The step follows the introduction of the German mark as the official currency of Kosovo, one of the first decisions to be taken by the United Nations which administers the province. Russia bombs Chechnya Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled the increasingly vicious war in Chechnya, where Russia is trying to suppress an insurrection by Islamic rebels. There are at least 180,000 of them over 15km of road leading into Ingushetia. The misery is unimaginable, with families huddled in muddy camps while the winter closes in. Plenty of elderly people have died from exhaustion on the road and their bodies have been summarily buried by their families by the roadside.
Refugees even allege that Russian forces have been bombarding refugee columns.
However, there is no cause to worry. In the spring, Tony told us that there was a New World Order in which such atrocities and mass deportations of populations would not be allowed to happen any more. So we can confidently expect bomb attacks on Moscow and indictments of the Russian leadership by the International Criminal Tribunal. He said that the EU would have to carry out its own reforms before it wraps up admission talks with the best-prepared candidates in 2002. In other words, the European Union has made precisely no progress since the Berlin Wall fell ten years ago.