at 8,536.05
on
Monday, the first day of trading following Saturday's election.
Chen's
ascension ended more than a half-century of governance by the ruling
Nationalist Party.
SAO PAULO, Brazil's Government plans to repair and pave four highways
in
northern and central Brazil could devastate a huge swath of Amazon
rain
forest, covering an area more than twice the size of Portugal, the
Folha de
Sao Paulo reported on Sunday.
The report said the work to be done on the four highways -- 3,500
kilometers (2,170 miles) of roads that cut through the states Mato
Grosso,
Para, Amazonas and Roraima -- could lead to the deforestation of
up to
180,000 square kilometers (72,000 square miles) of rain forest over
the next
25 to 30 years.
The repair and paving project is part of the government's economic
development and integration program known as "Avanca Brasil," Portuguese
for
Advance Brazil.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil.Thousands of people on Sunday demanded the
cleanup of
a popular lagoon where tons of fish were recently killed by human
and
industrial waste.
Brazilian media reported that at least 7,000 people, mostly dressed
in
white, surrounded the 4 square-kilometer (11/2-square-mile) Rodrigo
de
Freitas Lagoon in what organizers said was a "symbolic embrace to
express
popular dissatisfaction."
The event was organized by more than 20 organizations that have
beenpressuring local authorities to clean up the lagoon and other
areas,
such as Guanabara Bay, recently polluted by 1.3 million liters (338,000
gallons) of oil that gushed out of a broken pipeline.
On March 5, a leaking sewer line dumped tons of raw sewage into
the
lagoon, killing tons of fish.
Making matters worse was accumulated garbage that blocked a drainage
channel linking the lagoon to the ocean. The lagoon gets its water
mainly
from the sea, via a canal.
The stench from the rotting fish drove away bikers, skaters, tennis
players,
joggers and strollers who normally flock to the park surrounding
the lagoon,
which is dotted with restaurants, outdoor cafes and refreshment
stands.
Iraq will consider increasing oil production when the issue is discussed
at
the OPEC meeting later this month, the Iraqi oil minister said Sunday,
easing the country's tough stand on maintaining production levels.
The minister, Amir Mohammed Rashid, made the remarks after meeting
with
visiting Venezuelan Oil Minister Ali Rodriguez.
Iraq will consider an increase depending on "the present demand
and our
capabilities," Rashid told reporters.
Rodriguez was in Iran on Saturday, where he met with Iranian Oil
Minister
Bijan Namdar Zanganeh. He will travel to Kuwait Monday and then
on to
Algeria and Libya.
At least 35 members of a religious minority were dragged out of their
homes
and killed by unidentified gunmen early Tuesday in India controlled
Kashmir,
police said.
Police said they have launched an operation to try to find those
responsible following the early morning attack in Chatisingpura,
about 40
miles (65 km) from Srinagar.
The shooting came just hours before U.S. President Bill Clinton
was due to
begin a state visit to India in New Delhi.
Police also say militants attacked a police station in Pattan, about
20
miles (35 km) north of Srinagar, with grenades and attack rifles.
Three
policemen were injured in that attack.
Malnourishment could stunt and handicap an estimated 1 billion children
worldwide by 2020 unless a more focused nutrition campaign is launched,
according to a new report for the United Nations.
The independent report, released Monday by the Commission on the
Nutrition Challenges of the 21st Century, says 30 million underweight
babies
are born every year, resulting in stunted growth and mental impairment.
There are more than 150 million underweight preschool children around
the
world and another 200 million stunted children.
The report labeled South Asia the hardest-hit region, followed by
sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America
and the
Caribbean.
Israeli warplanes attacked suspected guerrilla positions in southern
Lebanon
on Monday, security officials said.
Earlier, an old shell exploded in the front-line village of Jarjou,
injuring
two telephone workers and an elderly woman, the Lebanese officials
said.
The officials, speaking in southern Lebanon on condition of anonymity,
said
Israeli jets fired two air-to-surface missiles near Jarjou in the
Iqlim
al-Tuffah, a mountain stronghold of Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas
facing the Israeli-occupied zone in the south.
Less than an hour later, jets twice attacked front-line areas east
of Iqlim
al-Tuffah, firing a total of four missiles.
There was no immediate word on casualties from the Monday night
attacks or
what triggered them. There was no immediate comment from Israel
on the
airstrikes.
Israeli jets and artillery have often targeted in the past suspected
guerrilla positions or infiltration trails on the edge of the occupied
zone.
The injuries Monday occurred when a shell exploded as two workers
were
repairing damaged telephone lines in Jarjou. The woman was standing
nearby,
officials said. It was not clear how the explosion was triggered
or how far
the workers were from the shell.
