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The latest estimate was 156,000 killed by the great wave set off by an earthquake beneath the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day. Britain initiated a year’s suspension of debt repayment by Indonesia, the worst hit country, while it recovered. Mr Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, was elected President of the Palestinian Authority, with 62 per cent of the vote in a fairly high, though uncertain, turnout. President George Bush of the United States said, ‘I look forward to welcoming him here to Washington.’ The deputy police chief of Baghdad and his son were shot dead. Iraq expects up to 120,000 citizens in exile in Iran to vote at polling stations there during the Iraqi elections on 30 January. In Nairobi, Mr Ali Osman Taha, the vice-president of Sudan, signed a peace agreement with Mr John Garang, the leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, to end the 21-year civil war. Mr Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa, in an attempt to counteract a silent taboo, announced that his son had died of Aids. The United States decided to send to Britain four British men held at the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Three days of heavy rains forced 11,000 people from their homes in Costa Rica and Panama. Smoking was made illegal, except in separate ventilated rooms, in bars and restaurants in Italy. Twelve people died in an explosion at a firecracker factory at Xiangliu in China’s northern Shanxi province. North Korea launched a campaign against long hair; state television warned that growing hair consumed a great deal of nutrition and could starve the brain.
CSH
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