MEXICO CITY - A leading opposition legislator, in an unprecedented challenge to the president, summoned Ernesto Zedillo back to Congress to answer questions on his annual State of the Union report.

BANJUL - Up to 2,000 refugees fleeing growing violence in Senegal`s separatist southern province of Casamance have arrived in neighbouring Gambia, Red Cross sources said.

MORONI - The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) urged the government of the Comoro Islands to resolve a secession crisis peacefully and abandon what appeared to be the start of a military intervention. Some 300 soldiers have left the capital Moroni and appeared destined for Anjouan.

TOKYO - Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto is set to reshuffle his 20-member cabinet as early as next week but will retain Finance Minister Hiroshi Mitsuzuka.

KINSHASA - Fresh exchanges of shellfire rocked the Republic of Congo capital Brazzaville, witnesses across the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reported. The shooting began around dawn but had eased by mid-morning.

CANBERRA - Australia`s government unveiled the biggest shake-up of the country`s A$40 billion (US$30 billion) financial sector in 15 years, redrawing laws and opening banking services to more competition.

LIBREVILLE - Gabon`s President Omar Bongo has relaunched his bid to mediate an end to a bloody three-month showdown in the oil-producing former French colony of Congo Brazzaville.

DJIBOUTI - Eleven soldiers were killed and 16 wounded when unidentified assailants ambushed an army division on an operation in northern Djibouti, military sources said.

LONDON - Equatorial Guinea has closed many of its national borders, diplomats and other sources say. The move comes ahead of a national conference next week to discuss how an expected oil bonanza is to be spent.

TUNIS - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has said he is opening his country`s borders to trade with Niger, Chad and Mali and smugglers can operate freely without fear of police or customs officers.

BRUSSELS - A delay in European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) beyond its scheduled 1999 start date is impossible under the Maastricht Treaty, a spokesman said.

HAVANA - Cuba`s President Fidel Castro, who had stayed out of public view for more than three weeks, reappeared and joked about recent rumors of his death, saying his enemies frequently tried to "kill him off" earlier.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan - Tajikistan`s Moslem religious leader, kidnapped by a maverick armed group last week, was freed along with his younger brother by government forces.

PARIS - Moslem rebels killed an Algerian television director`s assistant at the weekend, cutting her throat in an Algiers suburb, Algerian newspapers said.

ANKARA - The leader of a major Kurdish faction in northern Iraq has invited his rival to peace talks to negotiate an end to years of sporadic fighting.

HEBRON, West Bank - Jewish settlers threw stones at Palestinian labourers and lay down in the street to disrupt work on a U.S.-funded road project in the heart of the divided West Bank town of Hebron, witnesses said.

ANKARA - Turkey, which has one of the worst traffic dead rates in the world, has tightened measures to prevent car accidents, Interior Minister Murat Basesgioglu said.

Autor: Edited by zuzana vilikovská