CANNABIS WILL not after all be legalised in Germany the turbines of nuclear plants are unlikely to judder to a

CANNABIS WILL not, after all, be legalised in Germany, the turbines of nuclear plants are unlikely to judder to a halt in the near future and the autobahns will continue to be speed tracks. They were taken out of the region via his republic, accompanied by Ingush bodyguards.In the past few days the Foreign Office has made contact with Mr Aushev via its British ambassador to Moscow, Sir Andrew Wood, in the hope that the Ingush President can again provide help.The telecommunications engineers – Darren Hickey, 26, from Kingston- upon-Thames; Rudi Petschi, 42, from Cullompton, Devon; Peter Kennedy, 46, from London; and Stan Shaw, a New Zealander living in Surrey – were seized in Chechnya two weeks ago, after going to the republic against Foreign Office advice They were setting up a telephone system. According to Russia’s Interior Minister, Sergei Stepashin – who was in Ingushetia yesterday – no ransom demand has yet been made for the four men.Mr Aushev yesterday advised the Foreign Office to make contact with Aslan Maskhadov, the President of Chechnya, whom he says was the prime mover in releasing Ms Carr and Mr James.”Then they need to talk to the federal authorities in Russia, and then to me,” he added. Ruslan Aushev, President of the republic of Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya, told The Independent yesterday that he could guarantee that the hostages’ lives were not at risk, and promised to do everything possible to set them free.
Mr Aushev, a former Soviet army major-general who is known to have extremely close links within Chechnya, played an important part in the release of the British aid workers Camilla Carr and Jon James, who emerged from Chechnya last month after being held in cellars for nearly 15 months. “Machine-guns sometimes and sometimes grenades.”Would the monitors be able to stop the fighting? The KLA gunmen laughed out loud “I don’t know. I don’t believe they will do anything,” Molja said.”The only solution for Kosovo is independence.” But that is not a scenario that appeals to any of the deal-makers in the Balkans, Serb or Western..

THE THREE Britons and one New Zealander abducted in Chechnya earlier this month are still alive, according to an influential leader in the Caucasus region who has played a pivotal role in organising previous hostage releases. He sees 150 to 200 patients every day but says he can do little for most of them.In another valley, the rebel gunmen sent off their Renault to a KLA field hospital but they doubt that much can be done there for the man wounded by gunfire “This happens every day,” Molja said. He holds surgery in a bare room, the metal washstand filled with soapy water, the shelves sadly free of useful medicine. His mother brought him in for an injection, but Dr Gani Halilaj had no needles. “They won’t be able to defend us if we come under some kind of threat. They will only be able to watch.”A few miles away, in territory controlled by the KLA, one family was a little more hopeful. In the village of Trdovc, past the fortified police post, dozens of people were milling around the roadside market (selling bags of apples, shoes, cigarettes and foam mattresses patterned in pink roses).

There is an aid distribution point (900kg of flour for about 300 families, and perhaps a dozen cardboard boxes marked Food Gift from the People of the United States of America).Outside, Elheme Gashi waited in a horse-drawn cart with her 18-month- old baby Arbnor, fat and cuddly but feverish. At the edge of a wood on a ridge overlooking a main road through the rolling fields west of Pristina, soldiers at an army camp appeared to be armed with a tank and at least one mobile surface- to-air missile launcher – no doubt a precautionary measure should Nato fulfil its threat of air strikes.Few of those Nato intended to help have much faith in the threat, nor in the compromise that will see the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe sending monitors to the region. Their job is to ensure that Serb forces in the region no longer threaten the civilian, and mainly Albanian, population. The hope is that their presence will encourage tens of thousands of refugees living in plastic tent cities in the wooded hills to return to their burnt-out villages.”If it was safe we would go back to our village – but only if it was safe,” said Ganimete Nuhaj, a young wife sitting on her make-shift doorstep under a plastic awning. She lives with her husband and six of his relatives, including two children, in a tent built of plastic stretched across a wooden frame, insulated with rugs and blankets and furnished with a wooden cradle. About 2,500 people share similar conditions in the camp tucked into wooded hillside of the Kisna Reke gorge.”We are having a hard time here. I have to carry a lot of water, and it’s pretty heavy when there is cooking to be done in the rain, because the oven is outside,” she said.

“The worst is the cold and rain – and there are a lot of snakes and mice.” The last point was punctuated by the arrival of a small boy with the lifeless form of an an 18in snake draped over a stick.On Thursday night the camp heard the sounds of shelling, undermining further (if possible) people’s faith in the international response.”Possibilities for these monitors are very limited,” Ganimete said. A four-day grace period was due to run out this morning.Nato sources said the American U2 spyplane could be flying over Kosovo today in a demonstration mission ahead of the air verification campaign that has already been agreed.In Kosovo, paramilitary police in royal-blue camouflage lolled around outside posts established in abandoned houses, tending fires, fetching water and drinking Coca-Cola. Police and heavily armed soldiers were rather more in evidence, despite a Nato demand that most of the Yugoslav forces be withdrawn by last night.In Brussels yesterday, Nato ambassadors gave Mr Milosevic another 10 days to comply with UN demands and extended the “activation order” keeping the Nato air armada on stand-by. “He’s not KLA.”
Despite the signing yesterday of yet another Balkan deal – this time President Slobodan Milosevic formally agreed to allow 2,000 unarmed monitors into Kosovo – optimism was thin on the ground in the rebellious province. He clutched a turquoise towel to staunch the blood seeping from a bandage around his head, his blue shell-suit bottoms and anorak suggesting he was, as the soldiers said, a civilian. “He was going to get his cattle when there was heavy firing,” said Molja, the patrol leader.