News Currents

AFRICA AND ASIA

An express train packed with sleeping passengers slammed into a freight train Sunday about 70 miles north of Sukkur, Pakistan. Railway officials estimated that up to 75 people were killed or injured.... Thousands of people in Monrovia, the besieged capital of Liberia, gathered in churches to pray Sunday for five American nuns slain in a suburb seized by Liberian rebels. The United States blames rebel fighters led by Charles Taylor for the killings, which occurred Saturday. UNITED STATES AND EUROPE

Space shuttle Columbia returned home with six astronauts Sunday, ending a 10-day voyage in which they released a satellite for use in earthquake research and tested a Canadian robotic vision system.... After 359 years, the Roman Catholic Church has officially admitted that it was wrong to have condemned the revolutionary Italian scientist Galileo for asserting that the earth orbits the sun. "Better late than never," said astronomer Margherita Hack.... Turkish troops on Saturday battled Turkish Kurdish re bels on four separate fronts and killed hundreds of guerrillas in the second week of an offensive.... Russian Interior Ministry troops moved Sunday to separate two hostile ethnic groups - the Ingush and the Ossetians - engaged in a fierce territorial dispute in the Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia.... A new German law went into affect Sunday that would speed up the deportation of Romanian refugees, many of whom are gypsies whose applications for asylum have been rejected. Human-rights groups condemned the law... Slovakia said Friday that it was ready to discuss a hydroelectric project on the Danube with Hungary and to suspend work on a dam diverting water away from the river.