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Vladimir Putin, left, with George W. Bush after signing the Rome Declaration

 They sat around a huge round table. One by one, the leaders of 19 NATO member countries and Russia signed documents formally establishing new ties.

 It will be an evolving, limited partnership. The council will deal primarily with less contentious issues, and NATO will continue to implement decisions as it sees fit. Russia will not get a veto.

 It is best seen as the beginning of a long process, one that President Bush said will bring Russia closer to the west. "Today marks an historic achievement for a great alliance and a great European nation. Two former foes are now joined as partners, overcoming 50 years of division and a decade of uncertainty. And this partnership takes us closer to an even larger goal: a Europe that is whole, free and at peace for the first time in history," Mr. Bush said. 

In remarks shortly before the signing ceremony, the president said it is time to look to the future. He said NATO, a creation of the Cold War, must adapt to meet new threats. "The attacks of September the 11th made clear that the new dangers of our age threaten all nations, including Russia. The months since have made clear that by working together against these threats, we multiply our effectiveness," Mr. Bush said. 

He said through the council, NATO and Russia will enhance cooperation in areas ranging from combating terrorism to emergency preparedness. He predicted the relationship between Moscow and the alliance will continue to grow.

 "Nothing we do will subtract from NATO's core mission. We will be practical, moving forward step by step. And as our trust and track record of success grows, so will the breadth and depth of our work together," Mr. Bush said. 

The NATO gathering at an airbase outside Rome came just days after a U.S. Russia summit in Moscow. The highlight of that summit was the signing of a nuclear arms reduction treaty that will slash the number of nuclear warheads ready for use by two-thirds over ten years.

 Other stops on Mr. Bush's week-long European tour included Germany and France. In Berlin and Paris he called for continued solidarity in the war on terrorism in the face of European skepticism and fears of an expanding military campaign. 

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The Israeli army has swept into the West Bank town of Jenin, carrying out a brief incursion that killed at least one Palestinian. The operation came hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed himself and two Israelis. 

Israeli troops, backed by armor and helicopter gunships raided the Palestinian-ruled town of Jenin as part of the military's ongoing campaign to track down militants. Witnesses reported heavy exchanges of gunfire between soldiers and Palestinian gunmen. The army says it captured the local leader of the militant group Hamas, Rami Awad, during the incursion. 

After the brief operation the army withdrew from Jenin. 

The Israeli military describes the recent incursions into Palestinian-ruled towns as pinpoint raids based on intelligence information. "Based on concrete intelligence that we have gathered in the past few weeks we are making certain arrests in order to prevent the recurrence of suicide bombings and homicide bombings that actually originated from that area," said Israeli government spokesman Raanan Gissin. 

The raid followed a Palestinian suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv. Two Israelis, an 18-month-old girl and her grandmother, were killed in the blast. 

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack. 

Palestinians say the bombing was in retaliation for the targeted killing by the Israeli army of an al-Aqsa leader, Mahmoud Titi, last week near the West Bank city of Nablus. Palestinians identified the bomber as a relative of Mr. Titi. 

The Palestinian Authority condemned the attack on the shopping mall, saying it harmed the interests of the Palestinian people and gives the Israeli army reasons to continue its "aggression and occupation." 

Israeli officials blamed Mr. Arafat and the Palestinian Authority for the bombing, saying they are not doing enough to crack down on militant groups planning attacks against Israelis. 

Earlier this month Israel ended a reoccupation of Palestinian population centers that followed a series of suicide attacks that killed dozens of Israelis. 

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Pakistan has carried out another ballistic missile test, despite international calls for restraint. The rocket launch came hours after British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw arrived in Islamabad in an effort to defuse growing military tensions between India and Pakistan. 

Jack Straw

This was the third and last in a series of rocket launches Pakistan has carried out in recent days amid a tense military crisis with neighboring India. 

On Saturday, Pakistan test-fired a medium range missile, which is capable of carrying both nuclear and conventional weapons up to a range of 1500 kilometers. 

Pakistani officials have said the missile tests are not linked to the standoff with India. Tensions have dramatically increased between the countries over the disputed region of Kashmir. Both India and Pakistan have stationed nearly a million troops along their border. Fears have risen that another strike by Muslim militants in Indian Kashmir could push India and Pakistan into another war.

 British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is in the region as part of intense international efforts to avert a new conflict. He met President Pervez Musharraf to discuss the crisis before heading to India for similar talks.

