AMBON, Indonesia - Indonesian forces on the ravaged island of Ambon have been ordered to shoot residents who refuse to surrender weapons.

JAKARTA - Indonesia said on Monday it would let East Timorese vote in July on whether to accept Jakarta‘s offer of wide-ranging autonomy.

ASMARA - Eritrea said on Monday it had shot down an Ethiopian MiG-23 fighter and destroyed 19 tanks in renewed fighting along their common border.

LONDON - Companies producing controversial genetically modified crops are ready to bow to pressure from the government and halt commercial growing for three years.

PRISTINA, Serbia - Separatist rebels and Serb security forces clashed overnight in Kosovo as their political representatives prepared to start peace talks in Paris on Monday.

MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov met President Boris Yeltsin in hospital for talks on Monday.

ISTANBUL - Turkish newspapers on Sunday accused jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan‘s guerrillas of carrying out a petrol bomb attack that killed 13 people in a crowded Istanbul department store.

RIYADH - Gulf Arab foreign ministers have met King Fahd during talks in Riyadh in which a dispute between Iran and the United Arab Emirates over three Gulf islands as well as the Iraqi situation topped the agenda.

BAGHDAD - Western warplanes attacked military and civilian facilities in the north and south of Iraq on Sunday.

NAIROBI - Nigerian president-elect General Olusegun Obasanjo said Nigerian peacekeeping troops would remain in Sierra Leone until peace was restored, but warned they could not stay there indefinitely.

KINSHASA - President Laurent Kabila named a slimmed-down new government for the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Sunday, appointing a former ally of late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko to a key cabinet post.

BANGKOK - Thailand delayed approval of its latest agreement with the International Monetary Fund on Monday, sparking rumours of a possible rift with the agency.

SYDNEY - Sydney repeatedly breached IOC guidelines during its successful bid for the 2000 Olympics but there was no evidence of Salt Lake City-style bribery or corruption, an independent investigator reported on Monday.

QUITO, Ecuador - Ecuadorean banks were braced on Monday for an avalanche of savers withdrawing deposits after a 10-day closure, while striking taxi drivers planned to block roads into the Andean nation‘s capital.

MEXICO CITY - Charges of irregularities marred voting on Sunday by members of Mexico‘s main left-wing opposition for a new party president ahead of landmark elections in 2000.

ISTANBUL - Turkish newspapers on Sunday accused jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan‘s guerrillas of carrying out a petrol bomb attack that killed 13 people in a crowded Istanbul department store.

DUBLIN - A gunman on the back of a motorbike opened fire at a soccer match near the Irish capital on Sunday, injuring six people slightly.

SYDNEY - Embattled Australian IOC member Phil Coles was under mounting pressure on Monday to quit the board of the committee organising Sydney‘s 2000 Olympic Games.