ARMENIA Robert Kocharyan, an uncompromising Armenian nationalist, wins the second round of the country’s presidential elections.

CHINA Beijing agrees to allow European Union envoys to spend a week in Tibet looking at the human-rights situation.

SUDAN An upsurge in the civil war between the Arab Muslim Government in the north and the African Christian rebel movement in the south displaces around 500,000 Sudanese.

MEXICO Julio Cesar Santiago Díaz, a retired army general serving as Chief of Staff of the Chiapas state police and head of the state’s auxiliary police force, is arrested for standing by and doing nothing in December 1997 when a group of armed men massacred 45 unarmed peasants in the hillside hamlet of Acteal. This follows the arrest in January of 29 police officers who opened fire on anti-Government protesters in Chiapas.

WORLD UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urges UN member states to curb arms sales and covert arms trafficking, end economic sanctions that harm civilians and to accept the Organization of African Unity’s plan to cancel all debt for the poorest countries. He also urges tougher administration of refugee camps so that civilians cannot be used as shields for terrorists.

BURMA An Amnesty International report accuses the Burmese Army of torturing hundreds from the Shan ethnic minority and forcing at least 300,000 to flee their homes during the past two years. The Military Government sentences San San, a leading member of the country’s democracy movement, to 25 years in prison for giving a BBC radio interview.

RWANDA The first 22 Hutus of more than 100,000 in prison in Rwanda accused of participating in the slaughter of over 500,000 Tutsis are executed by firing squad in public. The new Government dismisses international appeals for clemency.

GUATEMALA Two days after he presents a report on human-rights violations during the 36-year civil war, Guatemala’s Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedara is battered to death.

CAMBODIA Pol Pot (Saloth Sar), the former dictator of Cambodia and leader of the Khmer Rouge, dies of a heart-attack at the age of 73. During the 1970s he was responsible for the deaths by torture and starvation of 1.5 million Cambodians, over a quarter of the population, in his drive to impose his brand of Maoism.

WORLD The Multilateral Agreement on Investment, negotiated by the 29 members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in a bid to open up the world to free trade, is postponed. This is the direct result of a vigorous international campaign by action groups protesting that the MAI is a charter for multinationals which will further exploit the environment and the poor.

ISRAEL celebrates its 50th anniversary as an independent state.

IRELAND Northern Ireland’s political parties, Catholic and Protestant, forge a momentous deal, the Good Friday Agreement, to try and end the province’s long and violent civil conflict.

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