Today's top 20 rating items on Scoop are...
Thailand and the Japanese Global Infrastructure Fund are embarking on a bold and ambitious plan to build a canal linking
the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It will rival the Panama and Suez canals. John Howard reports.
The United States is now a major drug-producing nation on a par with Burma, Peru, Bolivia and Columbia according to
Barry McCaffrey, head of President Clinton's US Office of National Anti-Drug Policy. John Howard reports.
Cannabis law reformers have mixed feelings over the recent "non-criminal" importation of marijuana and hashish by an
American billioniare.
As the Russian military begins its invasion of Grozny, Russia has launched a strategic intercontinental Topol-M missile
using the occasion to warn the West against criticising its Chechen campaign. John Howard reports.
If you thought 1999 was a roller-coaster and hoped the world would return to normal on January 1 2000 - sorry. If
anything - so far - all appearances indicate it is going to get a whole lot worse, even if Y2k computer problems have
proved rather ...
If democracy can be likened to a flower then in Russia the flower is wilting. Shortly it will probably be plucked and
thrown into the compost heap. The results in the Russian Parliamentary elections - now nearly finalised - are a clear
wake-up call ...
The following is a transcript taken from a new web-site launched by then Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin four
days before his President Boris Yeltsin resigned and handed him the reigns to the Russian Republic. The article is
interesting in ...
The UK is in the grips of what is being desribed by authorities as a full scale killer-flu epidemic. People are dropping
like flies and up to 20,000 could die. John Howard reports
The Moscow Times reports that Russian troops have blasted their way into the outskirts of the Chechen capital of Grozny
and are now engaging rebel soldiers in the besieged city.
Images courtesy of the New Zealand Defence force….
After 37 years the fifth French foreign military regiment is leaving the Mururoa and Fangataufla atolls used for nuclear
testing between 1963 and 1996. However, the atolls future remains fragile. John Howard reports.
An increasingly desperate Russian Prime Minister may have overstepped the mark in his flagrant nuclear sabre rattling
display today, writes Scoop's Alastair Thompson.
Lots more news....from Scoop
Psst! Want a new passport? You can get it over the Net. Welcome to Lomar the latest in a string of cyberspace nations
that is causing international legal interest.
A special Waitangi Day invitation has been extended to Prime Minister Helen Clark from organisers of several Waitangi
Day events in Auckland.
The issue of Chechnya has been raised informally in the UN Security Council by individual members, but Russia has never
allowed the matter to go further. The world is angry - but largely silent. John Howard reports.
On the eve of his departure to East Timor, Foreign Minister Phil Goff has today released the 'Post Election Briefing
from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade'.
Drugs Billionaire - Name Suppression – Cannabis – Meningitis – Global Warming – Alan Gibbs In Accident – Young Kauri
Award – Give Way Rule Changes – Waitangi – Parihaka – Lifesaving – ACT Review
We have just witnessed the first global party. It seemed the whole world was celebrating, and we were first. There is a
strong feeling that now is the time to make a new start.
Time, what is it? Like the weather it is something to talk about. And like the weather you have to take it has it comes.
And it keeps on coming, at the speed of light. Occasional Dublin Scoop Greg Meylan writes on how to get free bananas.