He asked the central government to press China to issue warnings when the lake level rises perilously high.In Assam, too, local politicians blamed China, urging Delhi to demand compensation for a flood which they claim originated in a massive landslide affecting the Brahmaputra in China. An army spokesman said: "Soldiers have rescued more than 2,000 marooned villagers in different parts of the state, using speedboats and divers in the rescue operation."Meanwhile, more than 100 people are said to have died in floods in both Nepal and Bhutan. Again landslides were said to be the main culprit, taking 87 lives in Bhutan since Friday, and cutting communications between the capital, Thimpu, and the south of the kingdom.In Nepal, officials say that more than 100 people are missing, feared dead; thousands have been displaced and thousands of hectares of farmland washed away. Unregulated logging has been rampant in the Terai region of southern Nepal for years and now it is the poor who are paying the price.In Bihar, the Indian state which borders Nepal, nearly one million people in hundreds of villages have been affected, and 3,000 houses and crops valued at 84m rupees (£1.25m) have been destroyed.In Himachal Pradesh, where the flash floods have swept away 60 bridges, the state cabinet decided on Wednesday that ministers would contribute one month's salary each to the chief minister's relief fund.A touching gesture; but in the long run the homeless and bereaved would probably be more appreciative if politicians showed a little robust responsibility - making sure, at this late date, that the human activities which make natural events of this sort so peculiarly devastating are brought under strict control..

Hopes that the Indian film star held hostage in the jungles of Karnataka for the past week may soon be freed were raised yesterday when the chief ministers of two southern Indian states agreed to meet several of his kidnapper's demands. Hopes that the Indian film star held hostage in the jungles of Karnataka for the past week may soon be freed were raised yesterday when the chief ministers of two southern Indian states agreed to meet several of his kidnapper's demands. Rajkumar, the 72-year-old star of more than 200 garish melodramas and the biggest idol alive for millions of filmgoers in the state of Karnataka, was seized with two other men by the legendary jungle bandit Veerappan last Sunday.The kidnapping sparked riots in the Karnataka capital, Bangalore, which is also the centre of India's booming IT industry Most of the violence was directed at Tamils. Veerappan, whose jungle domain straddles the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, is a Tamil and is increasingly identified with Tamil separatist causes.Yesterday the chief ministers of the two southern states, Muthuvel Karunanidhi of Tamil Nadu and SM Krishna of Karnataka, met in the Tamil Nadu capital, Chennai (Madras), and agreed to several of Veerappan's demands. These included the release of Tamils accused of terrorist acts, compensation for villagers allegedly harassed by police, and the unfreezing of a judicial commission investigating atrocities committed by security forces.Local newspapers reported yesterday that Veerappan had demanded a ransom of 500 million rupees (£7.5m).

The chief ministers denied that he had made any such claim.Instead, the 54-year-old "forest brigand", accused of the murder of 120 people - and also some 2,000 elephants - submitted an intensely political list, including the erection in Bangalore of a statue of a Tamil poet, to which the chief ministers also agreed.Veerappan has repeatedly sought an amnesty in the past, but some analysts believe India's Robin Hood has now set his sights on following the "Bandit Queen" Phoolan Devi into parliament.. The last time Abdurrahman Wahid walked through the doors of the strange green domes where Indonesia's national assembly meets, he did so in an atmosphere of triumphant optimism. Against all expectations, and after a series of brilliant political manoeuvres, he had been elected the first genuinely democratic president of the world's fourth largest nation. The last time Abdurrahman Wahid walked through the doors of the strange green domes where Indonesia's national assembly meets, he did so in an atmosphere of triumphant optimism. Against all expectations, and after a series of brilliant political manoeuvres, he had been elected the first genuinely democratic president of the world's fourth largest nation. In his acceptance speech he spoke of national unity, political reform, and "honest accountability". With his wit, informality and tolerance he seemed to promise a new start for South-east Asia's most troubled country.This morning, however, he will stand again before the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) to give an account of his presidency, with his reputation and high ideals in tatters.Less than 10 months into his five-year term, he is the object of growing disillusionment, bordering on outright cynicism - in the next 11 days, the 700 members of the MPR will enumerate in detail his failings as a president.

A few weeks ago, it seemed quite possible he would be voted out of office, although that is now very unlikely. But the best he can expect from this month's assembly is a harsh scolding; at worst, he will emerge fatally wounded, waiting for a coup de grâce a few months down the line.The MPR gathers in an atmosphere of greater than usual tension in Jakarta, after a mysterious bomb killed two at the home of the Philippines ambassador last week. Thirty thousand police and soldiers have been drafted in to keep the peace in Jakarta, and the police have been given orders to shoot rioters on sight.Indonesia is in a state of dismal uncertainty, little improved from the day President Wahid took office. In the north-west province of Aceh, dozens of people are killed every week in battles between the army and Muslim guerrillas fighting for an independent state. In the Moluccan islands, the near civil war between Christians and Muslims has become so bad that there is talk of intervention by UN peace-keepers. Indonesia's economy has made something of a recovery from the catastrophic financial crisis of 1997, but the government's failures to modernise its laws and root out corruption continue to put off foreign investors.The government is blamed for its lack of vigour, but the biggest problem is Mr Wahid himself. For the first few weeks, his ambling, evasive, often contradictory manner seemed charmingly unselfconscious.