Tuesady 21th March
Montserrat's newly revived volcano hurled glowing rocks high into
the sky,
triggered fiery avalanches and shot a thundering ash cloud as high
as 30,000
feet, scientists said Tuesday.
The explosion Monday night sent volcanic boulders crashing over
the spot
where Britain's Prince Andrew stood on the Belham Valley Bridge
during a
visit to the British Caribbean island last week.
It was the largest since the Soufriere Hills volcano began belching
out new
rock in November after a six-month silence that had scientists predicting
an
end to four years of eruptions.
The explosion sent a new coat of ash over parts of the island's
northern
"safe zone," where residents have been living since the volcano
began
erupting in 1995. Since then, 7,000 of the 11,000 residents have
left for
Britain and other Caribbean islands.
In 1997, a massive explosion killed 19 people who had ventured into
the
danger zone.
Russian troops came under fire from rebels holed up in a key village
in
breakaway Chechnya on Tuesday, despite reports that the country's
tricolor
flag had been raised after over two weeks of fierce fighting.
State RTR television said dozens of guerrillas were shooting
from a hollow
in the south of Komsomolskoye, lying at the mouth of the Argun gorge
which
leads to Chechnya's southern mountains.
Around 30 rebels were killed and 40 captured in a three-hour battle
last
night when they tried to break through a cordon of federal forces
towards
the nearby town of Urus-Martan, it said.
There was no independent confirmation of the losses and no footage
of fresh
fighting in Komsomolskoye, where Russia has suffered some of its
heaviest
losses in the six-month campaign.
India charged Tuesday that two Pakistani-supported "terrorist outfits"
were
responsible for a massacre in which at least 35 Sikhs
were killed in rebellion-hit Kashmir in northern India.
"We have some evidence that two terrorist outfits are behind it,"
National
Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra told a news conference. "It was
a combined
group of Lashkar-i-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen. These outfits are
supported
by the government of Pakistan."
In Islamabad, Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar condemned
the
killings, accusing India of exploiting the tragedy for political
gain.
Russian military officials have announced a new offensive against
rebels in
the southern mountains of Chechnya as isolated clashes continued
in a key
village.
"The main goal of the current operation is special actions in the
mountains," Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said in Moscow, according
to the
Interfax news agency. "The job is under way, but it is too early
to talks
about results."
RIA news agency quoted Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo as saying:
"The
special operation is being run in the republic's highlands and in
the vast
caves at the foothills. They are being searched."
Northern Ireland's leading Protestant politician David Trimble was
fighting
for his job on Thursday against a hard-line critic of a landmark
peace deal
with the British province's Catholic minority.
Reverend Martin Smyth, a fierce opponent of the 1998 "Good Friday"
accord,
said he would challenge Trimble for the leadership of the Ulster
Unionist
Party (UUP), supporting continued British rule of the troubled province.
The move threatened further damage to a peace process already blocked
on the
issue of guerrilla weapons disposal, politicians in the divided
province
warned.
Smyth, a Protestant churchman, said he would stage his leadership
bid when
the UUP's 800-strong policy-making council meets in Belfast on Saturday.
"I felt compelled to stand because of the drastic shift in position
by
Trimble on decommissioning (guerrilla disarmament)," Smyth said
Representatives working on a U.N. treaty to eliminate some of the
world's
deadliest chemicals ended a one-week conference Saturday with no
resolution
on who would pay for cleaning up developing countries.
The conference, which brought together negotiators from 121 countries,
made
"considerable progress," but no breakthrough on the financing question,
said
chairman John Buccini.
The fifth and final round of negotiations is planned for early December
in
South Africa, with plans to sign a treaty in Stockholm, Sweden,
in May 2001.
Buccini said he was optimistic the timetable could be met.
The aim is a global ban on a "dirty dozen" list of highly toxic
chemicals
known as persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, which have been
linked to
cancer, birth defects and other genetic abnormalities.
The substances, which include pesticides like DDT, dioxin and PCBs,
are
deemed the most harmful because they break down slowly and accumulate
at
higher levels in the food chain. Some are already banned in industrialized
countries.
But for many developing nations, chemicals like DDT provide a cheap
and
effective way to wipe out mosquitos and prevent the more immediate
danger of
malaria. That means weaning them from the "dirty dozen" requires
richer
nations to help pay for effective replacements.
China, India and other countries want a separate fund to be established,
while industrialized countries say letting existing aid agencies
handle the
task would avoid creating a new bureaucracy. The U.S. team stressed
that
additional money would have to be provided in any case, but environmental
groups like Greenpeace and WWF International accused industrialized
countries of not being willing to make a real commitment.
