DEFCON 2 ANNOUNCEMENT

Russia's military dropped leaflets around Grozny Monday, tersely warning
residents they have five days to leave the Chechen capital or face certain
death.
"Those who remain will be viewed as terrorists and bandits," said the
leaflet, read on Russian television. "They will be destroyed by artillery
and aviation. There will be no more talks. All those who do not leave the
city will be destroyed. The countdown has started."
The leaflet promised that a safety corridor through the village of
Pervomaiskoye, in the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan, would be
available to the capital's embattled residents until Saturday.

The chief difference between past Serb violence against ethnic Albanians in
Kosovo and current retaliatory violence by Albanians against the Serbs is
that the latest attacks are not government policy, according to the U.N.'s
top civilian administrator in the estranged Yugoslav province.
Bernard Kouchner, writing in the forward to a two-volume human rights survey
published Monday by the Organization for the Security and Cooperation of
Europe (OSCE), said the difference was crucial.

After six months of pulling out of recession, Japan's economy is shrinking
again.
During the three months from July to September, the gross domestic product
(GDP) of the world's second-largest economy fell by 1%, according to figures
published by Japan's Economic planning agency.
The decline in fortune ends six months of economic expansion, which in turn
had come after the country's longest spell of recession in
post-war history.
Analysts had expected the economy to shrink by 0.1% at most.
During the first quarter of 1999, Japan's economy had grown by 1.5%,
followed by a 1% rise during the three months from April to June.
However, experts say the new data do not suggest that Japan's economy is
back in the doldrums.

HANOI, Vietnam
Food airdrops were under way today to help victims of flooding that has
killed at least 94 people in central Vietnam and left more than 1 million
homeless, officials and state newspapers reported.
Three helicopters made 12 sorties, dropping food to the two worst
affected provinces of Quang Nam and Quang Ngai, air force officials said. In
Quang Ngai alone, authorities estimated 200,000 needed emergency supplies.
Heavy rains have dumped more than six feet of water on some areas in the
past five days, stranding thousands of train travelers and motorists on the
country's main highway.
The region is still recovering from floods last month that were the worst to
hit Vietnam in a century. Last month, 592 people died in floods that caused
$235 million in damage.

Tuesday 7 Dec

While international condemnation of Russia's campaign in Chechnya grows
louder with each bomb that falls on the breakaway republic, Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday that
the family of Chechnya's president was in Russian custody.
Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov's wife, daughter and son reportedly came
to Russia for protection.
Russian officials report, suggested that Chechnya's leader now felt so
threatened by Russian attacks that he sent his family into areas controlled
by Russia.
That is precisely the message of an ultimatum issued Tuesday to residents of
the Chechen capital, Grozny: Abandon the city by Saturday
or you will be considered a terrorist and destroyed.

Sri Lankan forensic experts found fatal head and body wounds on at
least eight of the 15 bodies exhumed from unmarked mass graves in northern
Sri Lanka, an investigating officer said Tuesday.
The forensic team presented evidence in court Monday in the northern city of
Jaffna and said the bodies showed evidence of fatal blows, said team leader
Niriellage Chandrasiri.
"The bodies in question showed signs of having been hit with blunt
instruments causing their death," he said. Two of the bodies had their hands
tied and one had a broken skull, Chandrasiri said, suggesting that they were
tortured to death.
The graves were dug up

The jailed leader of the outlawed Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in Algeria,
Abassi Madani, has called for an end to political co-operation with
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
In a letter from house arrest, quoted by Qatari satellite TV, Sheikh Abassi
accused the president of reneging on promises of reconciliation with his
party.
He also criticised the agreement between the armed wing of the front and the
army under which they jointly fight against militants of the Armed Islamic
Group, which refuses to observe a two-year-old truce.

