SOMALIA Rival Somali factions sign a peace agreement in Cairo to end six years of clan warfare and rebuild state institutions. The warlord Hussein Mohamed Aideed and his main rival, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, sign the deal after 40 days of negotiation.
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A year of changes : flood and fire were ill
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ALGERIA More than 400 villagers are slaughtered on the first evening of Ramadan, the holiest month in the Muslim year, in attacks on remote hamlets around the town of Relizane, west of Algiers. The Armed Islamic Group, the dissident wing of the Islamist opposition movement, is held responsible for this, the biggest massacre of Algeria’s six- year-old civil conflict, which has already claimed 75,000 lives.
INDIA In one of the largest peaceful sit-ins in Indian history, over 20,000 villagers congregate around the partly-built Maheshwar Dam on the Narmada river in Madhya Pradesh, one of the sites of the $4.9 billion Narmada Valley Development Project. With plans for 30 big dams, 135 medium-sized ones and 3,000 small ones in the valley, India’s first privatized hydroelectric power project faces fierce local and international protests as it threatens to destroy the land and homes of thousands of families.
BRITAIN Defence Secretary, George Robertson announces plans for Britain to destroy its entire stock of anti-personnel landmines by the year 2000, five years earlier than expected, under requirements set by the Ottawa Convention. 4,000 mines for British soldiers’ disarmament training are to be left.
ASIA Asian currencies fall to new depths as a result of the region’s continuing economic crisis. Indonesia and Thailand are especially hard hit. Thailand, South Korea and Malaysia plan to expel millions of immigrant workers.
US/AFGHANISTAN Leaders of the US women’s movement are up in arms over an agreement by the Clinton Administration to back a $4.5 billion oil pipeline deal between the US and Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, renowned for its extreme oppression of women.
PAKISTAN The campaign against opium cultivation had remarkable success with production dropping from 800 tonnes in 1980 to 24 tonnes in 1997.
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