World Watch

Frankfurt

The prosecutor's office said it will investigate allegations that Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer lied during the trial of convicted murderer Hans-Joachim Klein. Fischer had denied any contact with members of the violent Red Army Faction in the 1970s. But he allegedly later conceded that he could not rule out having had contact with Red Army Faction member Margrit Schiller. A parliamentary committee now has to decide whether Fischer's immunity will be lifted if the investigation leads to a formal charge against him.

Saint Raphael

Up to 1,500 people, mainly Kurds, were on a ship that ran aground off the coast of southern France on Saturday. The Cambodian-registered East Sea appeared to have been deliberately run on to Boulouris beach near Saint Raphael. "The captain has fled, leaving the boat facing land, the propellors turned so that the boat cannot drift away," said Saint Raphael mayor Georges Ginestat. Rescuers believed the boat had left Greece eight days earlier and had stopped in Turkey. The vessel's human cargo, including 300 children under age 10, were assumed to be potential illegal migrants. None was seriously injured when the boat was beached, though a French official told France Info radio that their physical condition was "deplorable," that they had been forced to stand in the hold in unsantiary conditions and were tired and dehydrated. Many suffered from malnutrition.

Podujevo

In the worst attack against Serbs in the province of Kosovo since the aftermath of the nato bombing in 1999, at least seven civilians were killed and a dozen more seriously injured when the bus in which they were traveling was torn apart by a remote-controlled bomb buried in a drainage ditch. The bus was part of a convoy of five vehicles driving under armed nato escort from the border with Serbia to the town of Gracanica, where the Serbs had planned to visit the graves of their ancestors. Two Swedish armored personnel carriers passed over the 50-100-kg explosive device before it was detonated from about 1 km away, U.N. officials said. Violence against Serbs has become commonplace in Kosovo and is now driven less by revenge than the pursuit of political independence.

Tel Aviv

In the worst single attack since Israeli-Palestinian fighting broke out last September, a Palestinian bus driver ploughed into a bus stop at high speed, killing eight and injuring 20. Seven of the dead were Israeli soldiers. Police pursued driver Khalil Abu Olbeh, who tried to flee to Gaza, for 35 km before opening fire, causing the bus to crash. Abu Olbeh, who had worked for the Egged bus company for five years ferrying Palestinian workers between Israel and Gaza, was given clearance to return to his job in Israel just two weeks ago. His family said he has no ties to the Islamic militant group Hamas, which has carried out similar attacks in the past.

Baghdad

In the first attack on or near the Iraqi capital in nearly two years, U.S. and British warplanes carried out bombing raids on radar installations and command-and-control targets. Pentagon officials said the raid was launched at Iraqi air defense facilities because of an increasingly sophisticated threat against allied planes patrolling the no-fly zone in southern Iraq, set up at the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

Manama

After two decades of repressive security measures and social unrest, Bahrainis voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new democracy charter that will give the tiny island nation a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament and an independent judiciary. Around 98% of voters backed the reforms, which are due to be implemented by 2004.

Lusaka

African leaders met to discuss the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and recommit themselves to the peace accord signed 18 months ago and broken ever since. But the presidents of Rwanda and Uganda, which both back Congolese rebel groups and have their own troops in the vast central African country, refused to attend. In a small breakthrough, Congolese President Joseph Kabila said he would accept the former Botswanan leader, Ketumile Masire, as a mediator. Joseph's father, the former Congolese President Laurent-Desire Kabila, who was assassinated last month, had rejected Masire's involvement.

Johannesburg

In scenes reminiscent of apartheid-era confrontations between security forces and black township residents, police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades at a mob of protesting squatters in Alexandra township as local council officials moved in to remove them. The eviction order on 3,500 families living along the Jukskei River that runs through Alexandra came after squatter shacks were washed away by floodwaters and the river was found to be contaminated with cholera. The government is trying to curb a cholera outbreak that has already resulted in some 18,000 infections and more than 70 deaths.

Kabul

Afghanistan's Taliban government appeared to suffer a major setback when fighting broke out over the key town of Bamiyan. Opposition groups claimed to have captured the town. The latest fighting comes as the Taliban face tough new U.N. sanctions over their refusal to hand over the Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden to face charges related to the blowing up of U.S. embassies in 1998. U.N. officials have warned of a major disaster if emergency aid is not immediately made available to an estimated 600,000 Afghans who have been displaced by the war and are enduring in makeshift border camps in life-threatening conditions.

Chengdu

An entrepreneur arrested after articles marking the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown were posted on his website went on trial for "instigation to subvert state power." Huang Qi's case has drawn international interest because it highlights China's struggle to promote the Internet for commercial purposes while trying to control political content. The trial had to be adjourned when Huang, who is in poor health, collapsed. Foreign observers, as well as Huang's family, have been barred from attending.

Tokyo

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori came under attack from members of both his governing party and the parliamentary opposition for his decision to continue with a game of golf after hearing the news that the U.S.S. Greeneville collided with and sank the fishing trawler Ehime Maru off Hawaii. Nine people are still missing and feared dead. It is the latest in a series of gaffes that have made Mori one of the most unpopular Prime Ministers ever. Lawmakers in the three-way governing coalition are nervous about the threat of a thrashing in an election for the parliament's upper house in July.

Topeka

Reversing a controversial 1999 move, the Kansas Board of Education voted 7 to 3 to restore the theory of evolution to state school standards. Although the 1999 vote never banned the teaching of evolution or required the teaching of the Biblical story of creation, it dropped Darwin's theory from standardized tests taken by Kansas students. The ousting of three anti-evolution members cast the die for changing the standards. Kansas is one of several states, including Arizona, Alabama, Illinois, Texas and Nebraska, where school boards have attempted to play down evolutionary concepts.

Bridgetown

Leaders of 10 island states in the West Indies agreed to establish a shared Caribbean Court of Justice to replace the British Privy Council as the highest civil and criminal court in most of the region's former British colonies. Human rights groups expressed concern that the rate of hangings will increase. Civil rights lawyers in Britain have succeeded in frustrating many death sentences passed in the Caribbean on the grounds that the judgments are faulty or that not all legal challenges had been exhausted. Caribbean governments, faced with a rising tide of violence and drug trafficking, are eager to prove that they are enforcing the law by proceeding with executions. The court is unlikely to sit before 2003.

San Salvador

At least 280 people were killed, more than 2,400 injured and around 123,000 left homeless after a devastating earthquake hit El Salvador, the second to strike the country in a month. Measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale, the new quake was smaller than January's but caused huge damage because its epicenter was on land rather than under the ocean. At week's end, many roads in the worst-affected areas were still blocked, hampering the distribution of food, water and medicines.