Wednesday 8th December

Battle-tested U.N. peacekeepers from India came to Sierra Leone on Tuesday
as human rights observers reported mounting rebel atrocities against
civilians.
The Indian contingent arrived eight days after 130 Kenyan soldiers flew in
to begin what is the largest U.N. peacekeeping mission in Africa in two
years. The peacekeepers are charged with maintaining the peace accord
between Sierra Leone's government and rebel groups that ended an eight-year
civil war.
The first 140-member Indian company touched down at Lungi airport
Tuesday afternoon to a low-key welcome from the U.N. Observer Mission
in Sierra Leone. Earlier in the day, Indian Maj. Gen. Vijay Kumar Jetley
flew into the capital to take command of the U.N. peacekeeping force, which
eventually will number 6,000 troops.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Belarusian leader Alexander
Lukashenko signed a mostly symbolic union agreement Wednesday that draws the
former Soviet republics closer together but stops short of creating a single
state.
The authoritarian Belarusian president has strongly pushed for a full
merger, but Wednesday's agreement merely establishes a council of officials
from both nations to coordinate policy. A weaker body of officials already
exists under a different name.
The agreement also proposes the eventual merger of the two countries'
currencies, but does not set any time frame.
Lukashenko harshly criticized the draft agreement when it was published in
October, saying it would barely change the status quo, but later toned down
his objections.

Russia has apparently backed down in its hardline policy towards the people
trapped in the Chechen capital Grozny, following a torrent of international
condemnation.
Moscow says its "get out or die" ultimatum was not aimed at ordinary
civilians.
It says the threat was targeted only at the Chechen fighters.
Despite that the army has kept up its bombardment of the city.
It had threatened to close all exits at the weekend, but Moscow now
says that safe corridors will be kept open so that people can still
leave.

Russia says its troops have all but wiped out a strategic rebel stronghold
just southwest of the Chechen capital, Grozny.
The Russian news agency Interfax reported that troops  and paramilitaries
had stormed the town of Urus-Martan and were pushing back the Chechen
fighters.
Russian television said the army had killed 70 rebels from a force of about
250.
Chechen fighters put up fierce resistance despite a heavy bombardment by
Russian military aircraft on Grozny and the surrounding area.

A grenade lobbed by separatist militants at a military bunker in Kashmir's
capital on Wednesday missed its target and exploded in a crowded
marketplace, killing two civilians and injuring 25.
Casualties were high because the explosion took place in the evening, when
people were returning home from work in the commercial center of the city of
Srinagar, where many government offices are located.
Six people were listed in serious condition.
The Border Security Force, in charge of internal security in Kashmir,
searched for the attackers, but officials said it was difficult to identify
them because the area was so crowded with people, buses and cars.
On Monday, a grenade attack in the same area injured six people, three of
them from the Border Security Force. Since then, police had stepped up
surveillance in the area.
An intractable insurgency has wracked Kashmir since 1989. More than 25,000
people have died in the fighting between Indian security forces and
militants fighting for Kashmiri independence or for a merger with
neighboring Pakistan.

Uganda and Sudan agreed on Wednesday to take steps to end years of rebel
activity which has cost tens of thousands of lives on their remote, 400
kilometer- (250 mile-) long border.
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni and Sudan's President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir were due to sign the formal agreement later, after a day of talks
in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, the meeting's organisers said.

Thursday 9th December

Burundi Hutu rebel leaders have been in Zimbabwe over the past two weeks
seeking arms and ammunition in their bid to overthrow Major Pierre
Busybody's government, the Zimbabwe Independent reported on Friday.
The weekly paper quoted unnamed sources as saying the rebels were still in
talks with defense ministry and ruling ANUS-PFD party officials, asking for
guns, bombs, mines, food, uniforms and boots from the southern African
country.

A senior Russian official offered on Friday to negotiate the evacuation of
civilians trapped in Grozny and said there was no deadline for them to leave
the besieged Chechen capital.
Chechen fighters said they had withdrawn from the last major town they had
held in the lowlands apart from Grozny and were regrouping near the
mountains in the south of the province.
In southwestern Chechnya, Chechen field commander Akhmed Basmukayev told
Maria Eismont that civilians were unable to leave Grozny because
of heavy Russian shelling of roads leading out of it.

December 10th

As Russian jets and mortar fire maintained a relentless bombardment of the
Chechen capital of Grozny on Friday, Russia seemed to back off its warning
that civilians flee Grozny by Saturday or be destroyed.
Russian Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu downplayed the
significance of the Saturday deadline. He said Russian forces are willing to
pause in their attacks so that civilians can leave the city and that buses
will be deployed on six routes to take refugees to Russian-controlled
territory in the north.
Earlier this week, Russian planes began dropping leaflets on Grozny warning
residents to get out by Saturday or face an overwhelming barrage from
Russian guns. Russian planes dropped an additional 70,000
leaflets on Friday.

