February 2001 World Headlines

Wednesday, February 28, 2001 - Web posted at 9:59:31 AM GMT

World News Summary

JERUSALEM - Israeli leader Ariel Sharon said he attached "huge importance" to forming a unity government as the centre-left Labour Party agonised over joining a coalition under his leadership.

The right-wing prime minister-elect was speaking at a meeting with business leaders at his Negev desert farm as Labour's leadership prepared to vote on the contentious issue.

*NAIROBI - The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the arrest of a leading journalist in Ethiopia, which it said was part of widespread official hostility to the press in the Horn of Africa country.

The New York-based organisation said Befekadu Moreda, editor of the weekly Tomar newspaper, had been arrested on February 13 in Addis Ababa in apparent response to an article about the secessionist claims of the Berta people in western Ethiopia.

*ANKARA - Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit held crisis talks with political and military leaders as the Central Bank launched action to calm turbulent markets, buoying stocks and boosting the beleaguered currency.

The Istanbul stock market, which lost a third of its value last week after a public row between Ecevit and his president, soared up to eight per cent after the Central Bank announced a programme of action.

*UNITED NATIONS - After a two-year hiatus, Iraq and the United Nations this week attempt to move beyond the status quo when a Baghdad delegation meets Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the impasse over trade sanctions and inspections of Iraq's weapons.

*TOKYO - Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, under pressure to step down over a series of gaffes and scandals, kicked off a critical week for his career with an apology and a pledge to work to regain public trust.

But in a new sign Mori's days in office were numbered, Taku Yamasaki, a former policy chief of the dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), said he would run in a race to replace Mori as party chief if Mori resigned and no one else was willing.

*BEIJING - Chinese democracy activists urged visiting UN human rights chiefMary Robinson to press the Communist Party to grant medical parole to Xu Wenli, the country's most prominent jailed dissident.

In a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who will conduct a seminar on minor crimes in Beijing this week, 35 activists called on Robinson to seek freedom and medical treatment for the veteran dissident.

* - Rebels in southern Sudan have handed over more than 2,600 child soldiers to United Nations aid agencies which have flown them out of the conflict zone, UNICEF chief Carol Bellamy announced.

The UN Children's Fund will try to trace the families of the children, aged 8 to 18, who are being cared for in reception centres in the town of Rumbek, she told a news conference.

Nampa - Reuters

•  Angolan president sees big win and promises new constitution
•  India's Nano car threatened
•  Zimbabwe's opposition says lost faith in talks
•  Nato raids home of Mladic supporter
•  Russian actions in Georgian Republic 'illegitimate'
•  Israeli Police to recommend Olmert's indictment
•  Cosatu may become friend of court in Zuma case
•  India court orders security for Christians
•  Palin provides 'perfect populist pitch'
•  Poll: Media partisan
•  East Congo risks plunging back into war