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/