Palestinian police have seized hundreds of pounds of explosives in a hideout
of the Islamic militant group Hamas, officials said Friday.
The cache was uncovered last week in the West Bank town of Hebron, a
Palestinian official said on condition of anonymity.
An Israeli security official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said
the cache contained 660 pounds of explosives and electronic equipment enough
for several large-scale attacks.
A bombing in a Jerusalem open air market last year used only 11 pounds of
explosives. In that blast, on Nov. 6, 1998, the two assailants were killed
and 21 Israeli shoppers wounded.
A suspect in the bombing surrendered to Palestinian authorities earlier this
week after two months on the run.

saturday 11th Dec

Anti-government rebels attacked a Ugandan army barracks, killing four
soldiers and wounding five others, a government-owned newspaper reported
Saturday.
Thirty-five Allied Democratic Front rebels also were killed in Friday's
early morning assault on the barracks in Bundibugyo, 236 miles west of the
capital, Kampala, New Vision newspaper said.
The attack came one day after the rebels raided a prison in Fort Portal and
freed 365 inmates. By late Friday, 72 prisoners had been recaptured, the
paper said.
The rebels operate from mountain bases in western Uganda and eastern
Congo.

A passenger plane carrying 35 peoplecrashed today in the Azores Islands,
west of mainland Portugal, news reports said.
There was no immediate word on survivors or the identities of the
passengers.

Russia took steps to clear civilians out of the embattled Chechen capital of
Grozny on Saturday. A few hundred heeding Russia's warning to leave carried
plastic bags or pulled their possessions on ramshackle carts as they trudged
across a mountain pass to take refuge in Russian-controlled areas of
Chechnya.
The refugees fled through a corridor established by the Russian military
through the town of Pervomaiskaya, 12 miles (19 km) northwest of the
capital. The military said on Saturday it was going to open a second safe
route as well.

Sunday 12th

Russian forces accused Chechnya'sIslamic militants of hindering the
evacuation of the territory's capital Grozny on Sunday after the Russians
opened a second route for refugees to flee ahead of a threatened
bombardment.
Russian troops have encircled Grozny and dropped leaflets last week urging
noncombatants to flee the city before Saturday, when Moscow promised a
massive aerial and artillery bombardment would begin. But Russian leaders
backed away from that deadline Friday.

Fewer than 100 Grozny residents have fled via a new corridor out of the
besieged Chechen capital, Russian news agencies say, while Russian forces
have turned their attacks on rebel fortifications in the southern mountains.
Some 70 Chechens turned up at the Russian end of a corridor southwest of
Grozny, RIA news agency said Sunday. Meanwhile Russian helicopters and
planes dropped leaflets on the capital urging others to make their way out
of the city.
Russian officials have claimed that Chechen militants were keeping civilians
in the capital to use them as human shields. But refugees have denied the
charge, saying those who stayed in Grozny were too old or infirm to move.
Following Western criticism, the Russian army delayed an ultimatum that
Grozny civilians leave the city by Saturday or become a fair target during a
threatened all-out onslaught. The Russian military said there would be no
airstrikes at least until midnight Sunday.

French and British coast guard helicopters plucked 26 crew members to safety
on Sunday after a tanker carrying 30,000 tons of fuel oil broke in two in
rough seas off France's western coast.
French maritime officials said all crew members had been taken to safety by
about 11 a.m. (1000 GMT). They said the main concern was now the possibility
of pollution from the tanker.
There were no reports of injuries in the joint rescue, which took place in
gale force winds and six-meter (yard) waves.
It was mounted early on Sunday morning after the Maltese-flagged tanker
Erika broke in two about 70 miles (110 km) south of the French port of Brest
in the Bay of Biscay.

Monday 13th December

The army rushed reinforcements to western Uganda after anti-government
rebels killed at least 21 people in two separate attacks over the weekend,
newspaper reports said Monday.

Government troops were sent to Bundibugyo, 280 kilometers (175 miles) west
of the capital, Kampala, and a helicopter gunship struck suspected rebel
hideouts near the town Sunday, according to a local official quoted by the
New Vision newspaper.
The Congo-based Allied Democratic Forces raided the police headquarters in
Bundibugyo early Saturday, killing nine people, including four government
soldiers. Five attackers were also slain in two hours of heavy fighting, the
army said.

