ARUSHA, Tanzania - Burundi‘s warring parties enter a second day of peace talks on Wednesday challenged to agree on basic points to allow the talks to progress.
KINSHASA - A young Belgian expatriate was shot dead in Kinshasa on Tuesday as he drove through a military barricade outside the Presidency building without stopping.
TOKYO - Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi‘s camp sought on Wednesday to downplay the impression that he has a lock on becoming Japan‘s next prime minister, but the impression of a juggernaut increased.
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan called for resolution of its dispute with India over Kashmir in talks with a U.S. envoy seeking to halt an arms race in South Asia.
MOSCOW - Chechens have freed six policemen who had been held hostage for seven months.
AMMAN - King Hussein of Jordan said doctors at a U.S. clinic where he was undergoing medical tests suspected he had cancer which might require chemotherapy.
BUENOS AIRES - Argentine President Carlos Menem announced he will not seek a third term in 1999, halting an unpopular campaign that threatened to split his Peronist Party and spark a constitutional crisis.
JERUSALEM - Israeli-Palestinian peace teams met for a third negotiating session amid reports Israel has offered two key compromises in a bid to wrap up a deal on a U.S.-brokered land-for-security peace plan.
TEHRAN - The Iranian parliament on Wednesday easily approved President Mohammad Khatami‘s choice for interior minister, a post central to the success of the government‘s far-reaching reform programme.
MEXICO CITY - The Mexican government sharply rejected accusations by Zapatista rebels that it was conducting a „war of extermination“ in southern Chiapas state and insisted on direct dialogue to bring peace.
MANILA - Thousands of Philippine Airlines (PAL) ground staff went on strike in a move management said could prove fatal to the carrier, already badly battered by a downturn in Asian aviation.
SEOUL - North Korea is to repatriate the remains of what are believed to be several U.S. soldiers killed in the Korean War.
HARARE - More than 200 villagers invaded two commercial farms in eastern Zimbabwe and vowed to stay put until the government gives them land under its resettlement programme.
PHNOM PENH - Organisers of Cambodia‘s July 26 general elections told security forces the country‘s fate hinged on next week‘s vote, and they had a crucial role to play in winning international approval for the poll.
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia‘s Minister of Special Functions, Daim Zainuddin, blamed the mass media for aggravating the Asian economic crisis and called on everyone to rally around Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
SAN SALVADOR - A former El Salvador guard condemned for the rape and murder of three U.S. nuns was freed after 17 years in jail.
WASHINGTON - President Bill Clinton‘s lawyers joined Monica Lewinsky‘s attorneys and independent counsel Kenneth Starr for a hearing on news leaks as Secret Service agents testified to a grand jury probing alleged White House sex and cover-up.
The United States tried a new tack in its dispute with Libya over the Lockerbie bombing, saying it was looking at how a Scottish court could sit in the Netherlands to try two Libyan suspects.
EDITED BY ZUZANA VILIKOVSKÁ
