And neither Paris nor Washington has any new ideas. Cholera rages in a military camp outside Kisangani in central Congo, hospitals in Burundi are packed with malaria patients, and 80,000 people in Sudan have lost their sight because of river blindness. The most feared outbreak of disease occurred in flood-stricken northeastern Kenya and Somalia, where a mysterious illness left victims bleeding from the nose and mouth. Some of the 300 people who died perished within hours after first experiencing headaches and fever. Scientists last week identified the illness as Rift Valley fever, a virus that survives for years inside mosquito eggs, which hatch when rains flood an area.
Humans contract the virus from mosquito bites or the handling of infected animals.
Italian police last week intercepted more illegal Kurdish immigrants fleeing Turkey for political asylum in northern Europe. Germany is demanding that Italy, Greece, and Turkey tighten their border controls. Outrage over the grisly December 22 massacre of 45 poor Indians there prompted him to replace his interior minister and the Chiapas governor, after local officials and ruling party paramilitary groups were implicated in the killings. A partial agreement with the Chiapas rebels was reached a year ago by a team of mediators, but Zedillo rejected its terms. He has refused rebel demands that he institute land reform for impoverished indigenous communities and grant them autonomy.