Russian troops captured a key airfield on the outskirts of the Chechen
capital Grozny on Monday and threatened to destroy a nearby town unless its
residents turn out the Muslim militants who now hold it.
The airfield at Khankala, just a few hundred meters (yards) from the center
of Grozny, is considered an important strategic objective. The large air
force base served as a staging area for Russian troops during the 1994-96
war that left Chechnya largely outside Moscow's reach.
Russian troops were also advancing on the town of Shali, about 20
kilometers (12 miles) south of Grozny. The town is one of the last held by
the Chechens, and Russian Gen. Gennady Troshev bluntly warned its residents
to push out the rebels before the Russians arrived.

Tuesday 14th December

Cholera and dysentery have struck two regroupment camps in Burundi, killing
47 people and sending 58 others to the hospital.
The fatalities occurred in two camps set up by the government for people
displaced by fighting in Bujumbura Rural province during a 16-day period
that ended Dec. 6, Health Minister Juma Kariburyo said Monday.
The Tutsi-dominated army, in a bid to curb stepped-up attacks by Hutu
rebels, has herded more than 320,000 people into 60 camps in the province.
International human rights groups have urged the disbandment of the camps,
which they condemn as squalid, unsafe and lacking clean water and basic
sanitation.

An oil spill from a tanker that split in two over the weekend hugged
France's Atlantic coast for a second day Tuesday, raising fears of a "black
tide" sweeping the beaches and oyster beds of western France.
High winds and rough seas prevented cleanup efforts for a second day of the
estimated 10,000 metric tons of heavy oil floating southwest of the Brittany
island of Belle Ile.
There remained a "potential, but not immediate" risk of coastal pollution,
the Brest Port Authority said.
Experts were also anxious about the estimated 14,000 metric tons of thick
oil remaining in the holds of the Maltese-registered "Erika," which split in
two Sunday in rough seas.
Both parts of the vessel were underwater by Monday night, and officials here
called on experts from Norway, Britain and Germany to help drain the thick
oil from the vessel.
Special vessels to contain the slick waited out the bad weather at the
northwest port of Brest, while two French Navy frigates and a
reconnaissance plane kept watch over the slick and the area where the vessel
went down.

International peacekeeping forces Tuesday reported the killings of three
more people in Kosovo, as a wave oflawlessness that has claimed the lives of
hundreds showed no sign of abating.
The body of a Serb man was discovered Sunday in the area of Pasjane in
eastern Kosovo after an attack by three armed Albanians on men collecting
wood in a forest, they said.
In the west, an ethnic Albanian was killed in a "drive-by" shooting as he
rode his horse-drawn cart in the village of Pistance. KFOR (Kosovo Force)
troops gave no further details and said the incident was being investigated.
In a separate incident, the bullet-riddled body of a man was brought to a
hospital in the northwestern town of Pec Sunday evening, KFOR said. Two
ethnic Albanian suspects were being questioned by KFOR military police.
Unknown attackers also fired mortars at the village of Partes in southeast
Kosovo Sunday, the peacekeeping authorities said. Belgrade media earlier
described the incident as an attack on Serb homes by ethnic Albanians

Wednesday 15th December

Russia's fight to drive Islamic militants out of Chechnya raged
Wednesday on Grozny's doorstep, while Russian commanders insisted they were
not ordering an all-out assault on the rebellious republic's capital.
Gen. Valery Manilov, first deputy chief of the Russian General Staff, said
in Moscow that Grozny would fall to Russian troops in "a question of days,"
and the rebels would be gone completely by February.
Russia pursued the rebels into Chechnya in September after the militants
twice invaded the neighboring republic of Dagestan. Russia also blames the
rebels for a series of deadly bombings in Russian cities.
Rebel commander Lechi Islamov said the militants were holding their own
against relentless attacks around Grozny.
Chechen civilians in the capital were faring much worse.

The United States has issued a "serious warning" to the Taliban authorities
who control most of Afghanistan that they will be held responsible for any
anti-American terrorist attacks linked toOsama bin Laden.
Michael Sheehan, assistant secretary of state for counterterrorism, issued
the warning in New York on Monday to Abdul Hakeem Mujahid, the Taliban's
chief representative to the United Nations.
Bin Laden has been indicted by a New York grand jury on charges of
conspiracy and murder in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania that killed 220 people.

