WORLD UN disarmament negotiators say they have reached an agreement to work towards a ban on the production of weapons-grade nuclear material, but the ban itself may take several years to finalize. The US remains the world’s largest arms exporter, selling $15.2 billion worth of arms and controlling 44 per cent of the world market.

D R CONGO Rwandan mercenaries and part of the Army rebel against President Laurent Kabila, whom they helped bring to power in 1997. (See special feature : Great Lakes)

IRAN Iranians wounded by chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war complain to international bodies against the weapons’ users and suppliers, including Britain and other Western governments, demanding compensation for their injuries.

AFGHANISTAN In one of the worst atrocities of the long civil war, Taliban troops execute 2,000-5,000 civilians when they capture the Northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. The minority Hazara community who, unlike the Taliban, are Shia rather than Sunni Muslims, are specifically targeted.

KENYA/TANZANIA Simultaneous bomb attacks strike the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam. Over 200 people are killed and 4,000 injured in the attacks, which appear to have been carried out by an Islamic terror group. The US suspects links to Osama bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire in exile in Afghanistan, who is known to have declared a ‘holy war’ against America.

SUDAN/AFGHANISTAN The US reacts to the Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam embassy bombings by launching missile attacks on three suspected terrorist bases in Afghanistan and what it claims is a chemical-weapons factory in Sudan. No evidence is found to link the Khartoum pharmaceutical factory with chemical weapons or to Osama bin Laden.

YUGOSLAVIA The humanitarian situation worsens in Kosovo – up to 200,000 people are displaced and Amnesty International reports increasing human-rights violations against the ethnic Albanian population.

INDIA Fifty children, aged between seven and thirteen, launch a hunger strike in New Delhi in protest at being forced to work as bonded labourers in carpet and fireworks factories.

PARAGUAY Raul Cubas Grau is inaugurated as President and almost immediately faces the possibility of impeachment for his decision to release jailed former General Lino Oviedo, who was imprisoned following a coup attempt in 1996.

BURMA Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi ends a 12-day protest in a mini-van on the outskirts of Rangoon, where she had been stopped by troops after again attempting to leave the city to meet supporters. The protest is ended on the grounds of her ill health. Diplomats report that economic and social problems in Burma may be causing a split within the military Government.

PAKISTAN Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif introduces a bill to replace the country’s legal code with Sharia, or Islamic justice. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto stands trial on corruption charges, accused of taking millions of dollars in bribes.

INDONESIA Human-rights commissioners in Aceh unearth the remains of over 100 people believed to have been protesting against exploitation and pollution by oil companies, notably Mobil, between 1980 and 1993.

CHAD/CAMEROON Plans for an oil pipeline are put on hold by the World Bank due to environmental fears.

TURKEY The rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announces a unilateral ceasefire, but its offer of negotiations to end the 14-year war is rejected by the Government.

CANADA Officials sign a treaty with the Native American Nisga’a tribe settling its land claims in British Columbia – a possible precedent for many other claims, covering most of the province.

ONLINE CHRONICLE DESIGNED & MAINTAINED BY SIMON, Simon Loffler.