QUITO, Ecuador - At least 77 people were killed and 39 injured on Saturday when a Cuban airliner crashed into a field and exploded while trying to take off from Quito‘s international airport. A bus packed with people on their way to a party plunged down a cliff in Ecuador on Saturday, killing 34 people and injuring 18.
MOSCOW - Acting Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and leaders of the Communist-led lower house of parliament approved a deal aimed at building a political consensus to save Russia from economic collapse. The deal, expected to secure Chernomyrdin‘s confirmation as premier by the lower house, the State Duma, and strip President Boris Yeltsin of some of his sweeping powers, was forwarded to Yeltsin for approval.
ANKARA - Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz has ruled out talks with a Kurdish rebel group that has declared a ceasefire in its 14-year-old armed struggle for self-rule in southeast Turkey.
KINSHASA - Troops loyal to President Laurent Kabila enforced a fourth night of curfew in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, after another day of hunting down rebel infiltrators.
BEIJING - China is fighting „speculative“ price rises as the worst floods in nearly half a century hit everything from grain to cement to household appliances.
JAKARTA - Violence again rocked Indonesia‘s Central Java town of Cilacap as a mob of hundreds set fire to warehouses and looted houses owned by ethnic Chinese fishermen.
TORONTO - A 25-story weather balloon was swept away from its handlers by strong winds in western Canada and drifted across the Atlantic, creating havoc for air trafficd.
HARARE - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe charged that Uganda and Rwanda were arming Congol rebels and dismissed South African efforts to end the war. Zimbabwe‘s main trade union federation said it was pressing ahead with preparations for a week-long work boycott to force the government to scrap some taxes.
OUAGADOUGOU - Sudan said it was seeking a special summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to decide a pan-African position on U.S. missile strikes on a Khartoum pharmaceutical plant this month.
