Asiaweek - Newsmap

30 Oct 98

RUSSIA
Nearly one in three Russians - 30.1% of the country's 148 million inhabitants - now live under the poverty line, government statistics say. In August - the month in which Russian's financial crisis exploded - only 22.3% of the population were officially considered poor.
THAILAND
Bangkok - Nine times as many Thais have died of AIDS than has been officially reported, according to a European Union study. The report says 222,000 people have succumbed since 1985, compared with the official Public Health Ministry figure of 24,667. The discrepancy apparently lies largely in relatives intentionally reporting other causes of death and doctors misdiagnosing the disease.
TYPHOON ZEB
The storm ranks first among killers in East Asia this season. Zeb crashed into northern Philippines, killing at least 74 people and leaving 65 others missing. In Taiwan it took 34 lives - 12 of them in mudslides near Taipei, where, in the Oct. 17 aftermath, mourners gathered. Zeb tore northward to southern Japan, beaching ships, causing 332 landslides, washing away bridges and claiming 13 lives. The economic fallout? Taiwan's building industry is worried. In the Taipei neighborhoods' hardest hit, home prices plummeted and buyers are more wary of moving into possible mudslide areas. Total crop damage will run into hundreds of millions of dollars. At midweek, Typhoon Babs was building, pushing toward the central Phillipines.

The Nations : India

Target: The Christians
The BJP shares the blame for recent attacks
BY AJAY SINGH
It was 2 a.m. when the sound of a doorbell woke the four nuns at Preeti Sharan, a Catholic kindergarten and missionary center whose name means "Refuge of Love" in Hindi. When one of the nuns went to the building's entrance, barred by a metal grill, she found herself face to face with five men. The strangers said they were from a neighboring village and needed medicine for a sick child. Suddenly, they started banging down the gate with iron rods. Terrified, all the four nuns shut themselves in a chapel and began to pray. Within minutes, at least 22 men broke into the premises and started ransacking the rooms, grabbing whatever valuables they could find. The intruders then forced their way into the chapel, dragged the defenseless nuns to a field nearby and raped them.

The Sept. 23 assault in Nawapura Bhandaria, a sleepy village in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, has sent shock waves throughout the nation's Christian community. Three days later, miscreants attacked a Catholic mission near Nawapara. And on Sept. 27, yet another missionary center in the state capital of Bhopal was stormed. Said Indra Iyengar, president of the Madhya Pradesh Christians' Association: "Three attacks within a span of five days shows someone has a hidden agenda."

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