BRAZIL promises to conserve 25 million hectares of forest in the world’s biggest forest-protection scheme. The World Bank and the World Wide Fund for Nature will police it. But in a small town 150 miles from Recife one of Brazil’s most important indigenous leaders, Francisco de Assis Araujo, is shot dead.

INDIA/PAKISTAN India conducts its first nuclear test for 24 years, declaring that it now has the capacity to produce weapons. The three blasts, which provoke international condemnation, take place in Pokhran, about 60 miles south of the border with Pakistan. In response Pakistan detonates five nuclear devices in the Baluchistan desert near the Iranian border, claiming the tests are a necessary reaction to India’s threat to national security. US and other Western governments censure both countries and impose sanctions.

INDONESIA President Suharto, Asia’s longest-serving dictator stands down after ruling the country for 32 years. He is replaced by Vice-President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie. (See special feature : Indonesia)

EUROPE A code of conduct limiting arms sales is agreed by European Union foreign ministers, to help prevent sales of arms to regimes which may use them for external aggression or internal repression. Pressure groups welcome the move, but question whether the largely voluntary code will have any practical effect.

AUSTRALIA Past injustices against the Aboriginal population are highlighted in the country’s first ‘Sorry Day’, an event aimed at encouraging reconciliation between Australia’s races. The event is largely boycotted by the Conservative Federal Government.

HONG KONG The territory’s first elections under Chinese rule result in victory for pro-democracy parties. The elections lead to calls for more democracy in China itself.

WORLD 50,000 protesters from around the world make a human chain to call for the cancellation of Third World debt by the year 2000, at the annual summit of the richest nations, the G8, held in Birmingham, England.

CZECH REPUBLIC The town of Ustí nad Labem announces plans to ghettoize several hundred Roma people by building a five-metre wall around their apartment blocks, illustrating an upsurge in discrimination against the minority.

ERITREA/ETHIOPIA Conflict flares up between the two countries when Eritrea invades hundreds of square kilometres it claims in northern Ethiopia.

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