The attack by Israeli troops on two Islamic militants was a cold-blooded
slaying, a Palestinian legislator said Tuesday, condemning the incident that
could spawn revenge attacks and jeopardize the peace process.
"It is very clear that this is part of an ongoing Israeli policy, whereby
individuals are being targeted and then are being deliberately
assassinated," Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi said. "Israel claims
that it doesn't have capital punishment, and yet at the same time, without
any charges or any trial, it carries out assassinations of people it
considers wanted."  The two fugitives were shot dead Monday evening during
an Israeli army raid of their hideout. In a rare admission, Israeli Deputy
Defense Minister Efraim Sneh said one of the men, Iyyad Batat, had been
marked for death after killing an undercover Israel border policeman in a
roadside ambush in January.

Russian tanks and armoured personnel have entered central Grozny for the
first time, but have been forced back by a fierce rebel counter attack.
Chechen fighters firing rocket-propelled grenades halted their advance into
the capital.
One witness said that some 100 Russian soldiers had been killed in  battle
and Russian armoured personnel carriers were left ablaze.
The abortive attempt to storm the capital came as a human right group
reported that refugees in Ingushetia were refused food to try to force them
to return to Russian-controlled areas in Chechnya.

Sri Lanka Government troops repelled another wave of Tamil rebel attacks on
a strategic causeway in the north, killing at least 200 rebels, the Defense
Ministry said Tuesday.
The army said 10 soldiers died and 28 were wounded in the fighting late
Monday. The latest fatalities raised the number of combatants killed to 473
since Saturday, when the rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
mounted their first renewed offensive.
"Terrorists (rebels) continued to carry out desperate attacks on security
forces' defenses with heavy concentration of machine gun, small arms and
mortar fire," Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Nishantha Wadugodapitiya said.
The rebels, who are fighting for a homeland for the minority Tamils, denied
the government claim and said its fighters were attacking government
positions in the Elephant Pass area.
The rebels did not give any rebel casualty figures, but said over 100
soldiers were killed in the attack.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from small coastal towns in northwest
Australia on Tuesday as a cyclone, billed as possibly the strongest to
threaten the country, approached.
"We are looking at potentially the strongest cyclone ever to cross the
Australian coast," Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Malcolm Young told
Reporters in Perth after the bureau upgraded Cyclone John to category five.
Category five is the highest level on the system of measuring cyclones with
destructive wind speeds up to 300 kilometers (188 miles) an hour.
"Category five means a huge risk to local communities and infrastructure,"
Young said. "The whole Pilbara coast is under threat tonight."
But the coast is very thinly populated. About 600 people have been evacuated
from three small towns, and other residents have been told to take refuge in
cyclone centres or try to reach higher ground.

Dozens of communist rebels are reported to have been killed by security
forces in southeast Colombia, just days after the insurgents inflicted heavy
losses on the military.
A 300-strong group of rebels of the Farc movement (Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia) is said to have been hit by government fighter planes.
Sixty guerrillas were reportedly killed, but there has been no independent
confirmation of the death toll.
The rebels had been attacking the colonial town of Hobo when the air force
struck.

Eleven Algerian soldiers have died in an ambush by Islamic militants,
bringing to at least 50 the number of people killed since the start of the
Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The soldiers were attacked while travelling in a convoy late on Tuesday near
Chlef in northwestern Algeria.
A group of Muslim guerrillas detonated a bomb and opened fire on the
soldiers. Two of the rebels are said to have been killed in the ensuing gun
battle.

Security forces said they killed more than 60 Marxist rebels heading for a
safe haven in southeast Colombia on Wednesday, three days after guerrillas
inflicted one of the worst defeats of the year on a military unit near the
Panama border.
Police operations director Gen. Alfonso Arellano said the 300-strong
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) column was decimated by a wave
of air strikes as it retreated after an attack on Hobo, a colonial town in
central Huila province.
"More than 60 guerrillas died ... This gives us the encouragement to carry
on fighting," Arellano told reporters, adding that one policeman died in the
attack on Hobo.
"The guerrillas wanted to carry out a demolition job (on the town) but this
time they could not," he added.
Television images showed the entire downtown area of Hobo had been
leveled and just piles of still-smoldering ruins remained, however.
Army sources said at least 50 guerrillas of the FARC, Latin America's
largest surviving rebel army, had died. The column was thought to be headed
for a Switzerland-sized region in the southeast which President Andres
Pastrana cleared of security forces as a forum for slow-moving peace talks,
officials said.

