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the Pope and Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Linda and Noah give suggestions for disposing of plutonium from over the years.

For the first time in Russian history, voters used a referendum election to decide their future. NPR's Andy Bowers reports that they used the referendum ballot to stop plans for a Cerhnobyl-style nuclear power plant. The Russian Atomic Energy Ministry had wanted to finish a plant in Kostroma, 250 miles northeast of Moscow. Residents turned it down by a nine-to-one margin.

of the >Guinness Book of Records about the publication's 40th anniversary.

in Singapore with plans to introduce free trade in computers and telecommunications products.

NPR's Sunni Khalid reports on changes in the economy of Syria. The country has been governed by President Hafez al-Assad since 1970, and for most of that time the economy has been under his tight controls as well. But five years ago, the government enacted Public Law Number 10, which relaxed the government's control of production and trade. Since that time, Syrian consumers have had access to more foreign goods, and more Syrian-made products are for sale in the rest of the world.

NPR's Richard Harris reports that two mathematicians have independently arrived at conclusions that show that the inclusion of wild cards in poker games upsets the balance of five-card poker. When wild cards are included, the hand that's technically the hardest to achieve does not always win the game.

Robert talks with Charles Dick, researcher at the Conflict Studies Research Centre in England, about the state of the Russian Army. Dick's report is titled "A Bear Without Claws: The Russian Army in the Nineties." Dick says that while the Soviet Army was a relatively effective force, the Russian Army is corrupt and ill-prepared for crisis. Dick says severe hazing is endemic in the Russian Army, and an estimated three to four thousand servicemen die annually from non-combat causes. The article is published in a journal called "Geopolitique."

NPR's Ted Clark reports that the United States and other nations are rethinking the scope and mandate of a proposed multinational military force for Zaire. The sudden return of about half-a-million Rwandan refugees over the weekend dramatically altered the humanitarian situation along the Rwanda/Zaire border. Rwanda says there is no longer a need for a force, but the US and others point out that there are still an estimated half-million refugees stranded elsewhere in Zaire, cut off from food and water by fighting between Zairean rebels and exiled Rwandan militias.

Noah talks with Congressman Bill Richardson (D-3rd District of New Mexico) about how his promise of rice, a few jeeps and radios, and a health survey of rebel children, won the release of three Red Cross workers who had been held captive in Sudan for more than five weeks. The four jeeps, nine radios and five tons of rice came from the Red Cross stocks.