December 11, 1995
Web posted at: 11:30 a.m EST (1630 GMT)
DHAKA, Bangladesh (CNN) -- An anti-government strike froze business for a third day Monday, and garment makers, the country's biggest exporters, complained they were losing millions of dollars a day. The strike halted railroads, halted long-distance buses and trucks, disrupted ferries and air services, and closed stores, private offices and banks in Dhaka, the capital, and more than 60 towns.
The strike is the latest in a campaign by the opposition to force Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to resign. More than 200 people have been injured in clashes involving pro-and anti-government activists and police. The strike has paralyzed Bangladesh since Saturday. The only vehicles moving were rickshaws. Most offices and businesses were closed. The opposition accuses Khaleda's government of rigging a 1994 parliamentary by-election and of corruption, and says no election held under her can be fair.
KIGALI, Rwanda (CNN) -- Rwanda said on Monday that 38 aid agencies ordered last week to get out of the country must go by Wednesday and leave their equipment behind. A government statement said the 38 agencies, a third of them French, had one week from the December 6 expulsion announcement to leave the country.
Deputy Rehabilitation Minister Christine Umutoni said the expulsions were irreversible. "We gave aid agencies a whole year to comply with our regulations and register. Many still refused. We will continue searching for unregistered aid agencies. If we find more, we will tell them to pack up and leave," she said.
Rwanda had allowed 102 non-governmental organizations to continue their work. The expulsions reflect the new Tutsi-dominated government's anger with delays in Western aid after last year's genocide of up to a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus orchestrated by the previous Hutu-led regime. France was a key ally of the previous government and appears to be a target of the aid agency expulsions.
Rwanda also has asked 1,800 U.N. peacekeepers to leave; it blames them for failing to stop the genocide. Their mandate expired on Friday, but the U.N. Security Council postponed until Tuesday a decision on the size and composition of a new contingent.
TOKYO (CNN) - Two members of a Japan-based doomsday cult pleaded guilty Monday to releasing poison gas into the Tokyo subway system. Toru Toyoda, 27, and Kenichi Hirose, 31, are on trial for murder and attempted murder. They are the first sect members directly involved in the attack to go on trial. Both Toyoda and Hirose, who face the death penalty, begged forgiveness for the sarin nerve gas attack on March 20 that killed 11 people and sickened 4,000.
The prosecution says the two men and three other followers released the lethal fumes by poking sharpened umbrella tips into plastic bags containing the sarin gas while they rode on five subway trains. They were members of the Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme Truth Sect), a doomsday cult that police allege staged the attack to help bring down the Japanese government.
Cult leader Shoko Asahara also faces the death penalty for his role in the attack but the start of his trial has been delayed because he has twice fired his defense lawyer. Police have more than 100 sect followers in custody, either already on trial or awaiting the start of court hearings, for their roles in a plot in which, police say, the sect manufactured the sarin gas from scratch.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Triplet tiger cubs, born six weeks ago, made their public debut Monday at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia. They are the first of the Sumatran sub-species to be bred at the zoo. Multiple births are commonplace with tigers but survival rates are low. The Sumatran tiger is close to extinction, with some 300 to 600 still in the wild and 200 in zoos around the world.
After being given a clean bill of health, the triplet cubs were reunited with their mother, Selatan, 5. . The young tigers will go on public view beginning later this month.
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