new internationalist

ARGENTINA Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who is prosecuting General Pinochet, issues international arrest warrants for 12 ex-members of the Argentine junta.

INDONESIA More than a million march in Aceh demanding a referendum. President Wahid says yes but that it will offer only autonomy, not independence.

AFRICA The La Niņa weather phenomenon ruins crops in the Horn, leaving seven million Ethiopians dependent on food aid.

AUSTRALIA votes against the proposed republic in a referendum; the British Queen will remain head of state.

KENYA Parliament votes unanimously to cut presidential powers for the first time in the country’s history, humiliating President Moi.

SRI LANKA The Tamil Tigers launch a successful offensive, prompting a mass exodus of refugees and embarrassing President Kumaratunga just before the presidential election.

GABON A US Senate investigation reveals that President Omar Bongo has transferred more than $130 million through personal accounts at Citibank in New York.

TURKEY suffers another massive earthquake, which kills 374 and injures 2,923. But the relief effort is much better handled than that after the August disaster.

AFGHANISTAN Demonstrators smash UN offices and burn UN flags in protest at sanctions imposed over the Taliban’s refusal to surrender suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden to the US. Thousands watch the first public execution of a woman in Kabul since the Taliban takeover.

CHINA China and the US agree a trade deal that will pave the way to China’s membership of the World Trade Organization. Many of the existing barriers to foreign companies will be removed over the next 15 years.

BOSNIA The UN admits responsibility for the deaths of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995.

UNITED NATIONS Faced with suspension from the General Assembly, the US finally agrees a deal to repay millions of dollars of unpaid debts to the UN – but only providing projects ‘advocating’ abortion are cut back.

CUBA Fidel Castro hosts an Ibero-American summit. A new Cuban medical school is, free-of-charge, training 2,000 Latin American students as doctors.

GUINEA Hundreds of women who have practised female genital mutilation hand in their ceremonial knives.

CONGO-BRAZZAVILLE The Government signs a peace accord with militias backing ex-Prime Minister Bernard Kolelas. But widespread starvation in the country leads Oxfam to talk of a ‘human catastrophe’.

BURUNDI Amnesty International warns that Burundi is ‘on the threshold of disaster’ as reports of increasing torture and disappearances recall the situation before the Rwanda genocide.

PAKISTAN Former Premier Nawaz Sharif faces a possible death sentence from an anti-terrorist court – a controversial body which he himself instituted.

HONDURAS The biggest boat in history – an $8-billion luxury floating palace called The Freedom Ship – will be built in poverty-stricken Honduras.

SUDAN The US passes a new law to allow it to supply food aid to rebels fighting the Sudanese Government, which it believes backs international terrorism.

ALGERIA is hit by a new wave of killings by GIA Islamic terrorists opposed to President Bouteflika’s peace initiative.

MEXICO Two mass graves containing more than 100 bodies are found. They are thought to be victims of Mexican cocaine cartels.

EAST AFRICA The presidents of Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya agree to revive the East African Economic Community, with the eventual goal of monetary union and political federation.

AOTEAROA / NEW ZEALAND The National Party loses the election; Labour’s Helen Clark will lead a centre-left coalition – but Greens will hold the balance of power.