But this is an electorate where every second person is illiterate where only a fraction of people read newspapers which

But this is an electorate where every second person is illiterate, where only a fraction of people read newspapers, which has worshipped idols for thousands of years and which has been dominated by Congress for decades. Until then the Hindu nationalist BJP, long the "fascist" or "communalist" bogeyman of Indian politics, seemed to be heading for its first real breakthrough.In 1996 the BJP won 177 seats, more than any other party and 42 more than Congress - but with its high-minded refusal to enter alliances with regional or caste parties, it found itself some 70 seats short of a majority.In recent months it has jettisoned its claim to purity and entered the same horse-trading as the other parties. As a result it has spread tentacles into the east and south where previously the BJP's message of Hinduism, Mother India and economic reform meant little.Then on New Year's Eve the most famous enigma of Indian politics, Rajiv Gandhi's widow Sonia, finally played her hand, and changed everything.Although she has lived in India for 30 years, she has never played any active part in politics, and the assassinations of her husband and her mother-in-law, Indira, make her security on the stump a fearful problem She is, of course, Italian by birth and upbringing. The decision by Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi's widow, to campaign for the Congress Party has galvanised India's latest general election, writes Peter Popham in Delhi. But the outcome of the voting is almost certain to be another coalition. The world's biggest democracy will begin voting in its general election on 16 February, the election commissioners in Delhi announced.

So vast is the area that polling in India's 543 constituencies will take place over four separate days, finishing on 7 March, and counting will begin two days after that. It is less than two years since Indians last voted in a government, and the result was so inconclusive that there have since been three prime ministers, the first of whom held power for only 13 days.But the coming election is shaping up to have at least more human interest than the last one, thanks to Sonia Gandhi's decision last week to campaign on behalf of Congress.As the only politically active member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which has governed India for most of its first 50 years, her decision immediately changed the complexion of the contest. A Cuban baseball star who was given special clearance to enter the United States after escaping to the Bahamas is refusing to take up the offer until his fellow passengers are also allowed into the US. Orlando Hernandez, whose baseball-star brother, Livan, found fame and fortune in the US after defecting from Cuba two years ago, was one of eight passengers on a small boat picked up by US coastguards in Bahamas waters this week. Within 36 hours, he, his girlfriend and another baseball player were told they could enter the US. The other five were detained pending repatriation to Cuba. The case highlights the use of discretion in US asylum policy towards Cubans and the exceptions made for sporting and entertainment figures.. A bigger concern is whether the virus can be transmitted between humans.Experts from the WHO believe the risks of human to human transmission are minimal because the virus, although potentially lethal once it takes root in victims, has weak powers of transmission However, the virus may be mutating and gaining strength.. He promised that this would be "sorted out some time today".Researchers have been unable to establish how a strain of flu previously only found in poultry is transmitted to humans.

"Preparation or evaluation therefore was not sufficient," he said.After the meeting Mr Tung admitted that there had been `inadequacies' in the government's actions and said "improvements need to be made". He said decisions over the slaughter might have been made with undue haste. Beforehand one of the councillors, Tam Yiu-chung, publicly criticised the government's handling of the cull. The death toll from the H5N1 virus has now reached 4 out of 15 confirmed and 6 suspected cases.Yesterday the Executive Council, or cabinet of the Chief Executive, Tung Chee-hwa, met in emergency session to discuss the bird flu crisis. It was supposed to take 24 hours but ended up lasting four days.

Even after it was supposed to be over there were reports of poultry farms waiting for officials to complete their task.While the cull was underway, government officials were seen supervising the killing of poultry in the markets wearing full protective clothing, but those actually killing the birds were doing so with bare hands, surrounded by blood and large numbers of scared birds.The aim was to try and cut off the flu at its source. The tests were revealed as the Hong Kong government came under increasing fire for its handling of the poultry cull which destroyed 1.4 million chickens, geese, ducks, pigeons and quail. The tests on other animals were ordered after it became apparent that the authorities had left large bags of dead chickens in various places where they were seized and eaten by dogs, cats and rats.Television pictures of dead chickens being carried away by scavenging dogs have added to a mood of public unease about the handling of the slaughter. The World Health Organisation has started testing dogs, cats and rats in Hong Kong to find out whether the mysterious bird flu has spread to other animals. "Every tribal group in Namibia has members who fought against Swapo, but we are the only ones who are being blamed."For many San, apartheid was not a black and white matter. South Africa's own San were wiped out by two centuries of white genocide - Bushmen were hunted for trophies up until the beginning of this century - but elsewhere in southern Africa many aboriginal San found a more immediate threat in the well-organised Bantu farmers who began arriving there 2,000 years ago.. Between 1975 and 1989, the South African army used attractive wages and racial propaganda to persuade thousands of "Bushman" soldiers to serve as trackers and reconnaissance troops along the Angolan border."They say to us, `We remember you when you were killing us'," said Kipi George, elected chief of the Caprivi Kxoe. If not, they ask, why is the government ignoring the hundreds of Mbukushu peasants who have settled within the reserve over the past two years, illegally grazing cattle and burning off bush for planting?Many Kxoe also believe that elements within Swapo are trying to punish them for taking the wrong side in the Namibian liberation struggle.

But then in May, the government abruptly announced that the camp would have to go: the prison ministry, it said, needed the stretch of scenic riverbank along the east of the falls to expand a neighbouring penal farm.Since then the Kxoes' campsite has become a cause celebre for Namibian and environmental and social activists and a rallying point for the divided and demoralised Kxoe people.They claim that key figures within the government are really acting at the behest of the Mbukushu chief, Erwin Mbambo, a former Swapo exile with close ties to senior government leaders. Constructed at the beginning of this year with the help of Western donors and local development agencies, the campsite was condemned from the outset by Chief Erwin Mbambo, leader of the neighbouring Mbukushu tribe, on the grounds that his permission had not been sought.The Kxoe ignored him, saying the Mbukushu chiefs had no jurisdiction east of the Okavango River. The descendants of free-ranging hunter gatherers, Namibia's remaining 4,000 Kxoe now live in sprawling resettlement camps inside the West Caprivi game reserve, the shrivelled heart of their traditional hunting range. No longer able to hunt or wander in the old manner, they have fallen prey to all the predictable 20th-century social scourges - unemployment, alcoholism, malnutrition, violent crime and disease, including a rapidly- worsening epidemic of HIV. Yet what preoccupies them most at present is not these modern afflictions, but a new threat from an old enemy.The powerful chief of a neighbouring Bantu-speaking tribe, which once enslaved the Kxoe, is claiming that they are still his vassals and that the land they currently occupy is his.