January 22, 1996
Web posted at: 11:45 p.m. EST (0445 GMT)
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan (CNN) -- Gunmen killed Tajikistan's top Muslim leader, the mufti Fatkhulla Sharipov, his wife and other family members at their home near the capital Dushanbe, officials said Monday.
The killings in this central Asian nation took place Sunday at the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Tajikistan foreign ministry spokesman said the attack was a political murder, because the mufti supported government peace efforts.
Sharipov was appointed mufti, or religious leader, in 1993 in reward for backing the winning side in the civil war which broke out in 1992, a year after independence from Moscow.
Islamic rebels fled to neighboring Afghanistan, where they have continued cross-border raids against the government of Tajikistan.
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- UNICEF says it will train workers and help set standards in Chinese orphanages, where a human rights group claims children have been systematically neglected and starved to death.
But a UNICEF official said plans to work with the Chinese government in orphanages were in the works before the New York-based Human Rights Watch/Asia reported on alleged abuses.
The report said 47 percent of the 207 deaths at a Shanghai orphanage between November 1991 and October 1992 were due to malnutrition. It claimed 66 other state-run institutions in China neglected, starved and mistreated children to keep the orphanage population down.
UNICEF said it will work jointly with the government to identify the orphanages most at risk throughout China, set up training for the staff, help improve rehabilitation programs for physically disabled children and develop management standards.
GATINEAU, Quebec (CNN) -- Two boys spent the night locked in a toy store while dozens of police and volunteers searched the city for them.
Police said Antony Cerezo, 8, and his brother Jerome, 6, were found safe but hungry Monday morning when the manager opened the Toys R Us store.
Police had used helicopters equipped with infrared sensors and police canine units in their futile search.
The boys walked to the store by themselves Sunday afternoon after they found $2 and decided to spend it. In the store, they fell asleep in a playhouse and were accidentally locked in when the store closed.
MOSCOW (CNN) -- President Boris Yeltsin said Monday he is likely to run in Russia's presidential election in June. "It looks as though I will give my agreement to stand in the presidential election," Yeltsin said, adding he will wait until mid-February to announce a final decision. It was the firmest indication so far that Yeltsin, who will be 65 on February 2 and had two heart attacks last year, will seek a second term.
Yeltsin has made liberal reforms in Russia after more than seven decades of communist rule, but he now faces a renewed challenge from the Communist Party, which won a third of the seats in last month's election for the lower house of parliament. He also appears to be mentally and physically a shadow of his former self. He stumbled over his words at a news conference Friday that was punctuated by awkward silences and fumbled answers. At times, he was prompted by aides.
The number of his political opponents is growing rapidly and Yeltsin has few strong allies left apart from the centrist movement of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, which won almost 10 percent in the parliamentary election.
TOKYO (CNN) -- The U.S. military presence on Okinawa will be reduced, Japan's new prime minister said Monday, responding to turmoil over the rape of an Okinawan girl blamed on American servicemen. But in his first speech to parliament, Ryutaro Hashimoto said the U.S.-Japan military alliance is "indispensable to the peace and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region" and should be firmly maintained.
More than half of the 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan are stationed on Okinawa, and many locals blame the Americans for the increased crime and noise on the small southern island.
The Japanese Diet, or parliament, elected Hashimoto on January 11 to succeed Tomiichi Murayama, a Socialist who resigned suddenly at the beginning of the year. In his speech, Hashimoto also sought support from lawmakers for an unpopular $6.5 billion plan to bail out housing lenders, calling it necessary to keep Japan's economic recovery on track. The proposed bailout is part of a larger effort to shave the mountains of bad debts banks have been saddled with because of speculative real estate deals in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) -- New Greek socialist prime minister Costas Simitis named his cabinet Monday and said his government is determined to push ahead with reforms to take Greece into the 21st century. "This will be a government of hard work," Simitis told reporters after he was sworn in. "The people want their leadership to set an example."
Although Simitis, 59, praised his predecessor Andreas Papandreou, his comments clearly indicated a change from Papandreou's authoritative style of governing, which featured a group of close confidants and rare cabinet meetings. For his cabinet, Simitis -- a lawyer and economist -- named a mix of old-guard Papandreou loyalists and youthful socialist party reformers.
The group is committed to reform and bringing Greece closer to European Union (EU) standards. But Simitis' choice of outspoken Theodoros Pangalos as foreign minister could rile Greece's EU partners. Pangalos insulted both Germany and Italy when he was European affairs minister during Greece's 1994 EU presidency.
BUJUMBURA, Burundi (Reuters) -- The Tanzanian army has shut the border with Burundi, turning back 17,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees fleeing ethnic violence, a senior aid official said Monday. Seamus Dunne, head of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies at Tanzania's Ngara camp said the border was shut overnight after more than 14,000 Rwandan Hutus crossed into Tanzania last week.
"The Tanzanian government has said no more can come in. The refugees that tried to come over were stopped by the Tanzanian army and turned back on Sunday -- about 17,000 we estimate," he said.
Those who crossed last week said they were fleeing from attacks by Burundi's Tutsi-dominated army, which raided their camp at Mugano in the northeast on Wednesday, apparently to drive out the Hutus. The Rwandans first fled their homeland in 1994 after a Hutu genocide campaign against the Tutsi minority and the victory of a Tutsi-led rebel army, which overthrew the hard-line Hutu regime. There was no comment from the Tanzanian government, which has frequently complained about the heavy pressure the 700,000 refugees are exerting on its impoverished economy.
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