 Speaking to reporters in Islamabad, Mr. Straw urged both countries to de-escalate tensions and settle their long-running dispute over Kashmir through talks.

 "One thing that the whole international community is clear about is that there can be no resolution of the Kashmir dispute by war, by terrorism, by violent conflict. It can only be resolved by a process of negotiations, but negotiations can only take place in an environment that facilitates that," Mr. Straw said. 

The British Foreign Secretary said that terror attacks carried out across the Line of Control dividing Kashmir must end. 

Pakistani President Musharraf promised in a national speech on Monday that Pakistani territory will not be used for cross-border terrorism. He also said that there is no infiltration going on in Kashmir.

 The divided region of Kashmir has caused two wars between India and Pakistan. New Delhi accuses Islamabad of supporting Muslim militant who carry out cross border attacks against Indian facilities. 

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On May 27, health officials in Afghanistan staged a nationwide vaccination campaign against polio. Volunteers across the country visited city apartments, nomad tents, and even mountain caves to immunize children against the crippling disease. 

In southern Afghanistan, where tradition and custom often restrict contact between women and the outside world, previous vaccination drives have reached only a fraction of the targeted children. But a bold new program in Kandahar is reaching out to these families. 

Qudsia steps out of one of the cool mud-brick homes and into the midday sun that is beating on the dirt alley in Kandahar's old-town. 

She adjusts the blue burqa that covers her from head to toe, before moving toward the next home. She is talking to mothers in this traditional neighborhood about the importance of vaccinating their children against diseases such as measles and polio, that still afflict thousands of children in Afghanistan. 

Ms. Qudsia is part of a bold new program that in a few months has quadrupled the number of children who have been vaccinated against these diseases. She explains that she is one of 40 female volunteers. 

"We are going house to house," she said. "We asking the families if any child has not been vaccinated and we are asking them what the problem was." 

Until this year, vaccination campaigns in southern Afghanistan reached as little as one-tenth of the targeted population. Officials of Afghanistan's interim government want to improve this record, but they have been confronted by deep-rooted cultural sensitivities. The director of Kandahar's vaccination program, Haji Nazar Mohammed, explains that in previous vaccination campaigns, men conducted the house to house visits. 

"Male team workers were vaccinating and [but] they could not knock on people's door because it is a very sensitive issue," he said. 

According to custom in this society, a man cannot enter a home if the male head-of-family is not present. So, organizers recruited female volunteers like Ms. Qudsia to knock on doors. Another custom forbids women to venture out of their homes without the company of a male relative. As a result, the women volunteers are accompanied by their husbands, brothers or uncles. 

The male relative takes advantage of the visit to talk to the head-of-family and encourage him to allow his wife to take their children to be vaccinated. Ms. Qudsia is accompanied by her uncle, Ghulam. Ms. Qudsia says she likes to volunteer because under the Taleban she could not work and had to stay at home. 

"I would like to serve my people and my country," she said. "I would like them to go to schools. And I want to be an example, so that they will send their children to school and get educated." 

Another development that has emerged under the program is meetings between the women and male leaders of the community, something that is also frowned upon in this society. On a recent afternoon, 15 female and 10 male volunteers came together at the health department to discuss the upcoming polio campaign. 

One of the women leaders, a nurse named Rahila, says education goes hand in hand with good health. 

"The two most important things are, first, health and then literacy, because if people are illiterate the country will not move forward," she said. "And if somebody is healthy, he can do good works." 

Organizers say there have also been meetings between the women and the community's mullahs, or religious leaders, who have pledged to support the vaccination campaigns in their Friday sermons. 

A physician with the United Nations Childrens Fund, Dr. Friday Nwaigwe says the program is succeeding because it has the support of the people. 

"That has been the main strength of this campaign," he said. "There has been so much willingness on the part of the people to move forward to embrace the new, to make sure they can see the new time in Afghanistan." 

Officials acknowledge there are certain boundaries in this conservative society that cannot be overstepped. But they say the women's volunteer program has been so successful that they plan to expand it to the rest of Kandahar Province in the coming months. 

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Amnesty International has said human rights around the world have been trampled in the name of national security following the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States. The London-based group reached this conclusion in its annual report on human rights. 

The secretary general of Amnesty International, Irene Khan, said the terrorist attacks have unleashed legal restrictions, abuses against immigrants, and racist attacks in many parts of the world. 

"What happened on September 11th was a crime against humanity - a gross abuse of human rights of thousands of people. But developments in the wake of the attacks also affected the human rights of many others. In the days, weeks and months that followed, governments around the world eroded human rights in the name of security and anti-terrorism," Ms. Kahn said. 

