World Watch

  • Share
  • Read Later

(2 of 2)

Quito
Ecuador's Supreme Court issued an arrest order against ex-President Jamil Mahuad, deposed in a January coup. The court ruled that Mahuad and his finance minister, Ana Luc'a Armijos, violated the constitution when the then government, facing an economic crisis in March 1999, partially froze bank accounts. The court claims that Mahuad tipped off several of his banker friends before the freeze, enabling them to transfer vast sums out of Ecuador. Both Mahuad and Armijos are abroad, but their lawyers insist they will return to face charges.

Caracas
Venezuela's attorney general launched an investigation to find out how Venezuelan military weapons wound up in the hands of Colombia's biggest guerrilla group, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (farc). The probe was prompted by last week's display by Colombian military officials of confiscated machine guns, rifles, revolvers, hand grenades, ammunition and other weaponry marked with the Venezuelan coat of arms, indicating that they are official military weapons. Authorities denied that they had supplied arms to rebels, but did not rule out the possibility of clandestine trafficking by military officials. Colombian officials also said they found weapons with Panamanian and Bolivian military stamps, as well as German and U.S. made arms.

Belfast
Violence lurched back onto the streets of Northern Ireland after the Protestant Orange Order was prevented from marching through a Roman Catholic neighborhood southwest of Belfast. In response to the now annual ban, Protestant rioters threw up barricades, attacked Catholic homes and businesses, and clashed with police on successive nights across the province, in violence so bad that the British army was called out to the streets of Belfast for the first time in almost two years. Intermediaries were striving for a resolution before the unrest damaged Northern Ireland's new power-sharing government, but they fear that the crisis will get worse when tens of thousands of Orangemen take to the streets on July 12 to mark the 310th anniversary of a victory over a Catholic king.

Soria
A bus carrying Spanish schoolchildren on their way to summer camp plunged down an embankment north of Madrid, killing at least 28 people, 23 of them teenagers, and seriously injuring 12. The coach, which was only seven months old, collided with a truck taking pigs to a slaughterhouse. For reasons that are still being investigated, the 10-year-old truck swerved into the oncoming lane and hit the bus head-on, pushing it down a 20-foot bank where it landed on its roof.

Athens
Shedding its image as the E.U.'s most backward economy, Greece became the 12th member state to join the Economic and Monetary Union, a decision endorsed by E.U. leaders at a summit in Portugal. Greece's entry into the monetary system, which will take place on Jan. 1, 2001, comes two years after the E.U. turned down its application because of the country's then poor economic performance. Prime Minister Costas Simitis insists there will be no letup on the measures that put the country's finances in order.

Belgrade
The Yugoslav parliament rubber-stamped a series of constitutional changes aimed at keeping President Slobodan Milosevic in power for as much as eight more years — and boosting his authority. Milosevic, whose second term as a parliament-appointed President expires next year, will now be able to seek a new mandate through a popular vote, thus bypassing a two-term constitutional limit. The parliament also voted for changes designed to diminish the influence of Montenegro, Serbia's junior partner in the truncated Yugoslav federation. Its pro-Western leadership has refused to acknowledge the changes, branding them unconstitutional.

Jerusalem
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat are scheduled to attend a summit hosted by U.S. President Bill Clinton aimed at drafting a blueprint for a final peace treaty between the two sides. Clinton called the meeting at Camp David after impasses on the remaining issues dividing the parties, notably the location of borders, the status of Jerusalem and the future of Palestinian refugees. Any progress is unlikely to be smooth, however — three of the parties in Barak's coalition government have threatened to resign to protest concessions they expect him to make; Arafat's aides say that, as his leadership draws to a close, he may be even more disinclined to compromise.

Kuwait City
Kuwaiti women suffered another setback in their quest for political equality. Last Tuesday, Kuwait's highest Constitutional Court refused to rule on four lawsuits that would have granted women the right to vote, claiming that the cases were improperly filed. The women say they will refile, continuing a struggle which began late last year when the country's all-male parliament rejected a decree granting women voting rights. Fundamentalist Sunni Muslims, the main opponents of the bill, say that extending political rights of any sort to women is against Islamic law.

