The advanced guard of Russian peacemakers, which headed for the Kosovo town of Orakhovats was blocked by local Kosovars.
Currently the town of Orakhovats is patrolled by the Dutch military and has to be taken over for control to Russian peacemakers. However, the Albanian population of the town is strongly protesting against deployment of Russian troops arguing that Russia is historical ally of Serbs. Albanians also state that Russian mercenaries has taken an active part in ethnic cleansing of Albanian population.
In Southern Kyrgyzstan not far from Tadjikistan�s border several people have been taken hostages, the commander in chief of interior forces of the republic and four Japanese geologists among them. They were attacked by a group of militants from Tadjikistan. According to Radio �Liberty�, some 500 militants have taken refuge in Southern Kyrgyzstan. August 24 is the deadline for surrender of military troops of the United Tadjik Opposition.
The anti-Talib alliance has announced the intention to resume the peace talks with Pakistani counterparts with the goal of achieving peaceful settlement of the current problem. Recently the alliance rejected Pakistan as mediator on the grounds that the latter provided military help to the Taleban. Islamabad has rejected the accusations. On Saturday the Pakistani delegation made the leadership of the Taleban in one of the military bases in the Southern Afganistan. On August 22 the Taleban said that the forces of the opposition coalition were pushed out of Eastern region Daulat-Shakh. Earlier they announced about the restoration of their control of eastern provinces Kunar and Nangarhar. The independent sources do not confirm the information.
On August 22 president of Azerbaidjan Geidar Aliev and president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan held informal meeting. They discussed the problem of the peaceful settlement of the conflict over Nagorny Karabakh as well as possibilities for future official talks on the issue. The presidents evaluated the meeting as �productive one� and emphasized the importance continuation of the armistice in the area of the conflict. The war in Nagorny Karabakh started in the 1992 and was stopped by the May 1994 armistice. 15000 people were killed and no less then one million people became the refugees during the war.
August 23, Radio �Liberty�.
MOSCOW, Aug 22 (AFP)
Islamic extremists from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are fighting with the insurgents in the Russian republic of Dagestan, Russia�s interior minister said Sunday.
Vladimir Ruchailo said he had information that some of the fighters were from Islamic countries, sent by organisations with �a separatist and terrorist ideology.�
But he stressed that the presence of the foreign fighters did not reflect the official positions of these countries.
The conflict in Dagestan had nothing to do with religion or national characteristics, he said. �It is international terrorism since there is foreign support.�
Ruchailo said he was in touch with his counterparts in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States to get information and possibly action from these countries.
In Dagestan itself, Russian forces battled to win control of the village of Tando held by Moslem rebels in the mountains of Dagestan and tighten their hold on a key supply route from Chechnya.
�Today we will raise the Russian flag over Tando,� vowed General Vladimir Kulakov, who commands interior ministry forces in the region.
Russian forces using artillery and air power launched an offensive on Tando in the Botlikh area of southwest Dagestan in the early hours of Sunday after cutting off the village where some 100 Moslem fighters were believed entrenched.
But the rebels responded by saying they had seized a further two villages in the neighbourhood.
In a statement from Grozny, capital of neighbouring Chechnya, the combined command of the Dagestani Mujaheddin said they had occupied the communities of Ashino and Miarso.
The rebels said they now controlled 17 localities in the Botlikh area, and five in Tsumada, which the Russians earlier said they had recaptured.
An AFP correspondent near Tando saw seven Russian soldiers wounded in the fighting that raged throughout the morning and many others were feared injured.
Russian troops also strengthened their hold on the Kharami mountain pass, a key rebel supply route from Chechnya which they managed to seize late Saturday, military officials said.
Dagestani volunteers were sent in to beef up Russian checkpoints controlling access to the mountain pass where fighting on Saturday left 28 rebels dead, said the Russian defense ministry.
�It is 100 percent sealed off,� General Kulakov told AFP.
But the press center of the Islamist forces in Grozny denied the Russian claims of advances and said their fighters had killed 120 Russian soldiers during fighting throughout the day.
Chechen Information Minister Magomed Tagayev said the Russian military was spreading lies about the situation in Dagestan to please President Boris Yeltsin.
�The reports of the Russian generals must be a delight for Yeltsin�s ears but they have nothing to do with reality,� said Tagayev in Grozny.
The press center said the Moslem forces continued to hold Tando and several other villages in the Botlikh district, bordering Chechnya, and that several successful raids on Russian munitions depots had allowed rebels to increase their firepower.
Russian forces are battling Moslem rebels who crossed over from Chechnya on August 7, seizing several mountain villages in a drive to set up an independent Islamic state in the northern Caucasus.
Kulakov said the seizure of the Khatami pass was a turning point in the fighting, noting that without access to the supply route, the rebels would not be able to hold out much longer.
The situation elsewhere in Dagestan however remained tense.
The Interfax news agency reported that Russian interior ministry troops guarding the Kupayevsky hydro-electrical plant in Dagestan�s northern Kizlyar district had come under attack early Sunday and that a three-hour gun battle with the fighters had ensued.
Russian sources also said that Shamil Basayev, leader of the Moslem rebels, had left the Botlikh area but it was not known if he had returned to Chechnya.
Kazantsov said his forces were ready to launch an all-out offensive Monday to regain other rebel-held villages in Botlikh.