Ms. Khan also said the United States and Britain should have done more to investigate abuses allegedly committed during the military campaign against al-Qaida terrorists and the Taleban militia in Afghanistan. "The United States and the United Kingdom rode roughshod over international humanitarian law principles, refusing to investigate civilian deaths or mass killings in Afghanistan in which they were allegedly involved," she said. 

The Amnesty International report said that last year, 47 countries permitted executions outside the legal system. It said another 27 countries carried out legally sanctioned death sentences. It documents disappearances in 35 countries and torture in 111 others. And it said at least 56 countries are holding prisoners of conscience. 

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Government officials in Nepal say scores of Maoist rebels have been killed during a failed attack on an army base in the western part of the country. The fighting comes as political turmoil is gripping the capital Kathmandu. 

Nepal's deputy home minister says there were intense fighting and heavy guerrilla casualties in Monday night's battle, which took place at an army camp near Khara in Nepal's Rukum District, more than 300 kilometers southwest of Kathmandu. 

The fighting took place just hours after Nepal's King Gyanendra re-imposed emergency rule for a three-month period, to fight the Maoist insurgency. 

The move to extend emergency rule has split the ruling Nepali Congress Party. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who supported the extension of emergency rule, was expelled from the party in a revolt led by former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala who opposed the measure. 

Defying his party, Mr. Deuba Sunday dissolved parliament and set new elections for November. Even though he no long heads the ruling party, Mr. Deuba is expected to stay on as prime minister, but he will not be able to campaign as a candidate for the Nepali Congress Party. Emergency rule was first authorized last November, after the rebels walked out of peace talks and resumed their struggle to overthrow the world's only Hindu kingdom and establish a people's republic. Under the emergency, security forces have been given enhanced powers to detain and restrict the movements of Nepali citizens they consider to be Maoist supporters. 

Since last June's royal massacre, when a deranged Crown Prince Dipendra gunned down his father King Birendra and nine other members of his family, Nepal has lurched from crisis to crisis. 

More than 4,000 people have died in the insurgency, half of them in the last six months. Nepal's fragile economy, heavily dependent on tourism, has sunk to new lows. 

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Indonesia's human rights court called its first witness from East Timor to testify about the violence that swept the territory during its independence vote in 1999. 

Domingos dos Santo Mouzinho told the new Jakarta human rights court how militiamen fired shots and surrounded her house in the East Timor town of Suai. She says that happened a day before 27 East Timorese, including three priests, were killed in a Catholic church. Five Indonesian police and military officers have been charged with failing protect the victims of the 1999 massacre. Mrs. Mouzinho is the first of several witnesses scheduled to testify this week. The trial is the first by the Indonesian human rights court created to try suspects accused of abuses in East Timor. 

Human rights advocates fear the trials will not punish those responsible for the violence that swept East Timor before and after its vote for independence from Indonesia. Sidney Jones is the project director for the Jakarta think tank, the International Crisis Group. She says it is unlikely the trials will reveal the truth of what happened in East Timor or the full complicity of Indonesia's military in the violence. She says the court hearings may provide some useful information, but they are unlikely to get meaningful convictions for human rights crimes. 

Pro-Jakarta militiamen, believed to be aided and backed by elements in the Indonesian military, killed hundreds of East Timorese after the independence vote, and razed large sections of the country. Ms. Jones says the problem is with the nature of the indictments and the mandate of the court. 

Under a presidential decree, the trials only allow prosecution for crimes committed in April and September 1999. This excludes hundreds of crimes committed in the lead up to the independence vote in August 1999. Ms. Jones says Jakarta had been under intense international pressure to bring the perpetrators of the violence to account, but that pressure had eased as the world's attention has been diverted to other troubled regions. 

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Alvaro Uribe (VOA photo - G. Flakus)

Mr. Uribe is looking to the United States for more help in defeating Colombia's leftist guerrillas.

 In his first news conference since winning the Colombian presidential election, Alvaro Uribe said his main priority is to establish the rule of law throughout the country. He said the murders and kidnappings carried out by the leftist guerrillas and the right-wing paramilitary groups have terrorized the populace and scared away foreign investors.

 The Colombian president-elect, who once studied at Harvard University in the United States, said he will continue his nation's close relationship with Washington and seek more U.S. help in the fight against what he described as terrorism.

