DEFCON 2 ANNOUNCEMENT

Communiqué Number Sixteen


 A leak of radioactive water at a South Korean nuclear power plant was
quickly contained and none of the 22 workers exposed was seriously
hurt,South Korean officials said Tuesday.

London England A shattering train collision near Paddington Station during
rush hour Tuesday morning killed at least 26 people and injured scores.

Russian forces have seized control of the northern one-third of Chechnya as
tanks and infantry push deeper into the renegade territory, Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin said Tuesday in Moscow.
The Russian forces were fighting Chechen forces around Chervyonnaya, a
village 15 miles (24 km) northeast of Grozny. The sound of the Russian
artillery bombardments could be heard in Grozny.
The Russians showed no sign of making an immediate move on the Chechen
capital, which has been bombed during the past two weeks by Russian planes.
Two Russian warplanes were lost over Chechnya in the past two days of
raids on the separatist republic, Russian military officials said Tuesday.

A moderate earthquake injured more than 100 people on Tuesday when it
struck a popular tourist resort in southwestern Turkey, just seven
weeks after a massive tremor killed at least 15,800.
The latest earthquake, measuring 5.2 magnitude, struck close to the seaside
town of Marmaris shortly before four a.m. (0100 GMT)

Armed separatists ambushed a vehicle carrying paramilitary police and
election officials in India's northeastern Manipur state on Sunday, killing
16 of them a day before the state was due to vote in a parliamentary
election.

Gunmen shot dead two Shiite Muslims in an early-morning attack in Pakistan's
Punjab province on Saturday, raising the death toll in a two-day wave of
sectarian violence to 20, police said.

The Mexican government declared a state of emergency Tuesday in the Mexican
Gulf coast state of Tabasco, where the worst flooding in 40 years has
flooded five rivers, killed four people, and forced the evacuation of 55,000
others.
More than 34,000 people have evacuated their homes in the state
capital,Villahermosa, where the Grijalva and Carrizal rivers have flooded
due to nearly a week of rain.

BOGOTA, Colombia Flash floods swept tons of rocks and mud through a
shantytown in southern Colombia before dawn on Monday,killing at least 10
people and leaving up to 100 others missing.

Nine Peruvian soldiers were killed during a weekend clash with a group of
about 60 Maoist-Shining Path rebels in Peru's central jungle, President
Alberto Fujimori said Monday.

Thank You
Tia