Deutsche Welle
   English Service News
   July 26 th, 2001, 16:00 UTC

   Disgraced Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid has finally left
   the presidential palace on Thursday after refusing to move for three
   days, following his impeachment by parliament for corruption and
   incompetence. He has flown to the United States for medical
   treatment. Meanwhile Muslim party leader Hamzah Haz has been sworn
   in as Vice-President after being elected by the Indonesian national
   assembly earlier on Thursday. This will provide President Megawati
   Sukarnoputri with the crucial religious support she needs to survive
   in power.Mrs.Magawati is expected to announce her cabinet within
   days. Mr. Haz heads the United Development Party.

   The commander of ethnic Albanian guerrillas outside Macedonia's main
   Albanian town of Tetovo said today that his forces had retreated
   under a NATO-brokered agreement. Under the deal, brokered by NATO
   special envoy Pieter Feith, the National Liberation Army guerrillas
   were to retreat from territory they have occupied since a truce,
   broken by three days of fighting earlier this week, took effect on
   July 6. This would allow displaced Macedonian villagers, who took
   part in violent anti-Western protests in the capital Skopje on
   Tuesday night, to return. NATO Secretary-General George Robertson
   and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrived in Skopje for
   talks with political and government leaders today, hoping the deal
   may help restart peace talks.

   Croatian general Rahim Ademi on Thursday pleaded not guilty at The
   Hague war crimes court to charges of murdering and persecuting Serb
   civilians almost eight years ago during Croatia's war of
   independence with Yugoslavia. The highest-ranking ethnic Albanian in
   the Croatian army, General Ademi voluntarily surrendered to the
   United Nations court in The Hague on Wednesday, after flying to the
   Netherlands from Zagreb.

   A teenage girl in Nigeria has confessed to taking part in the ritual
   killing of 48 people and removing parts of their bodies in the last
   seven years, media reported on Thursday. Police arrested the
   13-year-old school student last week as a suspect in the killing of
   a two-year-old boy in Maiduguri, northeastern Nigeria, the
   independent Vanguard newspaper said. The girl told police she was
   initiated into a secret cult by a civil servant seven years ago, the
   paper said. The man has since been arrested. Ritual killing is
   common in some parts of Africa's most populous country, where some
   people believe witchcraft involving the use of human parts can make
   them rich.

   Swaziland's King Mswati has replaced a controversial decree that
   tightened his already formidable grip on power, the official
   Government Gazette said on Thursday. The U.S. State Department had
   joined New York-based Human Rights Watch and Swazi pro-democracy
   groups in condemning the June decree, which enabled the government
   to ban any book,magazine or newspaper without having to give a
   reason. One of its most draconian clauses abolished bail for people
   detained for holding unlawful public demonstrations.The landlocked
   southern African kingdom, ruled by 33-year-old King Mswati III and
   the Queen Mother, is sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarchy.
   Political parties are banned in the country.

   About 100 people were feared dead after a ferry sank in Lake
   Tanganyika on Thursday near the Congolese port of Kalemie, a Rwandan
   army officer said. Another Rwandan officer in Kalemie said they had
   rescued 24 people.It is the second ferry to sink in eastern Congo's
   lakes in a little over two months. At least 43 people died when a
   ferry sank in heavy rain in the harbour of the town of Goma in May.
   Rwanda and its rebel allies control huge swathes of eastern
   Democratic Republic of Congo after invading in 1998 to topple
   then President Laurent Kabila.

   The Mayon volcano in the Philippines violently erupted with little
   warning on Thursday, hurling lava and ash 10 Km into the athmosphere
   and forcing thousands of villagers to flee their homes.But no
   casualties were reported. The volcano unleashed a series of
   eruptions on June 24, but subsided 10 days later. Meanwhile in
   Italy, the Mount Etna vulcano is still spewing out lava, but the
   flow has slowed down and officials said there was no longer any
   threat to nearby villages.

   An Paris-based press freedom watchdog said on Thursday it believed
   the Israeli army had wounded 30 journalists since the Palestinian
   uprising began and called for urgent steps to protect those covering
   the conflict. A report prepared by Reporters Without Borders or RSF
   said 10 of the journalists had been hit by live rounds and the rest
   were wounded by rubber-coated steel bullets or other projectiles.The
   report said there were a total of 40 shooting incidents involving
   reporters since the revolt erupted last September but some of the
   journalists affected were wounded more than once. The group said
   that in most cases the journalists were easily identifiable as
   journalists and rejected the Israeli government's position that
   reporters had knowingly put themselves in danger.



                                   Serbian News Network - SNN

                                        [EMAIL PROTECTED]

                                    http://www.antic.org/

Reply via email to