A special envoy of Turkmenistan's President Saparmurad Niyazov meets with Massoud in Tajikistan and with Taliban Supreme Leader (Amir-ul-Momenin) Mullah Mohammad Omar in the southern city of Qandahar.

The Taliban remain uncompromising on basic issues, however.

Representatives say they are prepared to discuss a broad-based government but insist that the role of Mullah Omar is not negotiable.

Taliban officials repeatedly demand that they be given Afghanistan's UN seat, but give no indication that they are willing to surrender suspected international terrorist Osama bin Laden to international justice.

In July, the Taliban forbids foreign aid agencies to employ women.
The UN sanctions, invoked in November 1999 in an effort to have bin Laden turned over to the US or a third country, also hinder the economy.

The United States and other countries freeze Afghanistan's foreign assets and ban international air traffic to and from the country.

One result is the loss of income from fruit production, traditionally one of the country's important legal exports.

Afghanistan's economy, overwhelmingly dependent on agriculture, faces disaster when the worst drought since 1971-72 continues into a second year.

By midsummer, the entire arid wheat crop, well over half the irrigated crops, and 60-80% of livestock, have been lost in the southern provinces.

In early November, heavy rains fall over large parts of the country, bringing some relief.

One might expect Afghanistan's economy, disrupted by more than 20 years of fighting, to show signs of recovery under the relative stability in Kabul and the 90% of the country controlled by the Taliban, but little progress is visible.

The official Taliban policy discouraging the participation of women in public life further hampers economic activity.

Already forbidden to study and banned from most employment, women-including all female civil servants and teachers-are subjected to mass layoffs in April.

The Taliban regime further marginalizes armed opposition during 2000, but the uncompromising severity of its fundamentalist Islamic view of society, coupled with UN economic sanctions, results in continued economic stagnation and international isolation.

Facing economic and climatic disaster, Afghan citizens are denied both the benefits of normal commerce and much-needed international assistance.

Clashes between Taliban and opposition forces occur throughout the year.

The trend toward urbanization in Pakistan has been accompanied by a faster rate of growth of the larger cities as compared to the smaller ones; this reflects the influence of the location of industry in the pattern of urban growth.

By 2000, the population of Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, exceeds 10 million, and …

…Lahore, with its satellite cities, has roughly the same number of people.

Since the election in 1997 of Djukanovic as president of Montenegro, the two units of the Yugoslav federation have embarked on a succession of clashes that result in Montenegrin representatives losing their federal powers, leaving the federation largely operative in name only.

With the economy faltering, Vojislav Kostunica defeats Milosevic in the Yugoslav presidential election in 2000, after which international sanctions against the country are lifted.

Milosevic is soon arrested …

In 2000, Afghanistan produces approximately 75 per cent of the world's opium cultivated on 82,000 hectares.

(Source: United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention)

A report by several UN agencies in 2000 reveals massive pollution by toxic materials caused by dumping along Somalia's coastline.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference sponsors indirect discussions between Taliban and anti-Taliban representatives in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, in March and May, but only reach agreement on prisoner exchanges.

Iran, which supports the anti-Taliban groups, and Pakistan, a Taliban ally, find several occasions to discuss a settlement.

Perhaps most active are the Muslim republics of Central Asia, particularly Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, whose governments are especially vulnerable to destabilization from a strong fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan.

The Taliban's open sympathy for Chechen separatism keeps Russia wary as well.

Secessionists had gained ground in Montenegro in the late 1990s and had called for independence from the Yugoslav federation and their much larger Serb neighbor.

International leaders, particularly those in the European Union (EU), believe that further political instability in Yugoslavia might unleash violence once again, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, despite the popularity of independence within Montenegro.

… and extradited to The Hague to be prosecuted for war crimes.