Politics this week

News SummariesDec 16th 1999 edition

Golan peace?


Peace talks between Syria and Israel started in Washington. Israel was represented by its prime minister, Ehud Barak; Syria by its foreign minister, Farouk Sharaa. Mr Barak was given the Knesset's blessing by a narrow majority but settlers from the Golan Heights, demonstrating against withdrawal, got widespread support.

See article: Israel and Syria start talking again

In the power struggle between Sudan's President Omar Bashir and the influential speaker of parliament, Hassan Turabi, the president declared a state of emergency and dissolved parliament days before it was due to vote on changes to the constitution that would have reduced his powers.

See article: Sudan's power struggle

Rebel fighters in the west of Uganda staged a new wave of attacks, forcing the UN to halt deliveries of food to 100,000 displaced people.

In its annual report, the UN Children's Fund said that 600m children continue to live in poverty.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa refused amnesty for Eugene de Kock, who was jailed for 262 years for several murders.

In from the cold

Japan lifted sanctions against North Korea, saying food aid and diplomatic ties would resume. They were imposed last year after the country launched a rocket over Japanese territory.

Rebels in Sri Lanka, which goes to the polls next week, attacked government military bases in the country's north, capturing three. The government lost huge swathes of territory in fighting last month.

See article: Sri Lanka's election for peace

Pakistan's central bank ordered all funds and property held in the country by the Taliban movement to be seized.

Sectarian fighting in Indonesia's Molucca islands broke out just two days after President Abdurrahman Wahid had appealed for calm.

Don't agree

In his sharpest break yet with Bill Clinton's policies, Vice-President Al Gore, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Mr Clinton's “Don't ask, don't tell” policy, designed to ease the way for homosexuals in the armed forces, had not worked. Hillary Clinton, just days before, had told her husband the same thing. It was also her sharpest break with him, at least in public.

See article: Lexington on the Clintons

It was announced that nearly 100 people had been executed in America this year, the highest number since 1951. The latest execution had been delayed for a week while the inmate, who had tried to commit suicide, was nursed back to health.

A circuit court in Memphis, Tennessee, ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by the family of Martin Luther King, found that King's assassination in 1968 had been the work of mobsters and “several government agencies”, not of James Earl Ray.

See article: Who killed Martin Luther King?

Canada's federal government published a bill aimed at making Quebec's secession harder by defining the procedures any future referendum would have to follow to be considered binding. Quebec's separatist provincial government promised its own counter-law affirming its right to self-determination.

See article: Canada's new secession wrangle


Joaquin Lavin, a conservative, did unexpectedly well in Chile's presidential election, winning 47.5% of the vote, only slightly less than the 48% won by Ricardo Lagos of the ruling centre-left coalition. The two will contest a run-off next month.

See article: An election boost for Chile's right

Panama formally took control of its canal under the terms of a 1977 treaty with America, at a ceremony attended by Mexico's president, Spain's king and former President Jimmy Carter, but not by any senior American officials.

See article: Panama's big day

A remote naval base close to Colombia's border with Panama was attacked by FARC guerrillas. They were reported to have killed 45 marines and two others, in the most serious defeat for the armed forces this year.

See article: Colombia's guerrilla-run territory

Fernando de la Rua took office as Argentina's new president, promising a crackdown on corruption and tough fiscal measures to balance Argentina's budget.

See article: Argentina's budget battle

Join the club

Leaders of the 15-strong European Union agreed in Helsinki that another seven countries—Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey—should be recognised as candidates to join the club, along with the six already in the queue: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. Despite pleas from other countries in the Union, France refused to lift its ban against British beef, while Britain refused to agree to an EU-wide tax on savings.

See article: The EU agrees to expand

The German government and industrial groups, negotiating with Jewish lobbies and class-action lawyers, agreed to set up a DM10 billion ($5.2 billion) compensation fund for Nazi-era slave labourers.

See article: Swiss shame, and solace

After protests from western governments, the Russian army extended its deadline to civilians in Grozny, the Chechen capital, who had been told to get out by December 11th or risk death in a Russian onslaught. But the Russian army, which has now taken all the main towns in lowland Chechnya, bar Grozny, looked poised for a major attack on the capital.

See article: Bleak and bloody Russia


The European Commission's president, Romano Prodi, said he would sue media for alleging that he had had improper business dealings in Italy in the 1980s, before he became prime minister.

Radu Vasile, Romania's reforming prime minister, who had led a four-party coalition of the centre-right, was forced to resign.


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