Today's Story Line:

Snow is flying in Kosovo but an estimated 750,000 people are still racing to erect plastic roofs over their decimated homes. Why aid has been so slow to arrive (this page). Quote of note: "They were promising a lot, but they didn't give us anything." - a Kosovar rebuilding his home.

An oil patch, of uncertain wealth, in the waters off East Timor will be a focal point of this new nation's development plans.

How one Argentine grandmother hunts for a grandson she's never met. Her quest is part of a larger national struggle over children stolen from "subversive" parents in the 1970s and '80s.

- David Clark Scott World editor

REPORTERS ON THE JOB

*MOVIE ON HIS STORY: While in Buenos Aires, working on the article about stolen children, the Monitor's Howard LaFranchi went to see a new movie about the military regime's clandestine detention/torture centers. The parallels were uncanny. The main female character is a young woman detained for her suspect social work, like the daughters of the grandmothers Howard interviewed. While she does not have a child, she is given a one-way flight over the Atlantic. The movie, titled "Garage Olimpo" after the detention center portrayed, offers a glimpse of how Argentine society is facing its past, akin to US movies about Vietnam, says Howard.

PRESS CLIPPING

*TECTONIC DIPLOMACY: Taiwan will invite Chinese seismologists to a seminar next month to discuss ways to detect and forecast earthquakes, Taiwan media reports. Taiwan was struck by a devastating temblor in September. At that time, China told some international donors aid must be approved by China. Taiwan and China split in 1949, but Beijing still considers Taiwan a renegade province. Meanwhile, China has invited members of the tiny Taiwanese pro-unification New Party to visit the site of its 1976 Tangshan earthquake.

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