NETWATCH . . . MEXICAN REBELS GET CYBER-HELP

Mexico's isolated Zapatista rebels are now hiding in the jungle dozens of miles from the nearest phone, but their supporters are end-running the government by sending bulletins from the front lines over the Internet. "We've just received an emergency call from friends in Mexico," read one post on an electronic mailing list from Chuck Goodwin, a University of South Carolina anthropologist. The message described unconfirmed reports of Mexican soldiers surrounding the city of San Cristobal, a nexus for President Ernesto Zedillo's weekend hunt for rebel leaders in the southern Chiapas state. "I sent out that one message, and I got calls from Australia, Europe and almost everywhere else," Goodwin told TIME Daily today. "We got a whole community going, and very quickly." At least four separate E-mail bulletins on Chiapas in English or Spanish reach like-minded activists worldwide. Sympathetic church and human rights groups have also gone online to circulate information on behalf of the rebels.