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Under intense pressure from advancing military troops, Colombia's National Liberation Army (e.l.n.) guerrilla group last Wednesday released the last 16 victims of a dramatic mass kidnapping staged on the outskirts of Cali. The e.l.n. had abducted 55 people from roadside restaurants and a country home on Sept. 17. Three of the victims died in captivity and the rest were handed over to Red Cross officials in the days immediately following their abduction. The kidnapping was widely seen as an attempt by the 5,000-strong e.l.n. to pressure the government into handing over territory, much as it had done for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebels two years ago, in order to begin formal peace talks.
Lima
His former spy chief may yet prove the downfall of Peru's President Alberto Fujimori. When a videotape was released in September showing Vladimiro Montesinos apparently bribing a congressman, Fujimori was forced to announce that he would stand down at the next presidential election. Last month Montesinos returned home from a failed asylum bid in Panama and went into hiding, while Fujimori personally led the hunt for him. Last week judicial authorities in Switzerland froze some $50 million in three accounts, suspected of being used for money laundering, which were linked to Montesinos. He is said by many to have been for several years the power behind Fujimori.
Belfast
At a crucial meeting of the Ulster Unionists' ruling council, embattled party leader David Trimble averted an immediate crisis in the Northern Ireland peace process by narrowly winning his party's support to keep the power-sharing government alive. Hardliners wanted the party to withdraw from the executive which it shares with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, if the I.R.A. failed to begin decommissioning its weapons by the end of November. Trimble won his argument against such a deadline but he said he would impose sanctions on Sinn Fein by excluding the party from certain cross-border talks.
Paris
French consumers reacted in horror after two national supermarket chains revealed they'd sold beef potentially infected with "mad cow" disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (bse). Nearly a ton of beef was recalled after health officials discovered a cow from a slaughtered herd was ill with bse. French laws seeking to limit possible contagion call for entire herds to be destroyed if one animal is diagnosed with bse. Consumers were shocked at the security lapse, with some wondering whether they'd eaten meat that might provoke the fatal human form of bse, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Moscow
A 54-year-old American, former U.S. naval intelligence officer Edmond Pope, went on trial behind closed doors for espionage. Pope, who suffers from a rare form of bone cancer, has been in Moscow's Lefortovo prison since his arrest in April. Prosecutors allege that Pope tried to obtain classified documents on a new Russian torpedo system. Pope has denied spying, arguing that he only sought open-source information. If convicted, Pope faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Severomorsk
Russian divers working from the Norwegian offshore platform Regalia in the Barents Sea retrieved four bodies from the Kursk nuclear submarine that sank there in August. All 118 people aboard died when powerful explosions ripped through the forward part of the sub. The official Russian line that all the crew died instantly when the Kursk sank on the night of Aug. 12 was refuted by the discovery of a handwritten note on the body of Lieut. Captain Dmitri Kolesnikov. It read, "13.15. There are 23 people here ... None of us can get to the surface." Even after the discovery Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, Ilya Klebanov, defended the government's early refusal of foreign offers of help to try to rescue the crew, maintaining that "there was no way to save the sailors."
Skopje
Yugoslavia's new President Vojislav Kostunica is busy re-establishing ties with his neighbors and the rest of the world, ending years of economic and diplomatic isolation. In a landmark visit to the Macedonian capital of Skopje, Kostunica attended a summit of Balkan leaders, meeting top officials from Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Turkey, Bosnia and Croatia. "The Balkans need peace and stability, and Europe needs a peaceful and stable Balkans," he told his counterparts. Kostunica conferred after the summit with Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, who announced that Yugoslavia would be able to fully restore its status at the U.N. "in the very near future."
Abidjan
Veteran opposition figure Laurent Gbagbo was sworn in as Ivory Coast's new President after bloody protests forced out military dictator General Robert Guï. Guï took power in a coup 10 months ago promising to return the country to democracy. But after apparently losing last week's presidential election he dissolved the electoral commission and declared himself the winner. Protesters took to the streets in Abidjan, wresting control of broadcast stations with little opposition from soldiers. The general fled to nearby Benin, allowing Gbagbo to claim victory.
Harare
The parliamentary opposition Movement for Democratic Change attempted to bring an impeachment process against Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe for "malicious abuse" of his office and violations of the constitution. The move was contemptuously described as "frivolous" by Mugabe. His reaction was to declare that the national reconciliation policy introduced after independence in 1980 would be revoked and to threaten that whites, including former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith and some leading members of the M.D.C., would "stand trial for genocide."
Colombo
Violence in Sri Lanka left 48 dead and more than 54 injured in two separate incidents last week. On Monday a suicide attack by rebel Tamil Tigers killed seven soldiers and injured 40 others, including six fishermen on a naval base in eastern Trincomalee. The Sri Lankan military said 15 rebels, who sank a naval transport ship and damaged a gun boat, died in the attack. On Wednesday 26 Tamil rebels, who had surrendered to the Army, were killed and 14 others injured in the central hill town of Bandarawela by a mob that attacked the rehabilitation camp where they were being housed. The mob of some 3,000 people assaulted the camp after hearing rumors that inmates had taken a camp officer hostage.
Phnom Penh
Heavy rains heightened the crisis in Cambodia's worst flooding in 70 years, adding a new casualty: the historic Angkor Wat temple complex, considered the symbol of the nation. Erosion and falling trees caused the collapse of 20 meters of carved stone wall in front of the 12th century wonder. Cultural officials say they have no funds to repair the damage. Meanwhile, relief workers are working around the clock to deliver 7,000 tons in emergency food aid for victims of the floods, which have killed 333 Cambodians and affected 3.4 million. The relief operation isn't going fast enough for some. Opposition leader Sam Rainsy went on hunger strike, accusing the government of mismanagement of aid.