ROME - The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said it had signed an accord with the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) to boost cooperation and ensure more effective aid for producers in developing countries.
LUSAKA - Zambian President Frederick Chiluba has effected a minor reshuffle of his cabinet.
KINSHASA - A number of army officers have been arrested after at least 380 recruits died of starvation and cholera at a barracks in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Bill Clinton guardedly accepted a U.N. deal with Iraq assuring a return to unlimited arms inspections but suggested Washington would have the right to take unilateral military action if Baghdad reneged on the accord.
PARIS - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed confidence that a deal he signed with Iraq would win international backing while France and the United States agreed the accord appeared to measure up to U.N. demands.
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has renewed a proposal for a U.S.-brokered summit with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to discuss core issues in the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
THE HAGUE - The International Court of Justice said it would hand down a ruling in the long-running dispute between Libya, the United States and Britain over the hunt for the Lockerbie bombers.
LONDON - The company that helped to clone Dolly the sheep said that it had also cloned a calf.
COLOMBO - At least 51 Sri Lankan soldiers and sailors were missing and feared dead after Tamil Tiger rebels rammed explosives-laden boats into two naval ships off the north coast.
ORLANDO, Florida - At least 38 people died and 100 were hospitalised after tornadoes ripped through central Florida, tearing roofs from houses, flattening trailer parks and flipping vehicles like toys.
BELFAST - The Irish Republican Army denied responsibility for a car bomb attack in a Protestant stronghold in Northern Ireland, and said its ceasefire remained intact.
NEW DELHI - Hindu nationalists won a bitter court battle to regain control of a key state government as India held its third leg of national elections in a fresh trail of political violence.
ANKARA - Turkey's parliament took the first step towards trying Islamist leader and former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan for alleged violation of public order laws.
JAKARTA - Indonesia said it was still considering implementing a controversial plan to revive its battered rupiah despite strong international criticism.
PARIS - Iraq's United Nations envoy Nizar Hamdoon said Baghdad would prepare within weeks a new aid distribution plan to implement the U. N.'s oil-for-food programme.
TEHRAN - Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi welcomed a European Union decision to resume bilateral ministerial contacts with Iran.
PARIS - Algerian troops shot dead 42 Moslem rebels in military operations in western Algeria and the death toll from a bomb attack on a train rose to 22.
TYRE, Lebanon - An Israeli helicopter fired two rockets at suspected pro-Iranian Hizbollah targets in south Lebanon.
GENEVA - A group of around 200 Kurds from southeast Turkey demonstrated in Geneva against the United Nations refugee agency, accusing it of abandoning them.
