"We are sure of it."As he stepped from the hospital where he continues his medical practice, after speaking to The Independent, Dr Nouri was stopped by an awed taxi driver waiting for a fare The man just wanted to shake Dr Nouri's hand. He could not get over his experience."I met Ali Reza Nouri," he kept saying "I shook his hand." He had met one of his heroes.. A South Korean fisherman seized by North Korea has escaped the communist country after 30 years and is on his way back home with his family, a newspaper reported Saturday. A South Korean fisherman seized by North Korea has escaped the communist country after 30 years and is on his way back home with his family, a newspaper reported Saturday. Lee Jae-geun, 62, was among the 29-man crew of a South Korean ship abducted by a North Korean patrol boat in 1970 while fishing in waters near the border.South Korea's leading daily Chosun said Lee escaped from North Korea two years ago and has been hiding in a third country.Along with his North Korean wife and a son, Lee is coming to Seoul with the help of a human rights organization, it said.The Seoul government's main spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, can neither confirm nor deny the report, said spokesman Kim Young-jin.Nineteen crewmen on Lee's boat were returned six months after their abduction But the remainder, including Lee, remained in the North. Pyongyang later said the fishermen chose to stay in the communist state.Lee also has a brother in South Korea.Seoul says 454 South Korean citizens, most of them fishermen, have been abducted to the North since the 1950-53 Korean War.The war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, and the border is sealed.South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will hold the first summit between the two Koreas June 12-14 to discuss reconciliation.. India's water troubles won't go away.

The north-west of the country is still struggling through the worst drought in a century with the help of massive relief from government India's water troubles won't go away. The north-west of the country is still struggling through the worst drought in a century with the help of massive relief from government. Poor villages on the outskirts of Delhi have seen riots, with police pelted with stones by local people protesting at the severe water shortage.Meanwhile, in the northern hill state of Assam, excessive reliance on contaminated ground water has resulted in an epidemic of fluoride poisoning. A report by the chief engineer in the state's public health department shows that many villagers in the tribal district of Karbi Anglong have been crippled for life.At low levels fluoride strengthens the bones, but in the water pumped up by Karbi Anglong's tube wells it is present in quantities ranging from 5mg to 23mg per litre - the permissible limit is 1.2mg.The report says the problem was detected last year in the Tekelangiun area of Karbi Anglong. More than 600 people out of 2,300 surveyed were found to be affected. The symptoms of fluoride poisoning are severe anaemia, stiff joints, pain, mottled teeth and kidney failure leading to premature death.The council has sent water tankers to some of the affected areas, and 85 hand-operated tube wells with high fluoride content have been painted red to warn of the danger.Karbi Anglong adjoins Shillong, which is often afflicted by drought despite being one of the wettest places in the world.. A ceasefire agreement between Indonesian troops and separatist rebels in the Aceh region of northern Sumatra was in jeopardy last night after an exiled leader of the independence movement was assassinated in Malaysia.

A ceasefire agreement between Indonesian troops and separatist rebels in the Aceh region of northern Sumatra was in jeopardy last night after an exiled leader of the independence movement was assassinated in Malaysia. Teuku Don Zulfahri was shot in a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur hours before the three-month truce, signed in Switzerland last month, went into effect. His death came amid an upsurge of religious and ethnic violence across Indonesia, heightening fears of a break-up of the country.In Aceh 32 people have been killed since the impending ceasefire was announced on 13 May, while 100 people, mostly Christians, have died in attacks by Islamic extremists in the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, 2,000 miles to the east. Violence was also reported yesterday in Sulawesi.At their first congress this weekend activists in Irian Jaya, or West Papua, are expected to approve overwhelming demands for secession of the mineral-rich territory, a former Dutch colony annexed by Jakarta in 1963.Since his election last year Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia's first democratically elected President, has pledged that he will not permit the country to disintegrate but events are moving steadily in that direction. Financial scandals and a weakening currency are undermining his authority, while the unrest increases the likelihood that the military, discredited by the fall of President Suharto in 1998 and the loss of East Timor last year, will once more reassert its power.Though less bloody than other conflicts in Indonesia, the independence claim by Aceh, rich in oil and natural gas, is the most potentially damaging economically.The motive for Zulfahri's gangland-style murder, by a masked assassin, was not clear, but was almost certainly political. A spokesman for the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) blamed the Indonesian military, with whom Zulfahri once had links. He said: "The international community must investigate this and find out who killed him."Jakarta denied involvement, suggesting that Zulfahri, a supporter of the ceasefire, was a victim of factional infighting within GAM, with whose leadership he had been at odds..

The arrogant swagger had never been more pronounced, the self-satisfied smile rarely quite so insufferable. No wonder; George Speight stood yesterday on the brink of achieving his goals: to seize the reins of political power in Fiji and return the country to the racist days of its past. The arrogant swagger had never been more pronounced, the self-satisfied smile rarely quite so insufferable. No wonder; George Speight stood yesterday on the brink of achieving his goals: to seize the reins of political power in Fiji and return the country to the racist days of its past. When Mr Speight deposed Mahendra Chaudhry's government at gunpoint a fortnight ago, he seemed little more than a dangerous crank. Now the former businessman with the shaved head and vicious temper is likely to become Prime Minister. All that stands in his way is endorsement by the Great Council of Chiefs, Fiji's tribal elders, and they have backed him in principle.Yesterday Mr Speight outlined his vision for Fiji.

He is an indigenous Fijian who hates the ethnic Indians who make up 44 per cent of the population. He has already taken steps to ensure that Mr Chaudhry will be the country's last Indo-Fijian prime minister by persuading the new military rulers to tear up the multi-racial constitution. And he plans to go further.Ethnic Indians in the South Pacific nation, a British colony until 1970, would be disenfranchised by a Speight government. He did not explicitly state this yesterday but, as he stood under a covered walkway leading to the beehive-shaped parliamentary chamber, the seat of Fijian democracy, he made it chillingly clear.Asked if Indo-Fijians would retain the vote, he replied: "Too early to say. We will address that over the next couple of years, but in principle I am espousing the fact that Fijian interests will be paramount.