SINGAPORE - Stinging diplomatic fallout rained down on India for conducting underground nuclear tests, with bitter rival Pakistan warning of a new South Asian arms race and the US and Japan considering sanctions.
MANILA - A survey by a respected pollster showed ex-movie actor Joseph Estrada leading his rivals by more than 22 points in the Philippine presidential election.
WASHINGTON - Seeking to keep U.S. Middle East peace efforts alive, President Bill Clinton announced new talks with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in a bid to break a deadlock in negotiations with the Palestinians.
BELFAST - British PM Tony Blair said that Sinn Fein could be barred from any role in running Northern Ireland if its IRA guerrilla ally fails to hand over its weapons.
BELGRADE - U.S. peace broker Richard Holbrooke said after talks with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Kosovo Albanian separatists that "the distance between the two sides is very great".
JERUSALEM - Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew jailed for life in the US for spying for Israel, said he was grateful the Jewish state had finally recognised him as its agent.
PARIS - Several dozen people were missing after an explosion aboard a vessel trying to smuggle illegal migrants from the Comoro Islands to the nearby French-ruled island Mayotte.
BOGOTA - Suspected right-wing gunmen stormed two villages and killed at least seven people in the latest incidence of political violence in Colombia.
MEXICO CITY - Mexico expelled 40 Italian human rights observers and banned them from returning after branding them "professional provocateurs" for their visit to a Zapatista rebel village in Chiapas state.
WASHINGTON - Inspections of older Boeing 737s showed that many had been flying with potentially dangerous wire damage until they were grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration.
SARNO, Italy - As the death toll from mudslides caused by torrential rains in southern Italy rose to 135, civil protection officials braced for new rainfall at the end of this week.
NEW YORK - SBC Communications Inc. agreed to buy Ameritech Corp. for about $61 billion, which would create the nation's largest local phone company, but consumers, lawmakers and business rivals immediately opposed what would be the second-largest merger ever.
SEATTLE - With the Pacific salmon fishing season rapidly approaching, U.S. and Canadian negotiators open another round of talks on Tuesday in their dispute over how to share dwindling stocks of the species.
PARIS - Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz urged the UN Security Council to take action to allow the speedy lifting of trade sanctions.
ANKARA - Turkey's leading human rights campaigner, Akin Birdal, was gunned down by unidentified attackers in his Ankara office.
PARIS - Suspected Moslem rebels cut the throats of 22 people in Algeria's main oil exporting province.
JERUSALEM - Israel has named its first Arab judge to the Supreme Court.
KINSHASA - President Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has again called on four top military officers who served under ousted dictator Mobutu Sese Seko to return home, promising they would not be punished.
The last mayor of Brazzaville under Congo Republic's ousted president Pascal Lissouba has been arrested in Kinshasa.
Autor: EDITED BY ZUZANA VILIKOVSKÁ
