LAGOS - The main hospital in southeast Nigeria advised the physically and mentally ill to stay at home during the visit of Roman Catholic Pope John Paul.
LUANDA - Over 150 generals in Angola's former rebel movement UNITA began giving up their weapons at their stronghold in the country's central highlands.
WASHINGTON - President Bill Clinton's legal defence team plans to introduce in court sealed evidence about Paula Jones's past sex life to rebut her claim that an alleged encounter with Clinton in 1991 left her with long-term emotional trauma.
BEIRUT - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Lebanon and was faced by a delegation of mothers demanding he help free their children held by Israel.
JAKARTA - Indonesian national police chief General Dibyo Widodo has ordered provincial police chiefs to hold talks with university students after weeks of anti-government protests.
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif invited the new Indian government to resume dialogue and shed "the old mind-set of confrontation and tension" between the two arch-foes.
MEXICO CITY - The brother of Mexican President Zedillo denied a newspaper report that he was involved in a money laundering scheme with Mexico's most powerful drug cartel.
JOHANNESBURG - U.S. President Bill Clinton faces protests from campaigners for a ban on anti-personnel landmines on his six-nation visit to Africa next week.
ANTANANARIVO - A slim majority in favour of bolstering Madagascar's presidency and creating self-ruled provinces emerged with more than 80 percent of votes counted in a referendum on constitutional change.
PARIS - French President Jacques Chirac stepped into a heated debate over the rise of the National Front, urging fellow conservatives not to make power deals with the extreme-right group.
NEW DELHI - India's new Hindu nationalist prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee took office after assembling a diverse cabinet reflecting his 13-party coalition.
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that an Israeli teenage hacker known as "Analyzer" detained in connection with a cyber-assault on the Pentagon's computers was "damn good" but dangerous.
BOGOTA - Incoming U.S. Ambassador Curtis Kamman promised to lobby for sweeping military aid for Colombia and signaled that Marxist rebels were one of the biggest threats to the country's democracy.
BOA VISTA - As fires raged deeper into the Amazon rainforests, Yanomami Indian shamans gathered to perform a sacred ceremony to call down the rains.
WASHINGTON - The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a turning point in the death of a Sun-like star: the instant when the hydrogen and helium at the star's core are flung into interstellar space to create more heavenly bodies.
JERUSALEM - Israel's inner security cabinet met to hammer out details of an offer for a military withdrawal from south Lebanon.
PRISTINA, Serbia - Western powers have deferred a decision on new sanctions for Yugoslavia until next week after French and German ministers said Belgrade had met most of their main conditions on handling Serbia's restless Kosovo province.