From one isolated family of nomads to another, the grisly sight is
the same
across Mongolia's vast and frozen Gobi Desert and nearby mountains.
Thickly furred, frozen carcasses of livestock are stacked waist-high
near
the traditional tents of their herders. More animals lie where they
fell in
bare pastures, all victims of the country's coldest winter in 30
years.
The toll is staggering.
An estimated 1.8 million herd animals, or about one of every 15
in the
nation, have died, affecting a fifth of Mongolia's 2.6 million people,
the
U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says.
The toll could rise to 5 million animals, the office warns, and
if more aid
from other countries is not provided by April or May a half million
Mongolians could be desperately short of food.
The crisis strikes as Mongolia, which broke away from Soviet domination
10
years ago, is still struggling with its difficult transition to
democracy
and a free-market economy.
"After June, we will be very hungry," said Tserendorj, a 73-year-old
nomadic
woman inside her family "ger," the round felt tent that is the traditional,
portable home of Mongolia's nomads. Like many Mongolians, she uses
only one
name.
"But we are old people," she said, cradling a naked child in her
lap. "Our
lives are over anyway. Our worry is for these kids and how they
will live."
Her family of 10, living in two gers in the Gobi, was prosperous
before the
weather crunch. Now, they are poor.
In a land of few roads and phone lines, Mongolia's nomads -- about
30
percent of the population -- live the simple life oftheir
great-great-grandparents. Cattle, yak, two-humped camels, horses,
goats and
sheep provide everything from food to barter goods to transportation.
But the cold has decimated the thin grasslands that the livestock
rely on.
And nomads who moved their herds to unaffected areas have overcrowded
the
pastures there, devastating those grasslands as well.
Harsh weather is hardly unusual in Mongolia. In the Gobi, temperatures
can
range from 40 below in the winter to 115 above in the summer. The
wind never
stops blowing across the pebbly, gray-brown sand.
But even by Mongolian standards the past year has been rough.
First came a drought last summer. That, and an infestation of rodents,
killed off much of the grasses that sustain the livestock. Then
severe
blizzards hit early, in September, freezing many animals and leaving
so much
snow that the survivors couldn't graze.
The widespread livestock deaths have many nomadic families struggling.
The
sick can't get to doctors or obtain medicine. Pneumonia is on the
rise. The
price of meat has soared.
Nomadic children, who often learn to ride horses and camels at a
very early
age, often can't travel to their schools many miles across the plains.
Because the nomads live such a spartan life to begin with, there
is little
fat to trim.
A traditional nomad breakfast, for example, consists of flour biscuits
and
tea with milk. Now there is no milk for the tea because the domestic
animals
that have survived often don't have milk for their own young. Some
nomads
even use the dry milk from relief groups to feed newborn livestock.
Toughened by their hard lives, many nomads show little emotion over
their
plight. But the unusually bad times are breaking some down.
In hard-hit Dundgobi province, about 250 miles south of the capital,
Ulan
Bator, Chunt, a 65-year-old nomad who looks 95, is openly devastated
by his
losses.
Blind since last year, Chunt's lower eyelids droop like a bloodhound's.
His
long button-on-the-side jacket, the traditional garment called a
"hantaaz,"
is a shabby black. Little green socks fluttered on a line rigged
over the
stove in the center of the ger, its walls covered with the family's
possessions.
Kneeling and smoking a long jade and silver pipe, Chunt recalled
how he once
had 550 sheep, goats, cows and horses how he was once a prosperous
man.
Now he has 80 sheep and goats.
"I don't know what to do," he mumbled, unaware of the child playing
at his
knee. "I used to depend on the animals; now I have nothing."
In an interview, Mongolian Prime Minister Renchinnyamin Amarjargal
said
restocking the nomads' livestock will cost the poor nation as much
as idlers
10 million. He appealed for aid.
The World Bank is contributing $1.33 million, and the United Nations,
the
United States and other countries have promised help.
But time may be running out.
"The situation will continue to worsen. The weakened animals will
die in big
numbers," said Amgaa Oyungerel, spokeswoman for the Mongolian Red
Cross.
"By May, the herders will face food shortages. The health problem
is also
alarming, with people physically exhausted and psychologically wounded.
They
are very vulnerable."
A large number of refugees are fleeing from southern Sudan into neighboring
countries in fear of government air raids, factional fighting and
general
lawlessness, the U.N. refugee agency said on Sunday.
"The number fleeing from the fighting into neighboring countries
has doubled
in the past month," the UNHCR said in a statement in the Kenyan
capital
Nairobi.
More than 400 refugees a week have reached Lokichokio in northwest
Kenya so far this month, while 900 fled into neighboring Uganda
in the first
three weeks of March.