 "Colombia has been a partner in the battle of the United States against terrorism. The violence we are suffering is terrorism. Therefore, we need the reciprocity," he said. "We need the help of the United States in order to preserve our democracy and to preserve our democracy, we can no longer suffer terrorism."

 Mr. Uribe said he would likely visit Washington sometime after taking office on August seventh and that he hopes to meet with President Bush as well as State Department officials. He said he does not seek direct U.S. involvement in Colombia, but he would like more material assistance and training.

 "We will do what we have to do with our soldiers, with our men and with our women, but we need technological assistance, helicopters, et cetera," he said.

 Mr. Uribe said he has already begun to seek a meeting with United Nations representatives to see what role the world body might play in helping to resolve Colombia's 38-year conflict peacefully. He said that, as president, he would seek the help of all friendly nations in fostering a peaceful resolution of the war. He also said that if the conflict is allowed to continue, it could easily spread into neighboring countries and affect all of Latin America.

 The 49-year-old former state governor won the presidential election with 53 percent of the vote Sunday. It was the first time a candidate had ever won the presidency without having to go into a second round of voting. Mr. Uribe campaigned on a get-tough approach to the insurgents in his country, where each year at least 3,500 people die as a result of war-related violence. Colombia also ranks as the worst country in the world for kidnappings, and Mr. Uribe's own father was killed in a kidnapping attempt in 1983. 

Alvaro Uribe greets reporters after election victory VOA photo - G. Flakus

 "Welcome to Colombia. I hope you have gotten a good impression of this country and that you transmit good ideas, good news from this country," he said. "Thank you very much."

 Alvaro Uribe says he will spend the next few weeks putting together his cabinet and discussing the possibility of international mediation to end the war in his country. He says he is willing to engage in peace talks, possibly under United Nations supervision, but only if the rebels agree to an immediate cease-fire and an end to kidnappings and other attacks against civilians.

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Elections are scheduled Thursday in Algeria, with 10,000 candidates seeking 380-seats in the country's parliament. Observers say the election is crucial because the Algerian government needs political legitimacy following 10-years of Islamic rebellion. 

The Algerian government says more than 100,000 people have been killed in an Islamic insurgency that began in January 1992 when authorities scrapped the results of a general election, which Islamic fundamentalists were poised to win. Independent sources say as many as 150,000 Algerians have died. 

The government voided the election results, alleging there was voter fraud and that more than one-million Algerians did not receive ballots. 

This Thursday, Algerians will return to the polls for parliamentary elections. 

Two main opposition parties are urging voters to boycott the elections. But, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has urged Algerians to vote, saying the election is "a matter of life and death" in solving the country's social and economic problems. 

Abdel Moneim Sa'id is the head of the al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. He said he believes much of Algeria's violence is the result of a 30-percent unemployment rate, and what he calls "the government's inability to create new development." "Because of the violence, and even before violence erupted, you have a problem regarding development and huge numbers of unemployed people," he says. "So you have a country so broken and its mind is torn apart in different directions. So Algeria has a lot of problems to solve and probably the most basic problem is an inability to collect their actions together and have a minimum type of political agreement to face these problems." 

He said Algerian young people are becoming increasingly frustrated and disillusioned with the prospects for their future. Seventy-percent of Algeria's population of 31-million is under the age of 30. 

Several recent newspaper polls in Algeria suggest more than one-third of voters do not intend to cast ballots, either because they said they will heed calls to boycott the elections or the elections do not interest them. Algeria's ambassador to Egypt, Slimane Chikh, says this week's elections are critical for Algeria's future. Mr. Chikh says the elections are important because they will help stabilize what he calls "the deteriorating problems Algerians are facing and reinforce stability in the country." He says, "if Algerians do not trust the government's ability to solve its problems, it will lead to anarchy." 

Regarding the past 10-years of deadly violence, Mr. Chikh says Algerian security forces are protecting the population. But he says the country's rugged, mountainous, terrain makes it impossible for security forces to protect everyone. 

Mr. Chikh says Islamic fundamentalists want to "transform Algeria into an Islamic state". He says to do so would violate the country's constitution that calls for "religious and government separation". 

During the past week, Algerian Islamic rebels killed 14 pro-government militiamen and soldiers in two separate ambushes near the capital, Algiers. Three-weeks ago, 15 government soldiers were killed when a military convoy ran into a bomb, which the government says was planted by Islamic rebels. The government says the attacks are intended to disrupt the May 30 elections. 

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The United Nations says this year's food crisis in southern Africa has affected Malawi worse than most other countries in the region. 

