EVENTS
REFORMIST CABINET AGREED UPON
Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his new prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, ended several days of political unease Dec. 20 by agreeing to keep key reformers in the Cabinet. The reformers were associated with Chernomyrdin's predecessor, Yegor Gaidar. Yeltsin cut short his China visit Dec. 19 partly to demonstrate to hard-liners that he would not tolerate a deviation from the course spearheaded by Gaidar. Indian leader arrested
Some 200 members of the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including leader Atal Behari Vajpayee, were arrested Dec. 20 for defying a police ban on public meetings. The arrested were planning to protest the recent arrest of their party president and a parliamentary leader. The party has been accused of being responsible for a recent outbreak of Hindu-Muslim riots that killed some 1,200 people. The BJP has brought a no-confidence motion against the government. It is scheduled to be
voted on Dec. 21; the government is expected to win the vote. Freeing UN peacekeepers
A Khmer Rouge general flew to northeast Cambodia Dec. 20 to try to secure the release of 10 United Nations peacekeepers and a Russian pilot held by Khmer Rouge guerrillas. The guerrillas had threatened to kill their captives unless the Khmer Rouge liaison officer in Phnom Penh ordered them released from their base northeast of Phnom Penh. Troops in Angola
The opposition movement UNITA has agreed to withdraw its troops from two northern Angolan towns and resume dialogue with the ruling MPLA. Acting United States Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Davidow, who recently met MPLA representatives and UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi, said talks between the two sides could begin within a few days. Israeli appeal
The Israeli Supreme Court was to hear appeals Dec. 20 by civil rights lawyers demanding that 415 suspected Muslim fundamentalists deported to Lebanon recently be permitted to return to the occupied territories. Israeli newspapers criticized Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, saying the deportations have led to world condemnation and the apparent rapprochement of rival Palestinian factions. Meanwhile, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip staged a general strike for a third day and troops in th e occupied lands were on alert following weekend riots that killed six people. Yugoslav elections
Yugoslavs voted Dec. 20 to choose a new Serbian president and federal premier Milan Panic said he was optimistic he would unseat Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic is blamed as the instigator of the ongoing war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the balloting is perceived as a choice between a peaceful settlement or expanded warfare. Panic, a Serbian-American businessman, has sought to end the war and Yugoslavia's international isolation since he came into office as federal premier in July. Opening flight OO7 file
The UN's International Civil Aviation Organization said Dec. 18 it would reopen its inquiry into the downing of a Korean Airlines jetliner that strayed into Soviet air space in 1983, killing all 269 people aboard. Russia has maintained that the plane was on an intelligence-gathering mission, a charge Washington has denied. Representatives of South Korea, Russia, the US, and Japan had this month submitted a joint request to the aviation agency seeking the reopening of the file. Experts defuse World War II bomb found in Japan
More than 6,000 people were evacuated from a Tokyo neighborhood Dec. 20 as military specialists defused a bomb apparently dropped by US warplanes in World War II. The bomb had been found on Oct. 27 at a construction site. City officials arranged the evacuation of residents living within 820 feet (250 meters) of the site.
