KINSHASA - Sustained heavy weapons fire including artillery and mortars could be heard from the Rwandan border town of Gisenyi, relief workers across the border in the eastern Zairean city of Goma reported. It was not clear who was responsible for the shooting.
MORONI - Abdullah Ibrahim, the leader of the secessionist Indian Ocean island of Anjouan, has appealed to the international community for oil, saying an economic embargo by the Comoros can cause environmental catastrophe.
KOBOKO, Uganda - A Sudanese government aircraft bombed the rebel-held town of Yei, killing one civilian and injuring three others, aid officials said.
BANGKOK - A fugitive Swiss banker, wanted on suspicion of stealing millions of Swiss francs from a Zurich-based bank, is due to be expelled from Thailand in a few days.
EREZ, Gaza Strip - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat met for the first time in eight months and a U.S. envoy said they agreed to hold regular talks to advance peacemaking.
TOKYO - North Korea's official news agency announced that de facto leader Kim Jong-il has been elected general secretary of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea.
PARIS - Algeria's rebel Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) split when supporters of its founder Abassi Madani accused its exiled leadership of surrendering to the government and founded a rival organisation in exile.
ISLAMABAD - Pakistani police fired tear gas and baton charged crowds outside the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, hours before Britain's Queen Elizabeth was due to visit it to watch a game, witnesses said.
MINSK - Belarus freed a Russian television correspondent whose detention sparked a row with Moscow and a senior official did not exclude that the decision was political.
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey - Turkish forces were engaged in fighting with Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq overnight as Turkey's jets pounded rebel positions in the region.
BORDEAUX, France - The trial for crimes against humanity of former French budget minister Maurice Papon opens - more than half a century after World War Two and 16 years after proceedings were first opened against him.
BOGOTA - Leftist guerrillas kidnapped and killed three villagers in a pilot "peace community" backed by British aid agency Oxfam, in a war-torn region of northwest Colombia.
TORONTO - Investigators hired by Canada's Bre-X Minerals Ltd said its dead chief geologist, Michael de Guzman, orchestrated the world's biggest gold swindle deep in the jungles of Indonesia.
WASHINGTON - Key U.S. senators have voiced support for expanding NATO but told the Clinton administration it must first strike a cost-sharing deal with the allies on admitting three new members from central Europe.
HONG KONG - Hong Kong people are giving their first Chinese leader, Tung Chee-hwa, a general thumbs-up as the former British colony prepares to toast its 100th day under Beijing's communist red flag.
TOKYO - Two workers were exposed to radiation during checks of equipment at an advanced thermal reactor in the southwestern Japanese city of Tsuruga.
JERUSALEM - Seven Palestinians, held for violating an Israeli closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, escaped from a prison in Israel, its army radio said.
LONDON - Britain aims to launch a computerised system early next year to monitor cattle herds more closely in a bid to stamp out "mad cow" disease and lift a worldwide ban on its beef exports.
BLACKPOOL, England - British opposition leader William Hague said that entry by Britain into a single European currency would be a great mistake "for the foreseeable future".
