LUANDA - The leaders of Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) wrapped up talks with their Angolan counterpart on the troubled political situation in the oil and diamond-rich southern African country. Presidents Laurent Kabila of the DRC and Sam Nujoma of Namibia met Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos to discuss the peace process in Angola.
NAIROBI - The Sudan People`s Liberation Army (SPLA) declared a unilateral three-month ceasefire to help the flow of aid to areas facing starvation. Justin Yaac, the SPLA representative in Nairobi, said the ceasefire started at midnight and applied to Bahr el Ghazal and parts of Upper Nile provinces.
JOHANNESBURG - South African authorities said that they planned to pour troops into violence-torn Kwazulu-Natal province to quell killings that have claimed 24 lives in the past 10 days.
MOSCOW - Russia`s State Duma lower house of parliament opened an extraordinary session to decide the fate of austerity measures the government wants passed to clinch a multi-billion-dollar foreign bailout.
TOKYO - Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi will announce on Thursday his candidacy to replace Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto as president of Japan`s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and thus prime minister.
SEOUL - South Korea demanded an apology from North Korea over recent incursions and a promise that such actions would not be repeated.
BELFAST - Protesters angered at a ban on a parade by Northern Ireland`s Protestant Orange Order clashed with police, hurling blast and petrol bombs at the security forces.
BEIJING - Yasser Arafat insisted on action from Israel to revive the Middle East peace process and said Beijing had pledged financial support for his Palestinian Authority at the end of a three-day visit to China.
MEXICO CITY - The sister-in-law of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison for witness tampering in the murder case against her husband.
QUITO - Quito Mayor Jamil Mahuad was leading his tycoon rival in Ecuador`s presidential polls by seven percentage points with 75 percent of the votes officially counted.
BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Three men suspected of links to a Texas separatist group plotted to kill President Bill Clinton and other government officials by shooting them with a cactus thorn poisoned with the AIDS virus.
SEOUL - Thousands of South Korean workers downed tools as this
week`s industrial action spread to key state companies.
PARIS - One of the people hit by a car on the Champs-Elysee in Paris during World Cup celebrations early on Monday has died.
TEL AVIV - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu`s adviser shrugged off any notion the Israeli leader would face an inquiry for allegedly meddling in the case of an Israeli businessman convicted of treason.
NEW YORK - Exon Corp`s stock got a bounce when it declared a major oil find off the coast of West Africa but some analysts said the full significance of the news may have yet to sink in.
ANKARA - Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz warned that a row with his coalition partners over public workers` pay could spell the end of the government.
UNITED NATIONS - A senior U.N. official, in a bleak survey of Afghanistan, said the United Nations was reaching the end of its patience in running aid projects under purist Taliban restrictions. A leading human rights group protested a U.N. Security Council decision calling on the Democratic Congo and Rwanda to conduct their own probe into massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees.
