BERLIN
About 1,500 police prevented clashes between 350 neo-Nazis and around 700 antiracists in the German capital's center. Shouting "We are one people," the far-right activists celebrated Jörg Haider's recent victory in Austria. Stopping at the site of the planned Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, speakers commemorated the 1938 Nazi annexation of Austria. When the march reached the western side of the Brandenburg Gate, police used a water cannon to hold off counter-demonstrators. At the same time about 5,000 people, including Jewish leaders, trade unionists and politicians of all parties, gathered peacefully in support of a "Europe Without Racism" on the eastern side of the Gate, which police had sealed with armored cars and railings.
FRANKFURT
German Horst Köhler has been nominated as candidate for IMF managing director. Ending four months of disputes, the U.S. approved his candidacy last Monday. Soon afterward, Japanese Eisuke Sakakibara and American Stanley Fischer, acting head of the IMF, withdrew from the race. Polish-born Köhler, 57, has headed the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development since 1998. If elected, as seems certain, he will be the first German to hold the IMF position. Earlier this month the U.S. rejected Germany's first candidate, Caio Koch-Weser.
PRISTINA
An internal U.N. report charged members of Kosovo's new national guard, the Kosovo Protection Corps--partly funded by the U.N.--with crimes and human rights abuses in its first five weeks of operation. The perpetrators, mostly former guerrillas from the demilitarized Kosovo Liberation Army, are accused of murdering and torturing several local civilians, illegally detaining others, forcing local businesses to pay taxes, and threatening U.N. police. Meanwhile, U.S. soldiers with the nato-led peacekeeping force raided arms caches of local ethnic Albanian guerrillas near Kosovo's eastern border with Serbia, and one senior Pentagon official warned that nato troops might be headed for a "confrontation" with their former ethnic Albanian allies.
MOSCOW
The Federal Security Service (FSB) has handed an electoral gift to its former director, presidential front-runner Vladimir Putin. He proudly announced that the FSB had captured Salman Raduyev, once a powerful Chechen warlord. Back in 1996, Raduyev and his unit staged an infamous hostage-taking raid on the city of Kizlyar, embarrassing the far larger Russian forces by breaking through their lines. Later, Raduyev claimed responsibility for terrorist attacks at railway stations in two Russian cities that left several dead. Raduyev became mentally unstable after severe head injuries, and has not been significant to the current military campaign, but Putin used his capture to lend weight to his promise to have other warlords brought to trial. Raduyev has been charged on several counts, including murder.
JERUSALEM
Ending a five-week dispute, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat accepted Israel's plan for a further expansion of self-rule in the West Bank. The proposal was also approved by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's inner security cabinet. Under the agreement, another 6.1% of the West Bank is scheduled to be transferred, probably this week, to the control of Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Among the places to be handed over are two Palestinian villages near Jerusalem, whose eastern part Palestinians want for their future capital--an ambition Israel rejects. At first, the Israelis included a third village, Anata, bordering Jerusalem, but the proposal was revoked in the face of right-wing opposition in Israel.
CASABLANCA
Thousands of Muslim fundamentalists--including veiled women--protested a government plan to grant Moroccan women more rights. The march followed an earlier rally of some 40,000 in the capital Rabat in support of the legislation. The plan would ban polygamy, raise the marriage age of girls from 14 to 18 and provide women with equal legal and financial rights in divorce cases. Some Muslim leaders have denounced the plan as contrary to Islamic law.
KINSHASA
The U.N. moved cautiously into its planned peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, sending some 90 military liaison officers into observer positions around the country. Admitting there was much skepticism about the U.N.'s ability to carry out a peacekeeping exercise in the D.R.C., where violations of a cease-fire between government troops and rebel forces occur almost daily, Bernard Miyet, the U.N.'s head of peacekeeping operations, told diplomats in the Congolese capital, "We are doing it step by step. Risks must be taken." Last month the Security Council approved a plan to send 500 military observers to the D.R.C., with 5,000 troops to protect them.
KANUNGU
At least 100 people died when a makeshift church was set on fire in southwest Uganda. Early reports said members of the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God group locked themselves in their church Friday and set themselves alight. Police sources said, however, the leader of the Christian cult, who had reportedly encouraged members to sell their belongings and prepare to go to heaven, may have set the blaze himself.
ULAN BATOR
After a summer drought and a winter of snowstorms with temperatures falling as low as -46°C, Mongolia is on the brink of disaster. Extreme weather and overgrazing have caused the death of 1.4 million of the animals the Mongolians depend on for food, fuel, cash, materials and transport. The government states there is an urgent need for animal fodder, and food, clothing and medicine for the 500,000 people affected.
URUMQI
Xinjiang-based Muslim businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer was sentenced to eight years imprisonment. Based on evidence that she was sending newspaper clippings to her husband, Sidik Rouzi, an outspoken critic of China's policies toward its Muslim Uighur minority who now lives in the U.S., Kadeer was accused of revealing state information to foreigners. Kadeer, 53, whose clothing and trading business made her one of China's wealthiest women, reportedly will appeal the sentence. One of her 11 children is said to be in a labor camp. The Uighurs, who make up 48% of northwestern Xinjiang province's 17 million population, have frequently been accused by Beijing of promoting separatism.
PERTH
As Hungarian water authorities lifted their alert on the Tisza River after January's cyanide spill at a Romanian gold reprocessing facility, the mine's 50% Australian shareholder, Esmeralda Exploration, put itself into voluntary administration--which provides legal protection against compensation claims. This followed threats in February by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to sue the Perth-based company and its Romanian partner--and the Romanian government--to recover damages after Aurul SA's tailings pond released 100,000 cu m of toxic sludge into the Danube basin. Zoltan Illes, head of the Hungarian parliament's environmental protection committee, accused Esmeralda of trying to sidestep liability. A spokesman for the company's administrators, Hall Chadwick, said responsibility for the accident--which Esmeralda has denied--could not be assigned without independent environmental test results, expected this week. Esmeralda claims to have been ruined by the Baia Mare facility's closure, which resulted in the company's Australian Stock Exchange trading suspension last month.
BLACKSBURG
Five cloned piglets born two weeks ago in Virginia attended their first photocall. Created by a subsidiary of British firm PPL Therapeutics which produced Dolly the sheep, they are the world's first pigs cloned from adult cells, and a step toward producing pig organs for transplanting into humans. The next stage is to produce a "knock-out" pig with a specific gene inactivated to prevent its organs being rejected. The modified pig organs could be ready for clinical trials within four years.
CARACAS
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez faced a surprise challenger for the May 28 presidential election--Francisco Arias Cárdenas, his former comrade-in-arms. Arias, who led a 1992 military coup attempt with Chávez and then shared a jail cell with him for two years, claims Chávez has become mired in the corruption and cronyism of the political regime they fought to wipe out. Venezuelans will be going to the polls to vote in all elected officials in the country, from President to municipal council members, under Chávez's new constitution adopted by referendum last December. A popular former state governor, Arias is considered the first real opposition to Chávez, but his chances of winning are rated as slim.