Riyadh
Saudi Arabia made a surprise vow to increase oil production by 500,000 barrels a day, causing consternation among some of its opec partners, who immediately started to negotiate their own share of the increased output. The extra oil production is designed to bring the price of oil back down to $25 a barrel. That would both reduce the inflationary threat posed by rising oil costs, and bring relief to politicians under pressure from motorists furious at high gasoline prices.

Abidjan
A military protest was quelled after Ivory Coast leader General Robert Guei agreed to pay soldiers a $1,600 bonus for their part in bringing him to power in a December coup, the country's first. A group of renegade soldiers had fired into the air, erected barricades, commandeered cars from commuters and demanded that the military government pay them $9,000 each to buy houses. The coup was initially popular among Ivorians, who were tired of the corruption and nepotism of the former ruling party. But many have since become disillusioned with the regime. Guei, who imposed a curfew last week, has promised elections in September but has not said whether he will run.

Durban
Some 10,000 doctors, health workers, scientists and aids activists gathered for the 13th International aids Conference. However, the five-day meeting is not expected to yield news of a medical breakthrough. Instead, the focus is expected to be policy, and the continuing debate in South Africa over the link between aids and the hiv virus. Such discussions have frustrated the 5,000 doctors and scientists around the world who last week signed a declaration that the battle against aids needs "research, not myths."

Bhubaneswar
At least 12 endangered Royal Bengal tigers are dead and six more are critically ill at Nandankanan Zoo in India's eastern Orissa state. Hit by what veterinarians say was a simple parasitical infection, the tigers were injected by zoo staff with lethal overdoses of a drug. The zoo houses India's largest collection of tigers in captivity — 53 big cats, all heavily inbred and susceptible to common illnesses.

Mindoro Island
Thirteen people were killed when rebel guerrillas opened fired on Filipino police in mountainous Victoria. The police were on their way to investigate the death of a village chairman when the members of the Philippine Marxist New People's Army attacked, killing eight policemen and two civilians. Three rebels were reported killed. The ambush was the second major clash on the usually quiet Mindoro Island in less than a week.

Osaka
In one of Japan's worst food poisoning crises for 30 years, almost 13,000 people are ill after drinking contaminated milk products from the Osaka plant of Snow Brand Milk Products. Company president Tetsuro Ishikawa said he will resign. AdelaideThe International Whaling Commission finished its 52nd annual meeting amid claims of vote buying. Atherton Martin, Dominica's Fisheries Minister, resigned after accusing the Japanese government of bribing his nation's leaders to support it in key iwc policy votes: an allegation denied by the Japanese. Dominica's representatives had joined Japan in defeating Australia and New Zealand's proposal for a South Pacific whale sanctuary.

Suva
Supporters of coup leader George Speight took about 30 people hostage, seizing them in a police station. Previously, Speight's supporters had closed down an airport and sealed off roads. The unrest in Fiji was sparked by the military's July 4 announcement of an interim civilian government and its establishment of an exclusion zone around Suva's parliamentary complex, where Speight continues to hold hostage 27 politicians, including Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry. News of the civilian administration was followed by a shoot-out, in which five of Speight's followers were wounded. The military said it would seek traditional chiefs' help to resolve the crisis.

Washington
The World Bank scrapped a loan to China for a controversial antipoverty project that proposed to resettle some 60,000 poor farmers in a Chinese highland area populated by ethnic Tibetan and Mongolian herders. Opponents of the project, including the United States and Tibetan exiles allied to the Dalai Lama, claimed that Bank funding would indicate international support of Beijing's policy of diluting Tibetan culture by relocating Han Chinese into areas populated by Tibetans. China said it would fund the $40 million project itself rather than resubmit the previously approved plan to further reviews.

Rio de Janeiro
As part of an attempt to combat alleged widespread corruption, Rio de Janeiro Governor Anthony Garotinho suspended 425 police officers, prison guards and firemen he accused of crimes ranging from kidnap and extortion to bribery and car theft. The move came three weeks after police shot an innocent girl while trying to end a hostage siege and then allegedly strangled the hostage taker while he was in the back of a police truck. Although Brazilian police are notoriously corrupt, Garotinho's bold action met with criticism after it was revealed the 425 on the list included officers who were dead or retired and did not include some officers who had been suspected of wrongdoing.

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. Next