Thurday 16th December

Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev denied Thursday that there had been
any tank assault on Grozny, and said Russian forces had not suffered any
casualties.
But correspondents for Reuters and The Associated Press said Russian
armored personnel carriers and tanks attacked central Grozny on Wednesday,
where they were beaten back during three hours of fighting by about 2,000
Chechen rebels armed with grenade launchers.
The blackened hulks of seven Russian tanks and eight APCs stood in Minutka
Square, where an Associated Press reporter counted the bodies of 115 Russian
soldiers, many of them mangled by gunfire and badly burned.
Chechen commanders claimed at least 220 Russian soldiers were killed.
Earlier Wednesday, a senior Russian commander predicted that Grozny
would fall within days.
The alleged attack appeared to be the worst defeat the Russian military has
suffered since its forces entered Chechnya in September to try to restore
Moscow's control over the breakaway province.
Meanwhile, Russian forces shelled Grozny through the night and into
Thursday morning, laying down indiscriminate salvos of shells on the city as
they have done for weeks.

More than 1,000 Nigerian trade unionists marched through Lagos on Thursday
to protest against a proposed rise in fuel prices.
"We want the government to stop any increase in fuel prices that would
increase the suffering of the workers," said Gbemi Adewale, leader of the
umbrella Nigeria Labour Congress in Lagos.
A rise in fuel prices is a key element of President Olusegun Obasanjo's
budget which is due to take effect next year but has yet to be approved by
the national assembly.
The deregulation of fuel prices has long been requested by international
financial institutions and creditors who could offer debt relief but don't
want to see money spent on subsidies.
But many Nigerians see the fuel subsidy as one of the few benefits delivered
by the government of Africa's biggest oil producer. Past price rises have
led to strikes and violent demonstrations.

Friday 17th Decmeber

At least 7,000 people were missing and about 200 killed by raging rivers and
mudslides in Venezuela's capital Caracas and along its Caribbean coast,
Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel said Friday.
The minister after briefing diplomats on the South American country's worst
natural disaster in 50 years, said the death toll
"unfortunately could rise in the next few hours."
"There are approximately 150,000 people homeless, 7,000 persons are missing
and about 200 dead," he said.
The figures related to the capital city of 6 million people and seven other
states including the tourist island of Margarita.
The downpours, which peaked Wednesday night, turned streams into torrents of
mud and rocks that were sent crashing down mountain slopes, destroying
hundreds of ramshackle homes and turning tourist beaches into desolate
fields of mud strewn with tree trunks and boulders.

Namibia said on Friday that it was reinforcing the country's border with
Angola, but denied it had joined its Luanda ally in battling UNITA rebels.
"We're not in Angola, we have no troops in Angola. But we are securing our
borders," army chief of staff Major-General Martin Shalli said.
Angolan troops, who ousted UNITA rebels from their strongholds in the
country's central highlands in October and have since pressed them south and
east, have engaged UNITA positions close to Namibia with artillery and
mortar fire.
Windhoek has sent mixed signals on whether it was ready to aid the Angolan
army end its 25-year civil war, with the Defence Ministry denying it would
fight alongside Luanda.
But Shalli had made plain that he would accommodate Namibia's northern ally
and said that Angolan aircraft had been using Namibia airstrips to re-supply
their lines.

Russian bombers and artillery have launchedone of their heaviest attacks yet
on the Chechen capital of Grozny.
Russian forces also took control of what they said was a key supply route
for the rebels as world leaders called for a cease-fire.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Russian forces blocked a road on
Fridayconnecting Chechnya to neighboring Georgia. "This operation could
change
the whole picture of the counter-terrorist operation in the North
Caucasus,"he said.
Chechen rebel spokesman Movladi Udugovsaid by telephone that Russian troops
had been parachuted into an area about onemile from Georgia. Georgia denies
Russian charges that Chechen rebels move supplies and reinforcements through
its territory.

Fighting between Tamil guerrillas and Sri Lankan security forces has
intensified amid reports of heavy casualities, just days ahead of the
nation's presidential election.
Government forces said Thursday they stopped a Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam rebel attack on the causeway linking the Jaffna peninsula, about 186
miles (300 km) north of the capital Colombo, to the mainland.
Sri Lankan army sources said the fighting has been concentrated on a small
strip of land, known as Elephant Pass, which connects Sri Lanka with the
peninsula. Defense officials said the rebels had attacked thearmy camp at
Thanankilappu village in waves on Wednesday, aided by a large artillery and
mortar bombardment.
The conflict is becoming a "full-pitched battle," and both sides are
suffering heavy casualties, Sri Lankan army sources said.

