FREETOWN - Nigerian-led peacekeepers face pressure to extend military operations into Sierra Leone`s chaotic interior after rebels attacked towns and abducted foreigners there ahead of Wednesday`s planned meeting of West African nations in the capital Freetown.
LUSAKA - The Zambian government said it would charge former president Kenneth Kaunda with misprision of treason on the ground that he had concealed his part in last October`s failed coup.
HARARE - Zimbabwean human rights groups accused President Robert Mugabe`s ruling party of being behind a petrol bomb attack on the country`s sole independent member of parliament.
NAIROBI - President Daniel arap Moi has created four new ministries and scrapped one he established barely a month ago.
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Bill Clinton has warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to back down or face a military strike but said there was still a chance for a peaceful solution.
JAKARTA - Indonesia`s controversial Research and Technology Minister Jusuf Habibie was assured of becoming the country`s vice-president next month, as confusion swirled around proposals for a fixed currency exchange rate.
MOSCOW - Russia`s long overdue 1998 budget ran into a new delay when the opposition-led parliament dropped a fourth and final reading of the bill from Wednesday`s agenda to allow time to review new government amendments.
ROME - The outlook for global cereal supplies improved in 1997 but food security alarm bells are still ringing, the U.N.`s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said. The Rome-based agency reported that it had revised its global cereal production forecast slightly upwards.
ROME - Italy`s centre-right opposition Freedom Alliance was divided and weakened after some members of two smaller parties defected to a new political grouping headed by former president Francesco Cossiga.
WASHINGTON - Iraq has Scud-type missiles and a small stockpile of chemical and biological weapons, with the capability to make more quickly, the White House said.
WASHINGTON - Finance officials from 22 countries favoured making creditors pay for their mistakes in Asia and in future market crises as part of a drive to strengthen the world`s financial system.
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico - Mexico has stepped up its recent war of words with Zapatista guerrillas in the troubled southern state of Chiapas and foreigners it said were meddling in the conflict.
WASHINGTON - President Bill Clinton`s legal team moved to dismiss Paula Jones` sexual harassment suit, even as a former Clinton aide testified before the grand jury probing the sex scandal.
NEW DELHI - Hundreds of thousands of Indians will have to vote again after election commissioners ordered a rerun of polling in nearly 600 stations following violence in which at least two dozen people died.
NICOSIA - Re-elected Cyprus President Glafcos Clerides started contacts on forming a unity government before international mediators launch a fresh bid to end the island`s decades-old division.
PARIS - Standoffs over U.S. trade sanctions and movie subsidies sank attempts to pave the way for a global OECD treaty designed to liberalise and protect hundreds of billions of dollars in cross-border investments.
TEHRAN - Iran rejected "foreign meddling" in the case of a prominent Iranian newspaper editor sentenced to death for spying.
