Several hundred Chechens and dark-skinned people from the Caucasus have been forced to flee a town in north-west Russia after a brawl in a restaurant prompted a race riot at the weekend. The conflict was triggered by the death last week of two ethnic Russians after a fight in the restaurant.

Mohammed Abbas still isn’t sure why he was plucked from the street by a group of armed men, some wearing police uniforms, to be interrogated and tortured for five days. He had never been involved in politics, he steered clear of crime, and he kept his religious views to himself. His family was not particularly well-heeled.

The Sudanese government has told the African Union to remove its peacekeepers from Darfur and rejected their replacement by a United Natons force, after launching a new military offensive to ”restore stability” to the blighted region. The Sudanese troop build-up appears to reflect a determination by Khartoum to use force to end a three-year conflict.

The glacier has begun to creak. In the world’s most powerful dictatorship we detect the merest hint of a thaw. I am not talking about China or Uzbekistan, Burma or North Korea. This state runs no torture chambers or labour camps. No one is executed, though plenty starve to death as a result of its policies. The unhurried perestroika is taking place in Washington, in the offices of the International Monetary Fund.