 Like much of southern Africa, the staple food in Malawi is a thick porridge made from cornmeal. It has different names in different countries. The Zimbabweans call it "sadza." South Africans call it "pap." In Malawi, it is called "nsima."

 The difference is, most Malawians do not consider anything else to really be food. Rice and cassava might be good to eat, but they are considered "snacks," not a meal. 

The result is that maize is grown almost everywhere, including in low-lying, often-flooded areas near Lake Malawi where rice is probably a more appropriate crop.

 The permanent secretary of the Malawi agriculture ministry, Ellard Malindi, says corn is planted on nearly two-thirds of the country's farmland.

 "There has been a psychological attachment to maize as a food," he said. "But we know that in some places, just over 30 years ago, they used to eat cassava, sorghum, millet, and so on, as part of their diet, their daily food intake. And so we are reviving that diversification of the diet itself to create the demand."
 
 

VOA photo - C. McDonough

 The near-total dependence on corn left Malawians particularly vulnerable to the food shortage that has hit the southern Africa region. The price of maize skyrocketed in Malawi, and people took drastic measures to find ways to afford it.

 VOA interviewed scores of people who had sold their livestock and other household assets at cut-rate prices in order to buy maize flour. One man even sold the roof of his house for firewood. He was able to buy two days' worth of maize with the money.

 But despite this year's hardship, Malawians do not seem very open to the idea of diversifying their diets or planting crops other than maize.

 In the town of Nampuma, in central Malawi, an agricultural consultant named Rowland, who works for an Irish charity, tries without much success to convince a roomful of local chiefs to spread the word among their people. 

"So what they are saying is, for them here, the cassava or sweet potato would be o.k., but their main food is maize," he said. "If they do not have maize, then they do not have food. That's what they are saying. So we still have a long way to go to change their eating habits, at least if they are to survive."

 The message does, however, appear to be getting across to some people. In the tiny village of Matope, on the banks of the Shire River in southern Malawi, 17-year-old student Lawrence Patrick met an agricultural counselor who convinced him that total dependence on maize was unwise. 

He, in turn, convinced his family to plant other crops last year. Mr. Patrick says they have not suffered nearly as much as their neighbors during the hungry season. 

"For example, last year the rain has not dropped very well, he said. "And when the hunger has hit us, we have so many cassavas, potatoes. And with that food, we survived throughout the year."

 The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have pressured Malawi to show proof that it is diversifying its agriculture. But the government has learned the hard way that it must win the hearts and minds of the people when it comes to diversifying their crops and their diets. 

Last year, the international community was slow to respond to the food shortage. Western officials tell VOA that part of the reason was that according to government figures, it looked like there was plenty of food in Malawi, despite the failure of the maize crop. The government was reporting a bumper crop of cassava.

 But unfortunately, the cassava harvest figures were badly inflated. It appears that the agency responsible for convincing farmers to plant non-conventional crops was also responsible for evaluating how much of that food was being harvested.

 The government and many Western donor nations have concluded that the best way to make Malawi food secure is to convince people there really is a good reason to change their ways. 

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India has stepped up its criticism of Pakistan, saying President Pervez Musharraf has been given enough time to halt the infiltration of Islamic militants into Indian Kashmir. Visiting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said his country supports India's position on terrorism in Kashmir.
 
 

Jack Straw

 Briefing reporters with India's Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, Mr. Straw said he believes Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is serious about ending violence in Indian Kashmir. "I believe that President Musharraf is serious, but as I have said earlier the test of all these things has to be action and not just words. There is a crucial imperative upon the leadership and the government of Pakistan to ensure that there is an effective sealing of the line of control and an end to the supplying of the terrorists freedom fighters militants call them what you will, who have been operating in Jammu and Kashmir," Mr. Straw said. 

Mr. Straw said the United Kingdom strongly supports India's position on terrorism in Kashmir, noting that recent U.N. resolutions have outlawed the use of terrorist tactics in so-called "freedom or national liberation struggles."

 Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said he welcomes the United Kingdom's moral support, but his government has run out of patience with Pakistan. "There is already enough time that General Musharraf has had. It is vital that he recognizes the urgency of the situation," Mr. Singh said. 

Mr. Singh said there are proposals for monitoring whether infiltration has stopped. He said they would be looked at when "the right climate is re-established."

 In a further effort to ease the crisis, Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi spoke by telephone with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Mr. Koizumi urged restraint, and Prime Minister Vajpayee responded by saying war should be avoided, but there is a limit to India's patience. 