Saturday 18th december

Russian officials said on Saturday that their forces have virtually taken
control of a district in the Chechen capital Grozny, while Chechen rebels
claim to have pushed back a Russian attack on a strategic hill.
"The district is practically under the control of federal forces," a Russian
defense ministry spokesman told Reuters. He was responding to a question
after Russia's NTV television reported that Moscow's forces had seized the
Chernorechiye section of southwest Grozny.
The seizure of Chernorechiye would make it the first part of the city to
come under Russian control since the disastrous 1994-96 war against Chechen
separatists, in which Russia suffered immense numbers of casualties.
NTV said the rebels had left Chernorechiye, which would have made it easier
for the Russians to seize it. There was no mention of the status of
Chernorechiye on the Chechen rebel Web site, Kavkaz.org.
Chechen rebels claim to have repelled a Russian assault on a strategic hill
in Grozny on Saturday. The sound of heavy explosions and the rattle of
automatic gunfire filled the air as Russian armored vehicles attacked Grozny
from the south, trying to capture the hill overlooking the capital.
Rebel commander Khamzat Gelayev said his fighters drove back the attack,
killing a large number of Russian soldiers. A reporter for The
Associated Press said he saw bodies of seven Russian soldiers at the battle
scene.

Sri Lankan President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, has appealed for calm
following bomb attacks in which she was injured and at least 23 other people
were killed.
The attacks took place at separate election rallies in the Sri Lankan
capital, Colombo.
Mrs Kumaratunga was taken to hospital and is reported to have undergone
surgery for an eye injury.

The government in Venezuela has acknowledged that the impact of flooding
affecting the country's northern coastal region is far more serious than
expected.
President Hugo Chavez said more than 500 bodies had been recovered on
Venzuela's Caribbean coastal strip alone.
A further 50, he said, had been picked up at sea by a navy ship. 100 bodies
have been recovered in the capital, Caracas, bringing the latest official
death toll to 650.
The final figure is expected to be much larger.
Earlier, foreign minister Jose Rangel said about 150,000 people had been
left homeless.
Some 7,000 people are still reported missing.
Nine northern states and the capital have been declared disaster areas and
many remain accessible only by helicopter.
Most banks, businesses and government offices in the country remain closed.
Power supplies, phone networks and fresh water supplies have been disrupted.
 

Sunday 19th

  The official death toll from this week's floods topped 1,000 on Sunday in
Venezuela's worst natural disaster in a half-century, said Gen. Isaias
Baduel, the military leader in charge of rescue operations. Many victims may
never be found.
Raging rivers and mudslides along Venezuela's Caribbean coast have left at
least 6,000 people missing and presumed dead as heavy rains swept away
entire communities, leaving more than 100,000 without homes.
Soldiers made arrests Sunday to stem widespread looting in the region, where
tens of thousands remain stranded. Elite paratroopers rappelled from
helicopters to help survivors on buildings enveloped in mud and water.

Warplanes bombarded Chechnya's capital of Grozny and the Russian military
called on rebels to surrender, as voters in the rest of Russia went to the
polls in an election that may test the popularity of the war.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin repeated that Russia will not give up
its attack on rebels in the face of strong Western criticism and President
Boris Yeltsin demanded rebels lay down their arms and turn over guerrilla
leaders Moscow blames for bomb attacks on Russian cities.
Russian Gen. Anatoly Kvashnin said his side had met with high-level
officials from Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov's Cabinet and told them in no
uncertain terms that there would be no compromise on the condition that
rebels give themselves up.
Surrender "could not be the subject of negotiation," the ITAR-Tass news
agency on Sunday quoted Kvashnin as saying. "Our stance was clear."
Sunday's parliamentary elections may confirm the widespread popularity among
Russians of Putin and his war. The front-running parties are the
pro-government and Putin-backed Unity Party and the virulently
anti-government Communists.
The ITAR-Tass news agency also reported fresh fighting around Grozny's
Severny airport and in northwest districts of the city on Sunday but gave no
further details