February 2001 World Headlines

Friday, February 2, 2001 - Web posted at 9:59:28 AM GMT

World News Summary

* ABIDJAN - Police arrested an adviser to Ivory Coast's former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara in connection with an attempted coup, a spokesman for Ouattara's Rally of the Republicans (RDR) said.

He said police and paramilitary gendarmes had searched the house of Jean Jacques Bechio, a former minister under Ivory Coast's founding president Felix Houphouet-Boigny, in Abidjan and accused him of harbouring people connected with a thwarted coup earlier this month.

* PARIS - New Congolese President Joseph Kabila, on his way to the United States on his first diplomatic trip since the assassination of his father two weeks ago, met President Jacques Chirac during a stopover in Paris.

* JOHANNESBURG - A cholera epidemic gripping South Africa has killed three more people over the past 24 hours in KwaZulu-Natal province, bringing the total number of deaths since August to 82, and the number of cases to 32 742, health authorities said.

* FREETOWN - Sierra Leone's President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah has asked parliament to extend his government's and the assembly's mandate by six months after calling off general elections, a government minister said.

* BISSAU - A member of Senegal's separatist movement denied that 30 of his companions had been killed by Guinea-Bissau troops, saying the victims were defenceless refugees.

* PARIS - French Defence Minister Alain Richard filed a complaint for arms trafficking in a case in which the son of the late President Francois Mitterrand is implicated, judiciary sources said.

* - Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov called for "an active and meaningful dialogue" with the Bush administration on the proposed US national missile defence programme.

* MADRID - French police arrested a suspected member of the Basque separatist group ETA early on Thursday on the French side of the Pyrenees, a source at the Spanish Interior Ministry said.

* PARIS - Paris ground to a halt as employees of the capital's public transport system staged a strike over pay and staffing.

* BANGKOK - Thai telecoms tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, whose party won a landslide victory in last month's general election, said he expected to be chosen by parliament as the new prime minister on February 9.

* MANILA - A top aide of ousted Philippine president Joseph Estrada ruled out any political comeback by the former actor and said Estrada was now busy writing his memoirs.

- Nampa-Reuters