By Alessandro RAIMONDI
CHUR, Aug 23 (THE GLOBE)
In a world society struggling to find money to finance social services � this at least should be the real reason � that imposes taxes, fees and every sort of financial duty on taxpayers� shoulders, with the unequivocal result of reducing their quality of life, and so obtaining a result going the opposite direction of the effect aimed by imposing taxes, Canton Grisons, the German and Italian-speaking area of the Swiss Confederation, has shocked the world with an innovative solution. The abolition of some kind of taxes, first of all one of the most hated: that on inherited properties, the shameful �death duty�.
Of all taxes that modern fiscal engineering has been able to outrage with the world, that on inheritance is by far the less moral, existing no justifiable reason whatsoever for an authority to impose taxes earning on somebody�s death. Taxes that in terms of patrimony and incomes generated by the same, the dead person has paid while in life, so that the natural thing to do, should be transferring �that� burden on the heirs, but not taxing them to transfer them the burden as, much to intellectual honesty regret, happens in most so-called civilized countries nowadays.
To this barbaric practice once more Switzerland � truly only a portion of it � has given an end, and with the most democratic form to back up the resolution: a popular referendum. In the canton as much as 33,690 voters have cast their �yes� on the proposed revision of the canton tax code, against a far away minority of 9,769. Even if the abolition regards, for the time being, inheritance between married people, the resolution is a milestone in the right direction!
Canton Grisons� citizens are fully aware that their region will collect some 6.5 million SF less per year, but at long last they realized, backed by their MPs, that innovative solutions and inventiveness must be tried to collect money. Among those even the possibilities of collecting �less� money, or providing �less� free of charge social services. As a popular saying let people think over, �pulling a rope by the two ends is the quickest way to let it break�!
IZMIT, Turkey, Aug 22 (AFP)
A French team Sunday rescued a paraplegic woman after she spent 131 hours in the rubble of her Golcuk home, but foreign rescue teams started pulling out of Turkey nonetheless as hopes dwindled of finding more earthquake survivors.
Instead, teams of doctors began to arrive, with the emphasis now on medical care for the living.
As the French civil defence team that saved 12 lives since Wednesday readied to pull out, an army field surgery team flew in to take up the task of emergency care.
Rescue teams from Japan, Germany, Britain, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands had also left or were preparing to leave.
Military field surgical units from France and Spain were coming in to join one already set up by Israel in Adapazari.
Also reeling from the earthquake that devastated the country�s heavily populated industrial heartland, the government, under unprecedented fire from the population and media, sought to save face by giving assurances that the national economy would not fall victim to the disaster.
Recep Onal, a deputy premier and the minister of state in charge of the economy, asserted that Turkey would have �no problems� repaying domestic or international debts.
In an interview with the semi-offical Anatolia news agency, Onal said negotiations begun before the quake with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for substantial financing were well underway and hinted that he saw no reason for the amounts to be now revised downwards.
But he said the government was considering a business sector proposal to issue �earthquake bonds� to cover extra financing needs that may occur.
Other government officials too were visibly active, among them:
- President Suleyman Demirel, who visited relief workers in Istanbul�s hard-hit Avcilar district and attended a briefing on earthquakes at Istanbul�s kandilli Observatory;
- Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, who met his coalition partners and called a cabinet meeting for later in the day, after which he was expected to issue another detailed statement in the wake of his televised speech Saturday;
- Saadettin Tantan, the popular interior minister, instructed security forces to be on the lookout for looters and black marketeers seeking to profit from the chaos in the quake zone and banned discotheques and bars countrywide from playing loud music;
- Health Minister Osman Durmus, particularly criticised for extreme nationalistic statements concerning foreign aid, who held a press conference complaining that he had been misunderstood.
Officials in the earthquake zone also appealed to people to stop sending food and clothes, calling instead for either cash donations or medical, sanitary and earth moving equipment.
As of 1100 GMT Sunday, the earthquake crisis center said 12,042 people had been killed and 33,511 injured so far in the powerful tremor, which measured 7.4 on the open-ended Richter scale.
As the heat of the past six days � regularly at around 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) � was replaced by clouds, rescue teams awaited with apprehension the rains expected by Monday that would make their jobs more difficult and life hellish for survivors who have been camping in the open.
Firefighters in Izmit began spraying stricken areas with disinfectant to prevent the spread of disease and the army was moving into nearby Adapazari with heavy equipment to clear rubble.
�They told us to leave so they can clear up the town,� a Hungarian rescue worker in Adapazari told AFP, adding: �I thought there could still be survivors.�
Rescue workers spread lime around piles of garbage as the earthquake zone reeled from the stench of decomposing bodies and waste and volunteers began vaccinating survivors and volunteers against cholera.
The Istanbul Doctors� association warned that vaccination was useless and no substitute for �healthy food and water and personal hygiene� in preventing possible epidemics.
A doctor with the Swiss rescue team said after conducting extensive tests that the public water system in Izmit remained good, but a few private distribution points were contaminated by burst sewers.
Labor Minister Yasar Okuyan said efforts would now concentrate on setting up sanitary facilities and housing for survivors, mostly in the form of tent cities.
Media attacks on the government continued, with the center-left daily Cumhuriyet saying in a front-page editorial Sunday: �The need for basic change in Turkey is obvious.
�A radical change of mentality is needed. If this earthquake does not pull us out of our laxity, it will be impossible to look to the future with hope,� it said.
More pointedly, the mass circulation daily Hurriyet ran a box headlined �Honorable Suicide� on two city officials of Kobe who killed themselves after a massive quake razed the Japanese city in 1995 � one for failing to efficiently deliver water to survivors, the other for not being able to provide enough housing one year after the disaster.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
© 1998 IPA House. All Rights Reserved.