[Choi:] And we want to take you to Colorado where we're following a developing story. A wildfire has broken out in the Broomfield and Westminster area. This fire is forcing some evacuations. Local T.V. station there KMGH T.V. says the Walnut Creek subdivision near Jefferson and Boulder County line is being evacuated. Authorities have used the reverse 911 system, they are to warn residents about this fire. It's estimated right now at 500 acres and you can see that big patch of black there and rescue crews now on the scene. Several highways in the area, by the way, are closed as units are responding. Winds are gusting to 45 miles an hour right now so that might not be helping firefighters any, as it just fans the flames there. But we are continuing to watch this fire as people are being evacuated. So it's pretty close to homes obviously as people are being evacuated in the Jefferson and Boulder County line area. We'll keep our eye on this and bring you more details as we get them. Here's tonight's "World Wrap." French President Jacques Chirac approves controversial job legislation that has had French youth rioting in the streets. But even as he signed it, Chirac called for the law to be swiftly modified. As written, the law is designed to encourage employers to hire younger workers by making it easier to fire them. Advice from Washington from former soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev tells "Time" magazine that as the world's sole superpower, the United States has become intoxicated and should stop attempting to impose its will on others. America's one-time rival, then partner, says yet he's speaking a friend. And accused war criminal Charles Taylor is expected to plead not guilty tomorrow to atrocities committed during the civil war in Sierra Leone. He is to appear in court in Freetown. His trial will take place at the U.N. court in The Netherlands. Now Taylor once ruled Liberia, but he cast his shadow beyond his country's borders. He's accused of accepting a share of Sierra Leone's diamond wealth for backing a murderous gang of rebels that had a brutal pension for chopping off people's limbs. CNN's Jeff Koinange reports.
[Jeff Koinange, Cnn Correspondent:] Abu Sesay says he just has two wishes in life. The first is to do the things normal kids his age do. But that wish will never be granted. Several years ago, rebels of the Revolutionary United Front or RUF, supported and armed by Charles Taylor, were on the offensive in Sierra Leone. Abu's father was fleeing, carrying his two-month-old son on his back. A bullet from one of the rebel's guns went through Abu's leg, killing his father. Abu was tossed into the bushes. He wasn't found for two days. His leg later had to be amputated. His mother, Kadiatu, is now struggling to raise Abu and his five siblings. Two years ago a local NGO donated this prosthesis, but Abu's already outgrown it. "Right now I can't even send him to school because the other children make fun of him," she says. "I can't even afford to pay for food for my children, let alone buy him a new leg." It's the same for 21-year-old Aminata Tureg. She says that at 15, she refused to be a sex slave for a rebel leader and the penalty was having her leg chopped off with an axe. She says it took more than 20 swings before her leg was severed at the hip. Now she's raising her son by selling ground nut cakes at 10 U.S. cents each. She says she can't even use a prosthesis because there's no place to fit it. Sometimes she wishes the rebels had killed her. "I feel like I'm being punished by God," she says. "This is the worst form of punishment one can ever get. I will never be able to feel like a real woman again in my life." The rebel onslaught didn't seem to discriminate, 50-year-old Mariyama Bariyea says she had her leg chopped off for apparently not carrying enough firewood for the rebels. She crawled her way in the bush for three days before help arrived. She now spends her days weaving curtain strands to feed her eight children. I asked her if she blames Charles Taylor for what happened to her. "Charles Taylor is the one responsible for this," she says. "He started the war and he deserves to go to hell." She wears a prosthesis when working around her garden patch, helped by some of her children. Nineteen-year-old Suleiman Sesay also blames Charles Taylor for the loss of his arm. He and a group of other teens refused to do some chores demanded by the rebels of the RUF. He eeks out a living raising pigeons and wishes he had enough money to go to school. I asked him what punishment he thinks Mr. Taylor should get.
[Suleiman Sesay, War Victim:] I want the government to cut off Charles Taylor's both hands, let him feel the pain that we feel. Somebody that's bringing war in your own country is a very wicked man, kill our brothers, kill our sisters and cut off our hands. I think he's a very wicked and witch person.
[Koinange:] Young Abu Sesay shares Suleiman's feelings, which is where his second wish comes in. "It would be to fire a bullet at the former warlord,"he says, "just as a bullet was used to shatter his life." Jeff Koinange, CNN, Freetown, Sierra Leone.
[Choi:] Memories of Pope John Paul II from a man who served at his side for nearly four decades, coming up after the break.