Madrid
After a three-month trial, five former senior officials received jail sentences ranging from 67 to 71 years for their part in the kidnaping and murder of two suspected members of the Basque separatist group ETA in 1983. The men were just two of 27 members of ETA who were kidnaped or killed in the early 1980s by a shadowy organization known as GAL, or the Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups. Allegations linking GAL, which apparently comprised off-duty policemen and maverick politicians, to the then socialist government of Felipe González led in part to that government's downfall in 1996. eta, which has killed 775 people over the past 30 years, was at the height of its activity at the time of the kidnapings and killings.
Paris
In another blow to his attempt at a political recovery, Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of France's extreme-right National Front party, was stripped of his last elected post following finalization of his conviction for the assault of a Socialist candidate during campaigning in 1997. Sentenced to a year's banishment from political office for the attack, the enforcement move deprives Le Pen of his seat in the European Parliament, which he has held since 1984, and follows his ousting in March as a regional councilor in southern France. Last year, internal rivalries split Le Pen's once-surging party, gutting it of many backers and increasing the probability of major electoral losses in municipal voting in 2001. Undeterred, Le Pen has said that he will stand for President for the fourth time in 2002.
Belgrade
In the latest in a series of high-level assassinations in Serbia, businessman Zoran Uskokovic, rumored to be the man behind the murder of notorious paramilitary leader Arkan in January, died when attackers sprayed his car with bullets after a dramatic chase through the streets of Belgrade. Days earlier, Zika Petrovic, the head of Yugoslavia's national airline JAT, was shot dead outside his home. Petrovic was a close associate of President Slobodan Milosevic and a member of the ruling Socialist Party. Since the start of the year, a dozen people have died in similar gangland-style killings, none of which has been solved. Tehran Iran's conservative judiciary ordered 16 pro-reform newspapers and journals to cease publication in a move that threatens to undermine President Mohammed Khatami's reformist ambitions. Two editors have been imprisoned for "insulting Islamic values." The crackdown was sanctioned by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, who said that some reformist publications had been turned into "bases of the enemy." The hard-liners have already succeeded in their efforts to invalidate the results of February's elections in at least 11 constituencies where reformist candidates won; concerns have been raised that, unchecked by the criticisms of the reformist press, they may continue this trend.
Marjayoun
Israel carried out retaliatory attacks on suspected guerrilla hideouts in southern Lebanon after Hizballah guerrillas claimed responsibility for an attack on a border crossing point. Hizballah said that four members of the pro-Israeli South Lebanon Army died in what the sla claimed was a suicide attack. The attacks coincided with a visit by Terje Larsen, the U.N. Special Envoy to the Middle East, regarding Israel's planned withdrawal from Lebanon in July and the U.N.'s peacekeeping role in the area. The deaths bring to 21 the number of Israeli and sla troops killed in the zone so far this year.
Kampala
Police and firemen uncovered 55 bodies from another mass grave linked to Uganda's doomsday cult, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. The grave, the sixth to have been discovered since at least 530 cult members burned to death in a church fire in March, was under a garage attached to a house rented by a cult leader outside the capital, Kampala. The church fire was originally thought to have been a mass suicide but police now believe cult members, including those found buried, were killed after predictions that the world was about to end failed to come true. The total number of dead is now more than 970. International arrest warrants have been issued for cult leaders.
Bujumbura
Fighting between the army and rebels flared outside the Burundian capital, leaving more than 60 people dead, including at least 26 civilians. The fighting came in the run-up to a visit by former South African President Nelson Mandela, his first since he took over mediation of peace talks late last year. Since 1993, when Burundi's first democratically elected President was assassinated, more than 200,000 people have been killed in a continuing cycle of violence. The talks aim to end the fighting and reconcile the country's Tutsi minority, which has held power almost continuously since independence in 1962, and its Hutu majority. Mandela met separately with the President and military leaders to discuss reducing the size of the country's military and integrating rebel groups into the national army.
Colombo
Heavy fighting erupted in Sri Lanka between the army and Tamil Tigers after the latter's capture of the strategically important Elephant Pass military base, which guards the approach to Jaffna Peninsula, a former rebel stronghold. The U.N. has suspended some of its relief operations in the region. The capture of the military complex gives the rebels, fighting for a separate state for minority Tamils in the north and east of the island, a land link to the peninsula from the northern mainland where their headquarters is situated. The upsurge in fighting has overshadowed efforts by Norway to bring the two sides to the negotiating table for peace talks. More than 60,000 people have been killed in the 18-year war.
Beijing
Chinese police arrested around 100 members of the banned Falun Gong movement on the first anniversary of the mass demonstration in Tiananmen Square that led to the spiritual movement being outlawed last July. The government sees the movement, which claims an estimated 70 to 100 million followers, as a serious political challenge and has made intensive efforts to root out members from state organizations, schools and factories. In the past nine months, peaceful but defiant protests by, and arrests of, Falun Gong adherents have been an almost daily occurrence. Falun Gong says that more than 35,000 members have now been detained and around 5,000 are being held without trial in labor camps. Nearly 100 leaders have been sentenced to prison terms, some longer than 10 years.
Sipadan Island
Twenty-one people, including 10 foreign tourists, were kidnaped from a remote holiday resort off the coast of Malaysia. The Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim separatist group based in the southern Philippines, initially claimed responsibility for the abduction but later issued a bizarre quasi-retraction intended to "give the government a puzzle." The abduction happened just days after the Philippine government began attacking the group's base on the island of Basilan, where the separatists have been holding 27 teachers and children hostage for the last month in exchange for the release of three Islamic militants held in U.S. prisons, including Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who masterminded the 1993 attempted bomb attack on the World Trade Center in New York.
Santiago
As Chile's court of appeal began hearings to decide whether to strip General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte of his judicial immunity, the former military leader's supporters and opponents clashed in downtown Santiago. As a senator for life, the general has immunity from prosecution. The judicial proceeding is the first step toward trying Pinochet on human rights violations committed during his 17-year dictatorship, during which more than 3,000 people were killed or disappeared. Currently, he faces 92 criminal suits in Chile. Before his return home in March, Pinochet spent 16 months under house arrest in the U.K. before the British government decided he was too ill to be extradited to Spain to face trial.
La Paz
In the wake of riots that left six dead and more than 50 injured in protests over a hike in water charges, the Bolivian cabinet resigned en bloc to allow President Hugo Banzer Suárez to reimpose his authority following wide criticism of his government's economic policies. Most were reappointed, but Defense Minister Jorge Crespo, blamed for his handling of the protests, was replaced by retired General Oscar Vargas. Until recently, the World Bank and the imf regarded Bolivia as a model of success, but unemployment has risen sharply owing partly to a U.S.-sponsored drive to destroy coca, a move which has eliminated thousands of jobs in South America's poorest country.