BEIJING - The end to China`s marathon quest to join the World Trade Organisation looked closer than ever on Friday after Beijing made key concessions.

JAKARTA - East Timor guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao will be removed from house arrest and returned to jail unless he retracts a call to arms within one week.

AMBON, Indonesia - An angry mob beheaded two people as the death toll mounted in Indonesia`s far eastern Moluccas.

BRUSSELS - A NATO official on Friday denied reports that France had been excluded from some of the alliance`s military planning on Yugoslavia due to fears information would be leaked to the Serbs.

AMSTERDAM - A KLM/Air UK passenger plane caught fire after landing at Schiphol Airport on Friday morning but the blaze was put out and no one was hurt.

WASHINGTON - U.S. air assaults on Yugoslavia have cost up to $500 million and the bill could exceed $1 billion a month, according to defense analysts, putting pressure on Congress to find extra cash.

WASHINGTON - A battle over China`s entry into the global trading system is brewing in the U.S. Congress, pitting lawmakers eager to boost business ties against those unwilling to look past Beijing`s record on human rights and allegations of spying.

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany - Members of the U.S. Congress watching the Kosovo campaign criticised the Clinton adminstration on Thursday for ruling out the use of ground troops to drive Serbian forces out of Kosovo.

UNITED NATIONS - Iraq rejected proposals from Security Council panels on disarmament and sanctions, saying they put new labels on old conclusions and provided Baghdad`s enemies with a pretext for aggression.

HANOI - Vietnam gave Palestinian President Arafat a red-carpet welcome on Friday, saying his visit enhanced warm bilateral relations.

WASHINGTON - After a day of complex talks and polite verbal fencing with Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, U.S. President Bill Clinton on Thursday hailed two centuries of "lively dialogue" between the United States and China.

DJIBOUTI - Voting started slowly in the tiny state of Djibouti on Friday in multi-party presidential elections observers say the ruling alliance is almost certain to win.

GENEVA - Sudan`s foreign minister on Friday rejected assertions by a United Nations investigator that Khartoum allowed Arab tribesmen to seize civilians in the war-torn south and sell them as slaves.