In ten days in January, 5,500 refugees fled into Ethiopia to escape
fighting
between rival rebel groups in Sudan's Blue Nile province.
About 500,000 Sudanese refugees are now registered with the UNHCR,
most of
them in countries bordering Sudan. Over 50,000 of them fled Sudan
last year,
mainly to Kenya, Chad, Ethiopia and Uganda.
Over 1.5 million Sudanese have died from violence, famine and other
causes
in the war between southern rebels and the Khartoum government since
1983.
An investigation is under way into the deliberate damage of equipment
at a
nuclear power plant. Officials at the Sellafield plant in Cumbria
confirmed they have asked the
UK Atomic Energy Authority Police to probe the cutting of
cables on a robotic
arm on a maintenance tool.
A spokeswoman for the plant refused to speculate on claims there
was a
saboteur among the 10,000 workforce.
She said: "The investigation began last month after the attack on
the
maintenance tool, which is not a safety related piece of equipment.
"I can not comment further until the investigation is complete."
Six master slave manipulators were put out of use after wire cables,
which
allow machines to be operated from a remote location, were cut.
The spokeswoman concluded: "BNFL takes this issue very seriously
and the
company will initiate appropriate proceedings if any individual
or
individuals are proven to have caused this damage deliberately."
Ships travelling around Antarctica have been put on alert after an
iceberg
half the size of Wales broke off the Ross Ice Shelf.
Shipping companies operating in the area have been warned that it
could
easily drift into the shipping lanes around the South Polar
region.
The elongated iceberg, detected by satellites, measures 183 miles
by 22
miles (253 kilometres by 35 kilometres) and is among the largest
ever
observed, according to the National Science Foundation, which coordinates
US
research at the South Pole.
Scientists estimated that the iceberg surface area is about 4,247
square
miles (11,145 square kilometres), making it larger than many small
nations.
"This is a very big iceberg, close to a record if not a new record,"
said
Matthew Lazzara, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Antarctica Meteorological Research Centre, which is supported by
the NSF.
An announcement said the iceberg formed from glacial ice was moving
off the
Antarctic continent and into the sea. It broke off along cracks
that formed
in the Ross Ice Shelf.
Although Antarctica is very cold, the continent receives only about
an inch
of precipitation a year. Based on this, scientists said it will
take up to a
century to replace the ice lost to the new iceberg. Calving of the
iceberg
moved the boundary of the Ross Ice Shelf southward about 25 miles
(40
kilometres)
Vladimir Putin, Russia's acting president since New Year's Day, is
now
Russia's elected president.
With 94.27 percent of the vote counted, the nation's Central Election
Commission gave Putin 52.52 percent of the vote above the absolute
majority
he needed to avoid a runoff election.
The election was not the easy victory that many had predicted for
the former
KGB intelligence officer. Early results from Russia's Far East had
given
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov around 30 percent of the
vote. At
the time, Putin recieved only about 45 percent of the
ballots and it appeared Russia's voters would be heading to a second-round
election in April.
But later in the day, as the ballot count moved west toward Russia's
major
cities including Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg the acting president's
numbers began to rise steadily. Returns from Moscow, in one of the
last of
Russia's 11 time zones to report results, moved Putin's numbers
firmly into
an absolute majority.
Leaders of OPEC adjourned their meeting in Vienna Monday with no
agreement
on boosting the global supply of oil, though members pledged to
resume talks
Tuesday on boosting the amount of the commodity they produce to
avoid
sparking inflation pressures in the West.
The 11-member group ended their meeting without any firm agreement
on
how much additional oil they plan to collectively produce to boost
global
reserves and keep prices in check -- only that they do indeed plan
to boost
production by some amount to ease the lack of supply.
While almost all analysts and market watchers expect the cartel
to boost
production, few are certain beyond a doubt what that amount will
be. The
magic number has been 1.7 million barrels a day. The United States
would
like to see more than that; several Arab countries would like to
see a
smaller amount.
"I think it will be done," Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said
after the
meetings. "We are holding discussions to move scenarios closer."
U.S. President Bill Clinton met with Syrian President Hafez Assad
for three
hours Sunday in an attempt to jump-start Syrian-Israeli peace talks,
but no
break-through was reported.
"While we have a better understanding of the Syrian position, differences
remain between the Syrian and Israeli positions," White House press
spokesman Joe Lockhart told reporters.
"There's a lot of hard work that needs to be done," Lockhart said.
While many substantive issues were discussed, "I can't report any
narrowing
of the differences," he said.
"All of the issues were on the table," Lockhart said, but he would
not
discuss the substance of the talks.
This was the first meeting between Clinton and Assad in six years.
Love to you all
Tia