World Watch

U.S.
Rules of Inspection
Worried that Saddam Hussein could be hiding weapons in his presidential com plexes or on mobile transporters, Washington insisted that U.N. rules on inspections be rewritten before personnel go to Iraq. Baghdad had refused to allow the surprise inspection of Saddam’s 57 palaces. China and Russia disagreed with the U.S., and Russian President Vladimir Putin called for “the quickest possible deployment” of inspectors. But chief inspector Hans Blix said: “It would be awkward if we were doing inspections and a new mandate were to arrive.” At week’s end, the U.S. seemed ready to accept a compromise French proposal for two new resolutions, for inspections and military reprisals. And the U.S. was also likely to assure Russia, China and France that their oil interests in Iraq would be safe after any regime change.

RUSSIA
population implosion
Russia’s space agency added census forms to the package it sent two cosmonauts on an orbiting space station. The country’s first post-Soviet census began in remote areas last week and will continue until Oct. 16. The results are expected to confirm Russian demographers’ projections of a steady decline in the country’s population owing to ill health, mass poverty and an aging population.

U.S.
Counting Blessings In Lili’s Wake
Half a million people in Texas and Louisiana battened down the hatches when Hurricane Lili came calling Friday. The precautions saved lives: Lili’s 145 km/h winds felled trees, blew off roofs and shattered shop windows, leaving floods and power cuts in the storm’s wake, but no deaths were reported. Two people were injured when a roof collapsed on them. “It looks like we were lucky,” said a relieved Louisiana Governor Mike Foster. Less fortunate were the Caribbean island nations on Lili’s route to the U.S.: she killed four people each in Jamaica and St. Vincent, as well as causing extensive damage on Barbados, where 400 homes were destroyed.

IVORY COAST
Can They Stop?
The Ivorian government and rebel soldiers moved toward the signing of an unconditional cease-fire after intense negotiations mediated by West African diplomats. The rebels, who hold areas in the north of the Ivory Coast, including the cities of Bouake and Korhogo, have been battling the government of President Laurent Gbagbo since a failed coup on Sept. 19. The fighting has killed hundreds of people, forced thousands from their homes and heightened tensions between the largely Muslim northern regions and the predominantly Christian south.
See Also: Cracks in the Ivory

NETHERLANDS
Guilty Plea
Biljana Plavsic, former President of the Serb rump republic within Bosnia-Herzegovina and one of the main defendants at the Hague war-crimes trials, pleaded guilty to charges of crimes against humanity. Plavsic admitted to planning, instigating and aiding the persecution of Muslims and Roman Catholics during the Bosnian conflict in the 1990s. In effect, Plavsic admitted Bosnian Serb troops co-operated with Yugoslav army units — evidence that could be used to help secure the conviction of former President Slobodan Milosevic.

BELARUS
My God Is Your God
The Senate approved a bill that would restrict the activities of small religious communities and help entrench the dominant position of the Orthodox Church. The bill banned organized prayer by groups of less than 20 people and prohibited religious communities that have been in Belarus for less than 20 years from publishing literature or setting up missions.

MIDDLE EAST
Courtroom Rage
Scuffles broke out in court between the families of Israeli victims of terrorist attacks and Palestinian spectators at the trial of Marwan Barghouti. Israel accuses Barghouti, head of Yas-ser Arafat’s Fatah faction in the West Bank, of leading a militia that allegedly murdered 26 Israelis. A woman whose daughter was killed by Palestinians said Barghouti was a vampire who took “the blood of Jewish children.” Before being led away he shouted: “We will be victorious over the occupation.” Meanwhile, British leader Tony Blair emphasized the need to restart the Middle East peace process, voicing support for George W. Bush’s stated goals of Palestinian reform, a viable independent Palestine and a secure Israel.

SAUDI ARABIA
Security Lapse
Saudi Arabia’s top security chief General Saleh bin Taha Khosaifan resigned just days after a car bomb killed Maximilian Graf, a 56-year-old German working in the capital, Riyadh. The Saudi intelligence chief Prince Nawwaf blamed the attack on “traders in illegal matters.” But Western diplomats suspect that Islamic militants were behind this and previous bombings, which killed two foreigners and injured eight others since November 2000.

KASHMIR
Death Poll
There was an upsurge of violence as elections in Indian-administered Kashmir concluded their third phase. The Indian Election Commission said voter turnout on Tuesday, in the third of four phases of the election, averaged 41%. But at least 15 people died on poll day, including nine civilians killed when suspected militants attacked a passenger bus in Kathua. In the following days, at least 22 more people were killed in separate incidents across the disputed territory. The dead included seven members of India’s Border Security Force, whose jeep was blown up by a land mine. The election is scheduled to end on Oct. 8.

PHILIPPINES
Abu Sayyaf
Strikes Security patrols were stepped up in the southern Philippines after a nail bomb killed an American soldier and two Filipinos. The blast, outside a bar near a Philippine army base in the city of Zamboanga, injured at least 21 people. A Filipino motorcyclist who was carrying the bomb was among the dead. Although no-one claimed responsibility for the attack, Philippine police suspect the Abu Sayyaf. This armed Islamic group recently warned that it would attack civilian, military and U.S. targets in the Philippines. The day after the attack a home-made bomb exploded outside a church in Zamboanga; no one was hurt.

NORTH KOREA
Axis of Not-So-Evil
A visit to Pyongyang by James Kelly, a U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, signaled dictator Kim Jong Il’s desire to end his country’s self-imposed diplomatic isolation. But Kelly warned that relations with Washington could not improve unless there was clear evidence that North Korea is committed to reform. Meanwhile in Shenyang, north China, authorities detained Yang Bin, the Chinese-born tycoon who runs the North Korean free-trade zone of Sinuiju. Police questioned Yang about tax evasion as well as real estate and stock fraud.

MEANWHILE
In The Drink
Albania’s capital, Tirana, thought it had escaped Europe’s summer floods. But a drunk dam worker changed that. Angry at being forbidden to drink on the job, the unnamed worker opened the floodgates. By the time the army stopped the flow, two days later, Tirana was under water.