BUJUMBURA - Burundi's army said at least eight civilians were killed and six wounded when suspected Hutu rebels attacked a village on the northern outskirts of Bujumbura.

ROME - Somalia will need 60,000 tonnes of food aid, nearly twice the original forecast, after floods in the south of the country devastated cereal crops and livestock.

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was formally charged with contempt of court in an increasingly bitter showdown between the government and judiciary.

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's parliament took up a motion of confidence supporting Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and censuring the United States.

DETROIT - Leading Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, freed from prison for medical reasons over the weekend, will continue his fight to improve human rights in China, his sister said.

DUSHANBE - A French married couple were kidnapped in the centre of Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe during the night.

WASHINGTON - President Bill Clinton has ordered some of America's most potent warplanes to the Gulf.

SEOUL - South Korea's finance minister resigned to take responsibility for turmoil on the nation's currency markets and the central bank denied a newspaper report it was seeking between $20-$30 billion in loans from the Bank of Japan.

ABIDJAN - Some West African states could face food shortages if El Nino weather disturbances continue but the situation will not be clear until next year.

LONDON - Support for Britain's royal family has plummeted by half in the past 14 years, according to an opinion poll published on the eve of Queen Elizabeth's golden wedding anniversary.

NEW YORK - The FBI said it had found no evidence that a bomb or missile caused the crash of a TWA jet in July 1996, and it demonstrated why witnesses thought they had seen a projectile strike the airliner.

UNITED NATIONS - Amnesty International said some 80,000 people had been killed in Algeria but that governments at the United Nations deliberately avoided taking any action.

ANKARA - The Turkish parliament voted against a bid by the Islamist opposition to bring a censure motion to topple the conservative-led coalition government of Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey - Turkish security forces have killed 11 Kurdish separatist guerrillas in clashes in the remote southeast during the last two days.

PARIS - Gunmen killed eight civilians in two attacks in Algeria, including three in a central area of the capital.

MOSCOW - Pressure mounted on Russia's economic reform supremo, Anatoly Chubais, on Wednesday after two senior parliamentarians said the prime minister had told them he would be sacked as finance minister. But President Boris Yeltsin did not confirm he would sacrifice him.

KINSHASA - Up to 40 militiamen loyal to Congo Republic's civil war victor Denis Sassou Nguesso looted a store in the oil capital Pointe Noire.

BAGHDAD - Baghdad said it would stick to its "legitimate demands" in the standoff with the United Nations over arms monitoring, as its leadership considered the Russian initiative.

UNITED NATIONS - The Security Council was due to meet later on Wednesday and several of its members seemed likely to urge chief inspector Richard Butler to send inspectors back to Iraq as soon as possible.

BRUSSELS - European Union agriculture ministers thrashed out an agreement on objectives for a new blueprint on the bloc's costly farm regime.