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A U.S. Congressional delegation visiting China is trying to enter North Korea, but has been unable to obtain visas. The congressmen say they wish to bring Pyongyang a message of friendship, rather than hostility. The topic of North Korean refugees in China is also high on the delegation's agenda. 

A dozen members of the U.S. House of Representatives are in Beijing, still hoping after three months of efforts to gain permission to visit North Korea. The congressmen and women - equally divided between Republicans and Democrats - say they are on a mission of peace and goodwill.
 
 

AP
Curt Weldon

 "We want to let the DPRK leadership and people know that we in America are not about backing them into a corner," Congressman Weldon said. "We're not about creating a tension between our nations or our people. We want dialogue. " 

Mr. Weldon says most members of Congress are anxious to open the door to communist North Korea. The Republican from Pennsylvania says a speech by President Bush - which labeled North Korea as a member of an axis of evil countries developing weapons of mass destruction - should not preclude American efforts to engage Pyongyang.
 
 

AP
Alcee Hastings

 "The refugee issue is of major consequence to China and to the United States and North Korea. And I proposed to President Jiang Zemin that perhaps he would be so kind to even make a call to assist us in getting into the DPRK, so that we could carry a voice portfolio, discussing the refugee issue," he said. 

Mr. Hastings says he is concerned about the thousands of North Koreans fleeing famine and seeking refuge in China. The Florida Democrat says members of Congress would like to help solve the refugee problem. 

He declined to comment on Beijing's policy of repatriating North Koreans illegally crossing the border to China, saying only that he understands how a government could be concerned.

 Beijing has an agreement with its ally, Pyongyang, to send illegal immigrants home. But since March it has allowed almost 40 North Koreans seeking asylum at diplomatic missions to leave for South Korea via a third country. 

On Tuesday, Beijing demanded that Seoul hand over four North Koreans seeking asylum at the South Korean embassy here. South Korean diplomats say they may comply with China's request, provided the North Koreans are allowed to leave the country. 

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China says it is ready to let private mainland groups talk with Taiwanese groups about ending a five-decade ban on direct trade and shipping links across the Taiwan Strait. The announcement brings China and Taiwan one step closer to opening direct links. 

For the first time in years, Beijing and Taipei appear to be moving toward a breakthrough in establishing direct trade, transport and postal links. 

Taiwan has banned direct links with the mainland since 1949, when Nationalists fled China after their defeat by Communist troops. In a major policy shift, Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian recently offered to let private groups talk with the mainland about ending the ban. 

China responded to Mr. Chen's overture last week by inviting two Taiwanese tycoons to the mainland for unofficial talks. Taipei objected to those choices because of their massive investments in China. 

On Wednesday, China's office in charge of cross-strait relations asked Taipei to propose a new team for talks. 

Zhang Mingqing, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing says that "as soon as the Taiwanese government authorizes a group, the mainland is ready to start negotiations." 

Mr. Zhang says business people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are increasingly impatient with the ban on direct links. He says the ban causes needless inconvenience and expense for Taiwanese and mainlanders alike. He calls on Taipei to nominate new people to hold talks as soon as possible. 

Despite the apparent movement on economic ties, China and Taiwan appear no closer to ending their political stalemate. 

Mr. Zhang says "Beijing opposes talks with Taiwanese government officials because Taipei has not recognized the one China principle. That principle states that Taiwan and China are part of the same country." 

Mr. Zhang complains that Chen Shui-bian has been in office for two years, but still refuses to curb pro-independence activities on the island. 

China has in the past threatened to attack Taiwan if it declares independence or drags its feet on reunification. 

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One of the most painful aspects of Colombia's 38-year civil conflict is the practice of kidnapping, an action frequently carried out by the leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC. As a result of the abductions carried out by FARC and other groups as well as common criminals, Colombia is the world's number one country for kidnapping. One case in particular has gained international attention.

 In the hours before last Sunday's election here in Colombia, presidential candidates were given time on television to present last-minute recordings of interviews, speeches and advertisements. One of the candidates featured was a young woman with long dark hair sitting at a table with representatives of the FARC guerrillas.

 She told them that their continuing war has made it impossible for the country to change for the better. She asked them to stop attacking civilian targets and to stop kidnapping people.
 
 

AP
Ingrid Betancourt

Many people here in Colombia and in other nations have taken up the cause of Ingrid Betancourt and she has become a sad symbol of the suffering of this nation.
 
 

Victoria Bruce (VOA photo - G. Flakus)