Greetings.
Ok while things are reasonable quite down there we are going to
a new format
for a while until things heat back up.
What we are doing is once a week we will send out a weekly round
up on the
events that are important and worth watching.
If there are any questions that you feel you would like to have
a answer to
feel free to ask. But I can only answer questions that are to do
with what is
going on now and please no personal questions.
I will not answer any question that are of a personal nature.
When things heat back up I will be unable to answer any questions
as once
again I will be very busy.
Thank you Tia.
Intensive Russian attacks have been continuing on key positions in
Chechnya.
Russian commanders say they are preparing for a ground assault on
the
capital, Grozny, after weeks of devastating air raids. Troops are
reported
to be gradually encircling the devastated city.
An improvement in the weather appears to have allowed the Russians
to carry
out yet more air raids over Chechnya.
Reports say they carried out strikes to the south-west of Grozny,
on the
town of Bamut where there was heavy fighting in the last Chechen
war and on
the Argun Gorge, which the rebels are said to be using as a corridor
into
neighbouring Georgia.
A senior Ugandan army officer has reportedly been killed in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, during fighting between tribal militias loyal
to
President Laurent Kabila, and Ugandan-backed rebel forces.
The Ugandan army said the commander in charge of the town of Beni,
Major
Reuben Ikondere, was killed when a group of Mai Mai fighters attacked
the
town, in the north-east of Congo.
Two of his bodyguards also died in the attack.
The slain officer was a veteran in the Ugandan President Yoweri
Museveni's
six-year bush war to overthrow successive dictators in Uganda, and
had been
wounded twice.
The Ugandan military chief of staff, Brigadier James Kazini, said
at least
50 Mayi Mayi fighters were killed in a counter-attack by Ugandan
troops.
The Mai Mai fighters, recruited from local tribes opposed to Ugandan
and
Rwandan intervention in Congo, are not part of the Congo peace agreement
signed in July and August in Zambia.
Rescuers are still frantically trying to find survivors after Turkey's
devastating earthquake on Friday.Temperatures there are below freezing,
and
bad weather is making the rescue efforts more difficult.
British teams are now helping the international aid effort. At least
450 people are known to have died and thousands more are injured.
Health officials in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh say
at least
100 children have died after an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis,
or brain
fever, over the past three weeks.
Another 500 children have been admitted to hospitals around the
state.
The outbreak has been detected in 10 out of 23 districts,and five
deaths
have been reported from the state capital Hyderabad.
State officials said they were trying to contain the spread of the
disease,
which is transmitted by mosquitoes.
Riot police fired tear gas, and anti-American protesters responded
with
gasoline bombs Friday as central Athens became a battleground just
as U.S.
President Bill Clinton arrived in the Greek capital for a short
visit.
Clinton originally planned a longer stay in Greece, to begin before
a
European security summit in Istanbul, Turkey. But Greek and U.S.
security
concerns pushed him to postpone the trip until after the summit
and shorten
it to less than 24 hours.
The leftist protesters are angry at the U.S. role in NATO's bombing
attack
on Yugoslavia earlier this year.
The riot erupted in Syndagma Square almost at the very moment Air
Force One
touched down at Athens international airport. More than 10,000 protesters,
who had come to the square for a Communist-led rally, tried to defy
a ban on
marching to the U.S. Embassy, but were blocked by a wall of helmeted,
black-clad riot police.
Russia has agreed to allow a Western envoy to make a fact-finding
visit to
war torn Chechnya.
The concession was announced at the European security summit in
Turkey,where
President Yeltsin faced a chorus of rebuke over Russia's onslaught
onthe
Chechens.
Western leaders severely criticised Russian policy in Chechnya and
called
for a diplomatic solution.
President Clinton infuriated the Russian leader when he reminded
him of the
time when he stood on a tank in the centre of Moscow to defend the
fledging
democracy.
Mr Clinton pointed out that the West had backed him then, even though
it was
an internal Russian affair too.
Mr Yeltsin rejected the complaints made by President Clinton and
other
Western leaders and said they had no right to tell Moscow what it
could do
in its own territory.
The two presidents met later in private session. They continued
to disagree
but at least their meeting ran its course.
Unlike later talks between Yeltsin, Jacques Chirac of France and
Germany's
Gerhardt Schroeder which were terminated abruptly at Yeltsin's insistence
as
he announced he was flying back to Moscow early.
But no sooner had Yeltsin left, than the Russian rhetoric faded.
It was
announced that the head of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation
in
Europe will be allowed to tour Chechnya and Russia's Foreign Minister
admitted a political solution needed to be found.
The Chechen capital, Grozny, is reported to have come under renewed
attack
from Russian forces.
Throughout the day, Russian war planes and artillery - including
multiple rocket launchers -bombarded the city.
Reporters in Grozny said that the city centre and the suburbs had
been
heavily shelled.
Russian news agencies said on Friday that Russian warplanes had
carried out
about 60 air strikes in the previous 24 hours, destroying arms stores
and
other sites used by Chechen fighters.
Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo said: "The operation in Chechnya
is
progressing according to the plan we have worked out and we have
received no
new orders."
The World Bank has said malnutrition affects huge numbers of people
in
India, especially women and children, despite decades of often effective
government action.
Its report "Wasting Away - The Crisis of Malnutrition in India"
blames
poverty and low status of women for some of its most shocking statistics
-
half of all children under four are malnourished, it says, and 60%
of women
are anaemic.
Mothers and sisters often forego food in poor families to give husbands
and
sons more than their share, the report says.
One of the authors of the report, Mira Chatterjee, says malnutrition
on such
scale means money invested in education is not used effectively
as hungry
children cannot study.
In his first major foreign policy address, Republican presidential
hopeful
George W. Bush warned Friday it would be a "shortcut to chaos" for
Americans
to turn to isolationism and protectionism. "Let us reject the blinders
of
isolationism, just as we have refused the crown of empire," he said.
Bush
also said that as president he would move to cut off International
Monetary
Fund aid to Russia if Moscow continued its bombing of Chechnya.
The FBI has found new evidence suggesting that China may have stolen
information about the most advanced U.S. nuclear warhead from one
of the
weapon's assemblers, widening an investigation once focused almost
exclusively on Los Alamos National Laboratory and one of its staff
scientists, Wen Ho Lee.
Thank You
Tia