World
Bombing runs over Afghanistan shifted to daylight, with antiaircraft guns firing into the skies at Khandahar, the Taliban base. Mohammad Omar, the Taliban chief, reportedly escaped injury when bombs fell around his house, but a spokesman for the regime claimed "tens of civilians" were killed in the raids, among them four people in a building housing UN employees. They were identified as Afghan guards of a land mine-clearing team. The Taliban also said it was ready "to offer 2 million more martyrs for sovereignty." (Stories, pages 1, 6; related editorial, page 8.)
Three people died in neighboring Pakistan as anti-US protests entered a second day. The nation's largest Islamic political party threatened a turnout of "millions of people" if the airstrikes against Afghanistan continued. The government of military President Pervez Musharraf countered by placing three hard-line Muslim clerics who had been organizing the demonstrations under house arrest and fortifying security positions around key offices, although his foreign ministry said the violence was under control.
Warning shots, tear gas, and water cannon were used against anti-US demonstrators in Indonesia's capital, where the US Embassy remained closed. President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who needs Muslim political support, was under a demand by one Islamic party to cut diplomatic ties with the US by Friday. Above, water cannon streams keep protesters away from the US Embassy.
A consensus was building in OPEC ranks for a cut in crude oil production of up to 1 million barrels a day as futures prices slid back below $20 a barrel in trading Monday. Cartel members held an emergency meeting last weekend in Vienna to address the issue and were said still to be in consultations, although no timetable for a reduction announcement appeared imminent. OPEC's goal is to keep futures prices in the $22- to $28-a-barrel range.
Amnesty for ethnic-Albanian insurgents in Macedonia was announced by the government, ending weeks of tension over whether terms of the peace deal agreed to in August finally would be implemented. But representatives of the Albanian minority still were holding out for a guarantee that the recently disarmed militants wouldn't be prosecuted. The text of the amnesty decree by President Boris Trajkovski, although not immediately available, was believed to pledge there would be no prosecution of Albanians unless they were accused of committing war crimes.
The long-simmering separatist conflict between the former Soviet republic of Georgia and the volatile region of Abkhazia appeared about to break into the open again, keyed by the shooting down Monday of a UN helicopter that killed all nine people aboard. Abkhazian forces were ordered to mobilize in response to raids by suspected Georgian partisans, allegedly aided by Chechen guerrillas. A spokes-man for the Georgians denied his followers were involved in the raids, which killed 14 people. Meanwhile, both Georgian and Russian military officials were denying responsibility for the bombing of three Abkhazian villages, although no one was reported hurt.
