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
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http://www.antic.org/
