news digest

China plans to broadcast a television program using digital format for the first time next year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the country's founding, the Xinmin Evening News said on Wednesday.
Switzerland, though not a member of the United Nations, decided on Wednesday to impose the same sanctions on Angola's opposition movement UNITA as those already set by the U.N. Security Council. The sanctions, including a freeze on UNITA assets, a ban on the movement's lucrative diamond trade and export restrictions, will take effect on Thursday, the Swiss foreign ministry said in a statement.
The United Nations on Wednesday launched a campaign to protect women in South Asia from gender-based violence. "Around the world, women and girls are victims of countless acts of violence," said Chandni Joshi, regional program adviser at the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
Campaigning for Taiwan's parliamentary election officially opened on Wednesday, but candidates found their limelight stolen by high-stakes mayoral contests in Taiwan's two biggest cities. Candidates seeking election to the Legislative Yuan in the December 5 vote are finding their campaigns all but ignored by mass media seemingly obsessed with the hotly contested Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral contests.
France's agricultural minister said on Wednesday that Africa should be closely associated with a new round of multilateral trade talks to be launched in 2000 and that the European Union could help. "The last negotiations of the World Trade Organization in 1992 excluded Africa in a somewhat shocking way from the talks," Farm Minister Jean Glavany said.